The Wicked Son
– In Memoriam of Mr. David M. Warren
(Menachem Dovid ben Harav Yosef Z’L)
“And it shall be when your
children will ask you, ‘What is this service
for yourselves that you are doing?’ And you
shall answer, ‘It is the Passover offering
that God passed over all Jewish households
when he smote Egypt.’” (Exodus 12:26-27)
Rashi (1040 – 1105) notes
that the child referenced here is the
“wicked son” of the four sons mentioned in
the Passover Haggadah. The “wicked son”
removed himself from God's service when
asking, “What is this service for you?” By
separating himself, the wicked son is saying
that he does not want a part of this
religion.
The Kli Yakar (Rabbi Shlomo
Ephraim Luntschitz, Prague; 1550 - 1619)asks
why the Passover Haggadah responds harshly
to the wicked son. In the aforementioned
passage, the Torah simply tells us to answer
“It is the Passover offering that God passed
over all Jewish households when he smote
Egypt.” However, the Haggadah tells us -
Blunt his teeth and say “Because of this,
God did wonders for us in Egypt (Exodus
13:8)”, for us and not for him. If he (the
wicked son) would have been there, he would
not have been redeemed.”
The Kli Yakar explains that,
in the Haggadah, there is only one wicked
son. In the Torah, there is a group of
wicked children. As the verse says, “And it
shall be when your children will ask you...”
These children are a reference to a movement
that refuses to steadfastly follow the
traditions of the Torah. Their questioning
is for the purpose of mocking our ideals,
turning us astray, and influencing more
people to come to their side.
When there is one rebellious
son, as in the Haggadah, we respond by
“blunting his teeth” and isolating him from
everyone else. But when it’s a large part of
the population the Torah's answer is, “And
you shall say it is a Passover offering...”
The Torah does not mean you shall answer to
the “wicked”, rather, it means you shall
strengthen your own understanding of the
reasons you are performing the Passover
service. The Torah is instructing us to
stand firm in our beliefs because the lure
of influence toward false progressive ideas
is very powerful.
Shabbat Shalom – Chag Kasher
Ve’Sameach
