As we get ready for our Passover seders next week, we will look at the number 4 and its significance in the ritual.
In a fairly radical rereading of the original Torah text, the rabbis of the Mishnah imagine four children gathered around the seder table–the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask. Over centuries, artists and philosophers and satirists and more have imagined these characters; often, the Wise Child is the Torah scholar, the wicked son the “cool kid,” cigarette in hand. In a 1941 Haggadah illustrated by Viennese artist Siegmund Forst, the wise son is given the verse “a righteous man lives by his faith” (Habakuk 2:4). The wicked son is depicted as a revolutionary, ready to set the world on fire. The simple son is assimilated, sipping champagne and playing the guitar. The son who does not know how to ask simply watches the proceedings.
While I am most often drawn to the reading of the Four Children as archetypes within all of us, and could teach on that forever, Rabbi Noam Zion offers an explanation that perhaps resonates more this year, looking at a seder 6 months after October 7. He writes:
Today, as in the past, many Jewish families
feel the challenge of generational conflicts
around the definition of Jewish identity,
Jewish loyalty, and the pursuit of tikkun
olam/social justice. That parents necessarily
have different memories and experiences
than their children is the original reason for
the Haggadah. It is natural, says the Torah,
that children will ask about the significance
of the Jewish commitments and rituals
central to their parents’ and grandparents’
worldviews and practices. It is good though
not unproblematic when children and
parents inquire of each other about the gaps
in perspective and values. Generationally
divergent experiences of Israel in both North
America and Israel itself can be at the center
of such conversations if we allow ourselves
to be honest and open.
I love the Four Children of the seder. I love what they teach us about parenting, about maturing, about labeling, and about ourselves. The Four Children encourage us all to be honest, open, and vulnerable. And without that, no stories can begin.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer