Haggadah Tips
In four different passages of the Torah, Jewish parents are commanded to tell their children about the exodus from Egypt ((Exodus chap. 12:26-27, 13:8, 13:14, and Deuteronomy 6:20-21). We fulfill this commandment next Wednesday night by reading the Haggadah at our Passover seder. But do we really know what the Haggadah is saying—and why? Here are a few points you may have missed.
1. The Four Sons
Everyone knows about the four sons—the wise, the wicked one, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask. But you may not know that their very existence is due to an apparent violation of the Rabbis’ rule of Scriptural economy. Basically, this rule holds that there is no needless repetition in the Torah: every word is significant. But if so, why are there four passages (the ones just mentioned above) that all say the same basic thing, “Tell your children about the exodus from Egypt”? Wouldn’t one mention be enough?
The answer that the Haggadah gives is that all four of these passages are necessary—not because they keep saying the same thing, but because each is directed to a different kind of child. So, for example, Exodus 12:26-27 quotes one sort of child, the sort that asks “What is this service to you.” This wording suggests that the child is excluding himself from the whole thing, as if to say that it’s your business but not his: hence, the “wicked son.” Exodus 13:8 doesn’t even mention a child asking anything—so here the Torah must have had in mind a very young child, one who does not even know how to ask. But even such a young child should be told about the exodus. In Exod 13:14, the child does ask, but barely: “What is this?” If so, he or she must still be a relatively young child, one able to ask, but barely; so this child requires a fairly simple answer different from the two already mentioned. By contrast, the child’s question in Deut 6:20-21 seems extremely sophisticated, “What are the statutes and the laws and the ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?” Surely such a question comes from a wise child and deserves an equally sophisticated answer.
2. Now I Get It
Before all this, the Haggadah reports a rather odd statement by Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, “I’m fully seventy years old, but only now have I come to understand why the exodus from Egypt should be recounted at night.”
Actually, Rabbi Elazar’s comment originally had nothing to do with Passover seder. It was originally concerned with the rules governing the reciting of the Shema (as presented in the Mishnah, Berakhot, 1:5). As is well known, we recite the Shema morning and evening, since this is what is prescribed in the Torah, “when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:18-21). In fact, that is why we read both of these passages as part of the Shema. But the third passage that we recite as part of the Shema (Num 15:37-41) has no obvious connection to the other two passages. It’s all about the fringes (tzitziyot) that are recited every morning. It makes sense to require this passage to be recited when people get up in the morning, since that’s also when a person gets dressed—and hence, the time when one should be reminded to put on a garment with the prescribed fringes. But why should this third passage be recited at night, when fringes are not required?
Rabbi Elazar says that only now has he come to know the answer, thanks to his colleague Ben Zoma. We recite this passage at night as well not because of what it says about fringes, but because of its very last verse, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God.” Since this verse mentions the exodus, however fleetingly, it is deemed to fulfill the commandment of Deuteronomy 16:3, which requires us to recall the exodus “all the days of your life.” The word all suggests (by the same rule of Scriptural economy mentioned above) that the Torah is requiring something more than a single, once-a-day mention. All the days of your life must mean on two different occasions, both day and night—hence the duty to say this third passage of the Shema not only in the morning, but at night as well. (But of course none of this mentions the reading of the Haggadah on the first night of Passover!)
3. Wicked Laban
The Haggadah instructs us to mention what wicked Laban the Aramean sought to do to his nephew (and our ancestor) Jacob, something which, it says, was even worse than what Pharaoh tried to do the Israelites in Egypt, “since Pharaoh decreed [death] on the newborn males, but Laban sought to eliminate all [newborns, boys and girls alike].” This is actually an adaptation of an old midrash that had nothing to do with Laban. It was all about the events preceding Moses’ birth.
The Torah reports that at a certain point Pharaoh decreed that all newborn boys be cast into the Nile—apparently out of fear of that as grown men they might organize an uprising. Newborn girls, however, were to be spared (Exod 1:22). Amram, the future father of Moses and a leader of the people, gave up in despair; according to the midrash, he divorced his wife Jochebed lest she bring forth boys to be slaughtered at birth.
At this point, Amram’s daughter Miriam objected: “Father, your decree is worse than Pharaoh’s! Pharaoh’s decree only applied to newborn boys, whereas what you are planning will put a stop to all births, boys and girls alike.” At this Amram reconsidered and took his wife back. That is why it says in the Torah (Exodus 2:1) “a man of the house of Levi went out and married a Levite woman.” First Amram “went out,” then, on his daughter’s advice, he reconsidered and “[re]married a Levite woman,” his wife Jochebed.
What the Haggadah says, namely, that “Pharaoh decreed [death] on the newborn males, but Laban sought to eliminate all [newborns, boys and girls alike]” is clearly an adaptation of Miriam’s words in the old midrash to apply to wicked Laban.
4. Thus Concludes?…
The Haggadah proper ends (for Ashkenazim) with the assertion, “Thus concludes the proper arrangement (siddur) of Pesah according to its rules (hilkhato), its laws and regulations. Just as we have had to privilege to arrange it, so may we have the privilege to carry it out (literally, “to do it”). This has stymied some commentators, since, coming at the end of the Haggadah, the participants seem to have already “done it” or “carried it out.” Some have suggested that “arranging it” refers to the seder meal and narration that have just been celebrated, whereas “doing it” refers to celebrating the festival in the land of Israel after the redemption and the coming of the Messiah.
Actually, these lines come at the end of a long poem written in the eleventh century by R. Joseph ben R. Samuel Tuv Elem, Rashi’s teacher. The poem was intended to be recited on the Shabbat preceding Passover, Shabbat ha-Gadol. Its purpose was to explain some of the rules and procedures for the festival. The last lines are thus saying, “Just as we have been able to go over the rules of Pesah today, on Shabbat ha-Gadol, so may we able to carry them out next week, on the festival itself.” Apparently, these and the very last lines came to be so beloved that they were inserted at the end of Haggadah as well, where they are sung to a haunting tune.
Shabbat shalom and moadim le-simḥah.