Telling the Children
The whole purpose of the Passover seder (which is celebrated a week from today, on next Shabbat) is to carry out the biblical commandment for parents to tell their children about Israel’s enslavement in Egypt and their ultimate escape to freedom. Presumably, this commandment to talk about the exodus could be carried out in a sentence or two, but long ago the custom developed to start off the evening’s festive meal with the reading of the Haggadah.
To help with that task, I’ve assembled a few tips for the seder evening. Some of them you may have already heard of, but some probably not:
Reclining
The Torah commands us to “tell your children” about the exodus from Egypt. But this is often not so easy to do, especially with little children. It’s hard sometimes to keep them interested in what’s going on—and it’s particularly hard for them to sit at the table for an extended period. But actually, sitting at the table is not a requirement of the seder, in fact, you could make quite the opposite case.
As is well known, the seder itself is partially modeled on the ancient Greco-Roman banquet, whereby people used to lie on special couches as they ate and/or drank. This banquet was called a symposion, Greek for “drinking together.”
We still have a remnant of this practice in the requirement to drink at least four glasses of wine (or grape juice for children) during the seder and “reclining” throughout the process. Nowadays, the reclining seems mostly to consist of sticking a cushion or pillow on people’s armrests or chair-backs. This isn’t exactly reclining, but what else can we do? We don’t have those special Greco-Roman couches anymore, and we probably couldn’t have everyone reclining on the floor around the dinner table. How could you even see the seder plate from there and do all the other things that are required?
But you may have another table in your house that’s much closer to the ground: that coffee table in the living room. The custom I grew up with (and I know we were hardly alone) was to seat everyone around the coffee table: grownups sat on a living room chair or couch—either way more closely approximating real “reclining”—while kids stretched out on pillows or mattresses on the floor.
This, in my experience, is a great way to do the first part of the seder—everything right up to the shulḥan arukh, the actual meal, when everyone moves from the coffee table to the dinner table. It certainly adds to the feeling of specialness of the evening and arouses the interest of even a very young child. True, if you have a large family and/or many guests, this may not be altogether practical, especially in a small-sized living room. But otherwise, give it a try! For many families, it is altogether workable and a great help in carrying out the evening’s central mitzvah.
The Four Sons
Beyond the seating arrangements, there is the actual act of telling our children (or telling each other if there are no children in attendance) about the exodus. The Torah actually mentions this commandment in four different passages (Exod 12:26-27, 13:8, 13:14, and Deut 6:20-21). But this very fact seems to violate the principle of Scriptural economy. This principle holds that there is no needless repetition in the Torah: every word is significant. But if so, why are there four passages that all say essentially the same thing, “Tell your children about the exodus”? Wouldn’t once be enough?
The answer that the Haggadah gives is that, while the message may be the same for these four passages, all four are necessary because they are referring to four different kinds of children: the wise child, the wicked one, the “simple,” and the one who does not even know how to ask. The existence of each of these four types is derived from a subtle reading of the four passages in the Torah mentioned above.
Thus, the first passage mentioned above, Exod 12:26-27, seems to be referring to a specific kind of child, whom it quotes as saying to his parents, “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, he is the “wicked son.” Exod 13:8 doesn’t even mention a child asking anything; it just tells parents to talk about the exodus. So the text must have had in mind the sort of child who does not even know how to ask—but even so, such a child deserves to be told about the exodus. In Exod 13:14, the child does ask, but barely: “What is this?” he or she says. This must be a relatively young child, so he requires a fairly simple answer. By contrast, the child’s question in the fourth passage, Deut 6:20-21, seems altogether 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.
“Now I Get It”
Before this, the Haggadah reports a strange statement by Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, “I’m fully seventy years old, yet only now do I understand why the exodus from Egypt should be recounted at night.” This is an odd thing for the rabbi to say. After all, night is when the festival begins; shouldn’t people carry out the commandment to “tell your children” at the first opportunity, namely, Passover night?
The simple truth is that Rabbi Elazar’s comment originally had nothing to do with Passover or the exodus. It is presented in the Mishnah (Berakhot 1:5) as part of the laws governing the reciting of the Shema. As is well known, the Shema consists of three different passages from the Torah. The first two, Deut 6:4-9 and 11:18-21, specifically say that we are to recite the Shema morning and evening, “when you lie down and when you get up.” But the third passage (Num 15:37-41) doesn’t say anything about reciting the Shema. It’s all about the special fringes (tzitziyot) that are worn on four-cornered garments. True, it makes sense to require that this passage also be recited when one gets up in the morning, since that’s also when a person gets dressed—and hence, when one should be reminded to wear a garment with the prescribed fringes. But why should this third passage be recited at night, when fringes are not at all required?
Rabbi Elazar explains 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 sentence, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God.” This verse mentions the exodus, however fleetingly, so it can be considered to fulfill the commandment of Deut 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 something more than a once-a-day mention of the exodus is being required: all the days of your life is interpreted to include both day and night—hence the duty to say this third passage of the Shema not only when getting dressed in the morning, but at night as well. (But of course none of this originally had anything to do with Passover or the reading of the Haggadah.)
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, “because Pharaoh decreed [death] on the newborn boys, 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). At this point Amram, the future father of Moses and a leader of the people, gave up in despair; according to this midrash, he divorced his wife Jochebed lest she get pregnant and bring forth boys that would be slaughtered at birth.
But 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 (Exod 2:1) “a man of the house of Levi went out and married a Levite woman.” First Amram “went out” of the house and divorced his wife; then, on his daughter’s advice, he reconsidered and “[re]married a Levite woman,” his former 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.
Thus It Concludes
The Haggadah proper ends (for Ashkenazim) with the assertion, “Thus concludes the proper arrangement (siddur) of Pesaḥ according to its rules (hilkhato), its laws and regulations. Just as we have had the 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 to “arrange it” refers to the seder meal and narration that have just been celebrated, whereas “doing it” in the future must refer to celebrating the festival in the land of Israel after the redemption and the coming of the Messiah.
Sorry, but that’s not the right explanation.
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; its purpose was to explain some of the rules and procedures for the festival. The last lines of this poem are thus saying, “Just as we have been able to go over the rules of Pesah today, on the Sabbath just before Passover, so may we be able to carry them out on the festival evening itself.” Apparently, these 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. Happy Passover!
