Timeless Torah

Moses’ message on the eve of the Exodus is revolutionary. He speaks of Jewish duty; not to G-d or country, but to the children. In three very distinctive passages, he instructs the soon-to-be-freed slaves to relate to the kinderlech the story of liberation from Egypt.

To gain liberty, Moses declares, is the work of one night; to sustain it is the work of every generation. Freedom requires a hands-on education. Only when children taste the bread of affliction, can they fight its scourge.

Political or military victories alone are not enough. Freedom lies in the human heart; when it dies there, no constitution can save it. This liberty is not merely the freedom to do as one pleases. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. As history has shown, societies in which freedom has no restraints, soon becomes a place where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.

That is why on the brink of redemption Moses spoke about educating the young three times, and again, in the last Book of the Torah, a fourth time. These four passages became the basis of the four sons.
Can you recognize which son this is? “What does this ceremony mean to you?” To you, not to him; because he excludes himself from the community and denies a fundamental principle of faith, you shall set his teeth on edge and say to him, “I do this because of what the L-rd did for me when I came out of Egypt;” for me, not for him. If he had been there he would not have been saved.” (Hagaddah)

If you guessed “Wicked Son,” you are correct. But is it wrong to ask? Does not Judaism embody the concept that questioning promotes learning. So why condemn a child for merely making a query, even if it is poorly phrased? And what is the fundamental principle he denies? Clearly, there is more going on in this passage than a superficial reading would suggest.

The Talmud Yerushalmi offers this approach. It translates the question, “What does this avodah-ceremony?” as, “What is this burden that you impose on us?” The Sages, attuned to every nuance, understood that the word avodah, which could mean worship, as in what we are commanded to do for G-d, here refers to slavery, what we were forced to do for the Egyptians.

The passage in the Hagadda is now clear. This son is saying, “What did we gain? In Egypt we were avadim. Leaving Egypt we remained avadim. The only difference is a change of master. Then we served Pharaoh. Now we serve G-d. Either way, we bear the weight of servitude. So do not tell me that the Exodus brought freedom. It’s simply not true.”

This profound insight places in the mouth of the rebellious child the classic argument that ultimately leads to the downfall of civilizations: namely that the only freedom that counts is the freedom to do what one likes.

During the medieval periods, under Christianity and Islam, Jews were forced into ghettos and denied basic rights. But there was another time. Both the early Greeks and the Romans encouraged the Jews to partake of Hellenistic culture. This unexpected welcome had enormous appeal. Jews accepted and participated in Greek culture. These periods presented a crisis of Jewish identity, not unlike the one Diaspora Jewry is going through today.

What specifically was at stake? Not apostasy, but assimilation. Jews then were concerned, not so much in giving up Jewish practice (though doubtless they did that as well), but in abandoning Jewish identity. They no longer saw themselves as Jews, but as Greek or Roman.

This explains a remarkable ruling of Maimonides. In the course of listing which sinners and heretics, “Have no share in the world to come,” he adds one more category for those who do not sin and yet, “Who separates himself from the community…from the congregation of Israel…shows himself indifferent when they are in distress…goes his own way as if he were one of the Gentiles and did not belong to the Jewish people.” /