This bears some resemblance to a passage from Jeremiah 31:28, that in the future days no longer will parents eat vinegar and set the teeth of the children on edge. It is an odd phrase, usually translated as “setting the teeth on edge,”–that is, making the child very uncomfortable. The phrase hak’he et shinav is particularly remarkable. Had s/he been there, s/he would not have been redeemed.” You should set her/his teeth on edge ( hak’he et shinav) and tell her/him that God did this for me when I went out of Egypt, for me and not for her/him. Thus s/he separates her/himself from the community and denies the point of it all. “The wicked child asks: ‘what is all this work to you?’ S/he says to you and not to him. But the differences in the precise language are also interesting.
#Four questions transliteration how to
It does make the difference between the wise child and the wicked child much clearer.Ī the same time, the renditions of both the wicked child and the one who does not know how to ask are fairly similar in the Yerushalmi, in the Mekhilta, and in our Haggadah, at least in implication if not in precise language. Some modern Haggadot, such as the Feast of Freedom, return to the version of the Yerushalmi. For example, in the Yerushalmi the wise child asks what the Lord our God has commanded us, while most Haggadot follow the Mekhilta version and have the wise child asking what the Lord our God has commanded you, sparking many a discussion about the differences between the wise and the wicked children. Nor is that the only difference between the story of the four children as we know it in the Haggadah and the much earlier version in the Yerushalmi there are many. An answer that is regarded as foolish and simple in Israel in the early years of the Common Era is regarded as considered and wise in medieval and modern times. Times change, generations change, places change, expectations change. We have to explain it to the foolish child. On the other hand, even though similar words are used, the implication of the answer to the foolish child in the Yerushalmi is that he or she is too ignorant even to know the rules of the afikoman. The answer is meant to be a compliment perhaps such a child is even to be told laws known only to the scholars, the best and the brightest. The implication in our Haggadah is that since the wise child has asked an excellent and intelligent question, he or she is treated to a lengthy explanation of the laws of Pesach, including the laws of afikoman. How is it that the Yerushalmi has confused the answers of the wise and the simple children? Or is it the Haggadah that has confused the two? That answer, too, is familiar to us–as the answer our Haggadot offer for the wise child. What is afikoman? That one should not get up from one fellowship and join another fellowship. Meanwhile, in the Yerushalmi: “The foolish child asks mah zot, what is all this? And you should: ‘teach him the laws of Passover, that they do not end afikoman. We know that answer: It is the one given to the simple child in our Haggadah!
The wise child asks: What are the testimonies, statutes, and ordinances which the Lord our God has commanded us to do? And you should respond: with a mighty fist has the Lord rescued us from the bondage of Egypt (Exodus 13:14).”
One is wise, one is wicked, one is foolish ( tipesh), and one does not know how to ask questions. (Though we might think that our Haggadah would be closer to the later Yerushalmi version, instead it more closely resembles the earlier Mekhilta version).įrom the Yerushalmi: “The Torah speaks of four children. Interestingly, the version in the Yerushalmi contains some significant differences from the version we find in our Haggadot. But the passage itself is an adaptation of texts found not in the Torah, but rather in the Mekhilta, a midrash from the time of the Tannaim (first and second centuries C.E.), and in the Jerusalem Talmud ( Yerushalmi). We might be forgiven for thinking that this section of the Haggadah is a quote from the Torah, and indeed, the familiar story of the four children asking questions about Pesach does include many quotations from the Torah. K’neged arba banim dibra Torah–the Torah speaks of four children. My Jewish Learning is a not-for-profit and relies on your help Donate
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