Keneged Arbah Banim

Complimentary copies of Jewish Action were sitting on a counter outside the sanctuary of the Young Israel of Windsor Park, the shul I davened in on Shabbos. I read through it and I was reminded of an idea about the four sons that I'd taken a liking to years ago:

It has been suggested that the four sons of the Haggadah parallel four generations, four trajectories of Jewish exile. The chacham represents the old school piety of the first generation. The rashah is strikingly similar to the rebellious sons who reject their father’s Judaism with the rhetorical question “what is all this ritual of yours?” That generation eases into the disinterested, isolated tam generation. And then there’s the oblivious generation that doesn’t know how to ask - the she'eino yodeiah lish'ol. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin adds that today there is the fifth son who sadly does not attend the seder at all.

And I learned a new thought that I'd never heard before:

Isaac Steven Herschkopf writes that the four sons represent the development of one person, in backwards order. First a person is an infant, inarticulate, unable to ask. The next stage is childhood, when one is simple and unready to confront sophisticated questions. Then comes the rebellious time of adolescence. Finally, through welcome questioning one comes to embrace the wisdom of tradition.

Besides this wise symbolic interpretation of the four sons, in the same piece, Herschkopf contrasts his present day seder with the one his parents hosted when he was a kid in the sixties: "We invite best-selling authors, Michelin chefs, famous actors, sports celebrities, rock stars, et al. My parents invited the Peshevorskys." He didn't like the Peshevorskys because Mr. P. "looked odd," the couple "dressed poorly," and "they were both tiny."

Dr. Herschkopf told his children about this odd couple that his parents used to have over annually and his children asked about it. Upon hearing his children ask why his parents included the Peshevorskys in their seder he experienced an epiphany and realized the answer that alluded him for so long. Those people were broken Holocaust survivors with no children and no Seder to call their own. So his parents had them over.

He suddenly understood, when comparing his family Seder today with the one his parents made a lifetime ago "that their Seder guests were far more impressive than our own." And he reached a mathematical conclusion, similar but different to that of Rabbi Riskin: "In retrospect, there was a fifth son at our Seders in Washington Heights. He was neither wise nor wicked. He was, ironically enough, stupid. I see his shame when I look in the mirror."

I've been familiar with the first thought, as applied to American Jewry for some time. The Old World Jews met up against their children growing up in The Sixties. Then came the passive Seventies, the ignorant Eighties and on. And then came the time of assimilation and disconnect, beyond ignorance.

I look forward to processing and integrating the idea of the four sons matching four stages of development, which I found striking and new. As for Herschkopf's reminiscences and realizations I am fascinated, enlightened, and inspired.

FOR MY HAGADDAH CLICK HERE