The Four Sons is a Midrash that appears in several places in the literature of the Sages and was established in the Passover Haggadah The Midrash details four types of sons: wise, wicked, simple, and one who does not know how to ask, about whom, according to the Midrash, the Torah spoke, in the commandment to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and divided the types of answers, suitable for each one of them. [1]
In the Torah, verses that command to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt appear four times. The Sages interpreted each of these four verses as corresponding to four types of sons:
According to the Midrash appearing in Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael and in the Haggadah, the Torah commands a different approach to each of the sons according to his question:
And this is the language of the author of the Haggadah: In the Jerusalem Talmud, the answers for the wise and the simple son are reversed: the wise son is answered with the general response that "with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage", and the simple son receives all the laws of Passover, so "that he may not stand from this group and enter another group". [3] [4]
The sons in the Haggadah do not appear in the order of the verses brought in the Torah, there are several interpretations for this order:
The four sons are presented in Naomi Shemer's poem as "The Four Brothers," in which they leave the Haggadah and each one goes his own way, and each one meets a partner who is similar to him in character (except for the one who does not know how to ask, whose partner is mentioned only by her external appearance), and they return with their partners to the Haggadah.
Gad Ben-Ami Zarfati suggested that the four sons reflect a combination of two character traits - intelligence and fear of Heaven - according to the following table. [6]
| Possesses fear of Heaven | Lacks fear of Heaven | |
|---|---|---|
| Possesses intelligence | Wise | Wicked |
| Lacks intelligence | Simple | Does not know how to ask |
The Passover Seder is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar. The day falls in late March or in April of the Gregorian calendar. Passover lasts for seven days in Israel and, among most customs, eight days in the Jewish diaspora. Where seven days of Passover are observed, a seder is held on the first night; where eight days are observed, seders are often held on the first two nights, the 15th and 16th of Nisan. The Seder is a ritual involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt, taken from the Book of Exodus in the Torah. The Seder itself is based on the Biblical verse commanding Jews to retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt: "You shall tell your child on that day, saying, 'It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.'" At the seder, Jews read the text of the Haggadah, an ancient Tannaitic work. The Haggadah contains the narrative of the Israelite exodus from Egypt, special blessings and rituals, Talmudic commentaries, and Passover songs.
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