The Four Sons Meet Messiah
Parashat Bo, Exodus 10:1–13:16
Rabbi Russ Resnik
It’s still mid-winter in most of the world, but our Torah readings this week and last remind us that Passover is not far off.
Last week we reviewed the four-fold promise of redemption in Exodus 6, which we commemorate with the four cups of Passover. We saw that there’s a fifth promise, “I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord” (vs. 8). This week we read some verses that underlie the section in the Haggadah about four children who ask four different kinds of questions. The section opens, The Torah speaks of four sons—one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to ask.
The wise son (or daughter) reflects a verse in Deuteronomy, not Exodus. What does he ask? “What are the testimonies, statutes, and ordinances that Hashem our God has commanded you?” (Deut 6:20). In response, says the Haggadah, the father is to instruct him regarding the laws of Passover, down to the final detail: “After the Passover offering, no dessert is to be eaten.”
The rest of the children appear in this week’s parasha. The wicked son speaks up in Exodus 12:26, asking: “What is this service to you?” When he says to you, he excludes himself, so the father is to answer, “It is for this that Hashem acted for me when I came out of Egypt” (Exod 13:8). The Haggadah comments: “For me, but not for him. Had he been there he would not have been redeemed.” Perhaps the rebuke will bring this son to repentance.
The simple son says only, “What is this?” and the answer is simple too: “By strength of hand did Hashem bring us out from Egypt, the house of bondage” (Exod 13:14). And for the son who doesn’t know how to ask, the father initiates his instruction, as it is written, “And you shall relate to your son that day, saying ‘It is because of this that Hashem acted for me when I came out of Egypt’” (Exod 13:8).
Years ago, the Jewish-Christian scholar David Daube noticed the similarity between the Four Children passage in the Haggadah and a passage in Mark chapter 12 (cited in William L. Lane The Gospel of Mark [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], p. 421). The Four Children passage is very early, possibly already taking shape in the time of Yeshua. If Mark was aware of it in some form, it would have been appropriate for him to weave it into his narrative here in chapter 12, because we’re with Yeshua in Jerusalem just a few days before Passover. Yeshua has just told his parable of the vineyard and the tenants, and the scribes and elders “were seeking to arrest Yeshua but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away” (12:12; see 11:27).
Clearly, the Jewish population is divided, with the people supporting Yeshua against the rulers. As in the Haggadah, there are different types of “children” among the Jewish people of that day. In the section that follows in Mark Yeshua will be questioned by three different kinds of “children”:
Some Pharisees and Herodians, who collaborate “to trap him in his talk” (12:13–17). Like the wise son, these Jews are interested in the Torah, in “the testimonies, statutes, and ordinances that Hashem our God has commanded,” and so they raise a legal question, a matter of halakha: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (12:14). But their wisdom is compromised by hypocrisy—their not-so-hidden agenda of asking a question only in the hope that it will be a “gotcha” question for Yeshua.
Some Sadducees, who think they can stump Yeshua with a theological conundrum (12:18–27). Like the wicked son (and unlike the Pharisees and Herodians above) they are defined by a negative; “they say there is no resurrection” (12:18). The Haggadah says of the wicked son, “Had he been there [in Egypt], he would not have been redeemed.” Likewise the Sadducees cut themselves off from redemption by their denial of the supernatural hand of God.
A certain scribe, who asks an honest question and gives a wise response (12:28–34). The simple son is not ignorant, but tam in Hebrew, that is, pure and guileless, as Rashi says, “One who is not quick to deceive is called tam.” The scribe is simple and straightforward in his question and his response, and Yeshua tells him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (12:34).
For the one who does not know how to ask, the Haggadah instructs the father to initiate the discussion, and Yeshua follows this pattern as he raises a question of his own:
How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,
The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet.”David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly. (Mark 12:35–37)
I’m writing this drash in part as a corrective to the common practice of viewing the Jews in the gospel accounts as a monolithic, anti-Yeshua, religious-political bloc. In reality, the Jewish population as Mark portrays it is diverse, with the crowds amazed by Yeshua and hearing him gladly, even if they’re not quite sure who he is. And Yeshua responds to his diverse people in diverse ways, always seeking their final redemption. Like the Four Children of the Haggadah, all Jews are part of Israel, all worthy of an answer, even if the wicked among us might need an answer in the form of a rebuke calling us back to repentance. Whether wise or wicked or in-between, I believe there are many among us today of whom Yeshua would say, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
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