WHO IS WISE?

By Rabbi Joshua (intellectually known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

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With gratitude to the Almighty for sustaining me, and a prayer that he continue to do so, this week’s message marks the completion of fourteen years of Netvort. Thanks to the readers for their comments, criticism, and encouragement, special thanks to all those who helped me to issue Netvort during my stay in the hospital, and a special tip of the Hoffer kippah to my editor/gabbai for his continued assistance. In the middle of Moshe’s instructions to the elders concerning the laws of the Pesach sacrifice that they were to then transmit to the Jewish people, they are told, “When your children say to you ‘What is this service to you?’ you shall say ‘It is a Pesach offering to the Lord who skipped over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians but saved our households’” (Shmos 12:26-27). Rashi points out that this is the question of the rasha, the evil son, as brought in the Pesach haggadah. In all, the Torah alludes to the questions of four sons, to which the four sons of the haggadah correspond. One may ask, of all the children to whom the Torah alludes, why did it begin with the question of the evil son instead of that of the chacham, the wise son, which would seem to be a more appropriate thing to do? Another point we need to raise is why does this series of questions begin in the laws of the Pesach sacrifice instead of in the laws of matza or maror? What is so significant about the Pesach sacrifice that it serves as the launching point of the discourse about the redemption from Egypt?

The Talmud (Pesachim 65b) tells us that after the slaughtering of the Pesach sacrifice, the owner slung it over his shoulder and took it to its designated place of consumption. Rav Ilish adds that this was done in the manner of the Arab merchants. Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, in his commentary to the haggadah, says that this is an allusion to the sale of Yosef to the Ishmaelite merchants, which according to the Talmud (Shabbos 10b) is at the core of the exile in Egypt. One of the laws of the Pesach sacrifice is that it must be eaten in a group. Perhaps this requirement of joining with other Jews in the fulfillment of this mitzvah is a way of repairing the discord that lay behind the sale of Yosef by his brothers. In any case, the Pesach sacrifice, according to Rabbi Kluger’s interpretation of the gemara in Pesachim, alludes to the unfortunate saga of Yosef and his brothers, which eventually led to the Jewish people’s descent to Egypt and its enslavement there.

What led the brothers to hate Yosef and eventually sell him? The Torah tells us that Yaakov favored Yosef because he was a “ben zekunim”, which literally means a child of his old age, but exegetically is explained as meaning a wise son. The midrash says that Yaakov gave over all of his learning to Yosef. On the other hand, the Torah tells us that Yosef was a naar and the Rabbis understand this to mean that he engaged in frivolous activity such as curling his hair. This aspect of his personality, the Torah tells us, led him to bring bad reports about his brothers to Yaakov. Rav Henoch Lebowitz, in his Chidushei Haleiv, points out that the confluence of these two aspects of Yosef, his intellectual acuity and his frivolous behavior, teach us that a person’s intellectual development does not necessarily indicate that he has matured behaviorally. This discrepancy between Yosef’s intellectual development and his lack of maturity is what led to the struggle he had with his brothers and eventually to the enslavement in Egypt.

Rav Yaakov Filber of Merkaz HaRav Kook has pointed out that the son corresponding to the rasha, the evil son, is not, as we would expect, the tzaddik, the righteous son, but the chacham, the wise son. This, he says, is because in the Torah’s view a person cannot be considered wise unless he is also righteous. Perhaps then, the Torah begins its series of questions about the redemption from Egypt with the question of the rasha, the evil son, to teach us that even though this son is able to ask an intelligent question, which is in fact very close to the question ascribed to the chacham, that does not mean that he is indeed a chacham. It was this confusion of categories that in fact led to the struggle between Yosef and his brothers and to the sale of their perceived rival to Egypt. This sale, as we have seen, is alluded to by the Pesach sacrifice, and perhaps that is why this first question of the four sons appears in its context.