Each son must be viewed as his own entity, not compared with his brothers, or anyone else’s son either
ON the Seder night, when chinuch habanim takes center stage, we read in the Haggadah about the Arba’ah Banim, the Four Sons. These four paradigms together cover in broad terms the range of tendencies and personality types that exist.
The opening phrase of this section is “echad chacham v’echad rasha v’echad tam v’echad she’eino yodei’a lish’ol (one is a chacham, one is a rasha…”), and we might wonder why it was necessary to repeat the word echad so many times. Couldn’t the word echad have been dispensed with entirely, with the Haggadah instead stating simply, “a chacham, a rasha…”?
One answer is that there is an inherent message being conveyed, that each son must be viewed as his own entity, not to be compared with his brothers, nor measured against anyone else’s son either. For him to thrive, it’s crucial for his parents to see him as echad, with his own unique gifts and challenges and potential.
The Haggadah introduces the section of the Four Sons with the words “K’neged arba’ah banim dibrah Torah,” which is conventionally translated to mean, “The Torah speaks regarding four sons.” But the literal meaning of the word k’neged is “against,” in the sense of “in opposition to,” and thus we might suggest that the homiletic meaning of the phrase is really more like, “The Torah speaks against four sons.”
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