[Avodah] The Wise Son vs the Wicked Son and the word ''you''

[Zvi Lampel]

On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 3:22?AM Zvi Lampel via Avodah <
avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:

> The wicked son asks, ''What is this [korban Pesach] avodah to you
> (lachem)? He is reprimanded for excluding himself from the tsibur who
> follow Hashem's commands.
>
> But the son praised as wise also (at least in the actual posuk, if not in
> all versions of the dialogue) asks, ''What are the laws...Hashem commanded
> you?''
>
> Why is he not reprimanded for his choice of words?
>
> Answers are given, but I thought of a very simple one. If, like the ben
> who asks the four kushyos, these sons are preferably considered ketanim,
> then the wise son is absolutely correct, and quite wise indeed, to note
> that it is the parent who is commanded in the mitzva, not he.
>
From: Simon Montagu <simon.montagu at gmail.com>
 If that is the case for the wise son, what was the problem with the wicked
son?

ZL: The wicked son, unlike the wise son, is not speaking about to whom the
(various categories of) mitzvos were commanded. He is not asking, "What is
this avodah that Hashem commanded you?" It doesn't read like that. He is
belittling the idea of performing the avodah by asking "What is this to
you?" (Even without the "to you,'' his confrontational and negative
attitude comes through. The "to you" only amplifies it, and provides an
opening to the reprimand in kind.)

RZS:
>
> In my opinion the *simple pshat in the pasuk*, before any drashos, is
> that one son is asking "what is this avoda of *yours*"; the Baal Hagada
> understands him to be saying that it is not my avoda at all, I am merely
> curious about what *you* are doing.  Therefore he labels him "wicked".


Before the drashos, the posuk reads as an innocent question that Hashem
desires, eliciting a non-confrontational answer: (Shemos 12:25-26) "And
when you enter the land... you shall observe this avodah. And it will be
that when your children will say to you, "What is this avodah to you," you
shall tell them it is the zevach Pesach laShem, because He
was pasach over/on the houses of the bnei Yisrael..."

>
> The other son does not speak like that; his language is consistent with
> including himself in Am Yisrael and accepting the obligation of the
> mitzvos.  But he was not there at matan torah, so he must ask, "what are
> the mitzvos that Hashem commanded *you*, before I was born, so that I
> may do them too?".  Thus the BHG labels him "wise".


The person to whom the wise son is speaking was also not at matan Torah.

Zvi Lampel
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