Thread by @jaketapper

One of my favorite parts of the Passover Seder is the story of the Four Sons (Wise, Wicked, Simple, and the Son Too Young to Know What To Ask) and how we’re told to answer their particular questions about the meaning of the holiday. 1/

2/ The parable comes from 4 different times in the Bible that Jews are instructed to tell their children of the Exodus from Egypt.

In Deuteronomy 6 the son asks "What are the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances, which the Lord our God has commanded you?"

He’s Wise.

3/ The son has a different tone in Exodus 12. “What is this service to you?"

Wicked seems a little harsh to me, but that’s what he gets called.

4/ In Exodus 13:14 the son asks "What is this?" In the Haggadah he’s Simple.

5/ In Exodus 13:8 the story doesn’t even have a question and this becomes the Son with whom the parent need initiate the whole conversation.

(As anyone who reads the Bible knows it may also be relevant to the apparent paucity of editors at the time.)

6/ Anyway what’s interesting to me is how the parable of the Four Sons can be applied to anything important. We are all supposed to be the Wise Son but often we may be at a distance from events. eg: What is the meaning of this trade deal TO YOU?, the Wicked Son asks.

7/ What is this Opioid Crisis? asks the Simple Son.

And maybe we don’t even know enough to ask about the wars in Afghanistan and Syria and Yemen and...

Anyway it’s a meaningful part of the Seder to me. To those attending seders tonight, i hope you find the Afikoman!