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| Otto Geismar, Germany 1927 |
Of
the four children of the Haggadah, the Rasha, the Wicked one, stands out.
His siblings are all described through intellectual categories: Wise, Simple, Doesn’t know to ask. The Wicked child alone is stamped with an ethical category. It
is perhaps not incidental that the Wicked one also gets the most sympathy from
modern readers. A liberal education is loath to label someone as wicked simply
for questioning. Is the Haggadah making an important argument for the limits on
questioning, or is it perhaps not the content of the question but rather the
tone, the body language, and the stereotype already constructed in the parent’s
head, which sways the interpretation in a certain way?
This
is where the Art of the Four Children is the best commentary. The illustrator
is forced to fill in the gaps, informing us not only of body language, but also
of historical setting and ideological backdrop. But before art, let’s turn to
the text, using (mostly) Nathan
Englander’s new translation:
רָשָׁע מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר?
"מָה הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם?"
לָכֶם - וְלֹא לוֹ.
וּלְפִי שֶׁהוֹצִיא אֶת עַצְמוֹ מִן הַכְּלָל כָּפַר
בְּעִקָּר.
וְאַף אַתָּה הַקְהֵה אֶת שִנָּיו וֶאֱמֹר לוֹ:
"בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה יי לִי בְּצֵאתִי
מִמִּצְרָיִם."
לִי - וְלֹא לוֹ. אִילּוּ הָיָה שָׁם, לֹא הָיָה
נִגְאָל.
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The Wicked One, what does he say?
“What does this type of practice mean
to you?”
‘To you’, and not to him.
And by divorcing himself from the
community, he denies the very essence. Moreover, you must blunt the bite of
his words, by telling him:
“For this purpose the Lord labored on
my behalf by taking me out of Egypt”
For me, and not for him.
Had he been there, he would stand
undelivered.
|
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| Dick Codor's Marx Bros 4Sons |
Reading
this text in light of the Jewish-European 20th Century, though,
forces one to revisit the role of the Rasha, for the 20th
century was the century of “Wicked” Children, who left the Egypt of their parents. As Yuri Slezkine writes, there
were not two , but three great Jewish migrations in the twentieth century from
the Pale of Settlement, each one a rebellious liberation movement that was
based on a “patricide” of the traditional Jewish home: Nationalism (the Zionist
migration to Palestine), Liberalism (the Capitalist/Professionalist
migration to America), and Communism (the Political Socialist migration
to Moscow). Each migration had its own ideology, its own vision of a Promised
Land, its own theory of how to liberate Jewish existence from being "strangers in Egypt": The Universalistic Socialist Promised Land of early Communism, in which Jews flourished; the Capitalist vision of nontribal
statehood, a “nation of strangers held together by a common celebration of separateness
(individualism) and rootlessness (immigration).” And the Zionist "indigenous land" where strangers
could turn into natives.
Artistic
renderings of the Four Children throughout that century constantly
wrestle with these three promised lands, at time portraying the new Zionist/Capitalist/Communist
Jew as Wise or Wicked according to the views of the illustrator:
In
early American Haggadot, the wicked child was the
“assimilated American”, who leaves the paths of his parents in favor of a path
of prosperity and acceptance by the wider community. The ways of old are
relevant “To you, and not to him”. This seemingly one-sided story is told by
one of the earliest American haggadot, published in 1879 in Chicago:
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| Chicago Haggadah, 1879 |
But
this illustration is far from embracing of the Wise child and deeply ambivalent
about his parents, who seem frozen in time next to their dynamic “Americaner”
son. The wise son is dressed like his parents, but is lost to the world,
engrossed in his book. Most significantly, the two younger siblings are eyeing
their younger brother enviously, imitating the way he waves his hand about. One
can only imagine how many families in the Mid-West and on the East coast, saw
this scene unfold at their own seder tables. The reader is left with a question
whether the sympathies of the artist lay with the glassy eyed father or with the
flamboyant son.
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| Lola, Leon David Israel, 1920 |
30 years later, in the Lower East
Side, the scene has changed significantly. From the proud German Jewish
Americans of industrial Chicago, we turn to the shmutzy alleys of the Eastern
European immigrants of Spring Street. In
a Haggadah from 1920 illustrated by Yiddish cartoonist Lola the
wicked child is a boxer. This is a tribute both to the golden days of Jewish
boxing (like Battling
Levinsky, lightweight champion of the world 1916-1920), and to Max
Nordau’s 1900 call for a Muscular Judaism. Our buff boxer
seems willing to take on his dorky brother (who by now has no problem dressing
like a modern American, but is still engrossed in his book). Again, one wonders
if the Jewish boxer is the villain or the hero.
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| Siegmund Forst, USA 1959 |
We were slaves to Capital, until the October
Revolution [of 1917] "redeemed us with a strong hand" from the land
of slavery. If it weren't for the October Revolution, then we and our children
and our children's children would still be slaves to Capital. Today the
revolution is only here, next year = a world revolution. (The Red
Haggadah, 1927)
For
Moscow’s Jewish intelligentsia, and for many American Jews, being a communist
was being the wise child, liberated not only from Capital but also from
Ethnicity. Yet many American Haggadahs of the 50’s and 60’s save the Wicked
child’s place to the communist cousin. In one portrayal, the Wicked child is a “flaming commie,” threatening to set fire to
the world. In another, he the is spitting image of Leon Trotsky,
holding an enormous ax poised at splitting through the Ten Commandments
(meanwhile the assimilated American Jew has been demoted to the Simple child,
in his flannel shirt and racing results).
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| Tzvi Livni, Tel Aviv 1955 |
But
many Secular Zionists took pride in being the Wicked child of the Haggadah. A
rebellious secular movement, Zionism incorporated the criticism of the wicked
child: “What does this old Jewish practice, which leaves you emasculated in
your decrepit eastern European exile, mean to you?”
The Song of the Son
David Shimoni, 1927 Anthem of the Shomer
HaTzair
Do not listen son, to the morality of your
father
And to the teachings of your mother pay no
heed
For father’s morals are “line on line”
And mother’s Torah is “Slowly, slowly”
But the Spring storm says but one:
Listen, man, to the song of the son!
To the song of the son, and the
great-grand-son,
Which comes from beyond a deep fog…
And break out a new path, leaving the
Way which the father took,
For why shall you sin towards the
generation,
A future full of illumination?
On a cold night, a night of Adar,
Whilst the mother sleeps, the father is
down,
Will you hear, the song of the wind abounds,
The song of the son, a song of joy and battle?
On a cold night, a night of Adar,
Hearken, how the spring sings…
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The
original Hebrew text of the anthem above was copied in the font usually
reserved for Torah scrolls, and was carried in the pockets of movement members
like a religious amulet. Secular Zionists sought to replace the tradition, to
rewrite the holy Scriptures, replacing the tunes of traditionalism with the
song of rebellion.
At the end of the day, these three Jewish liberation movements, which might have been classified as “Wicked” in their times, force us to re-evaluate our relationship to rebelliousness in Modern Jewry.
For
me, as a parent, a Zionist and a Jew, the lesson of the Zionist child rings
in my ear: that rebellion should not be interpreted as betrayal, and that we
must be very humble in our assumptions about what is right for the next
generation. At least one, if not two of the 20th century rebellious Jewish
liberation movements succeeded in creating a vibrant Jewish culture and
eventually a better world for all. We must seek out the rebellious questions of
the next generation, cultivate them, all the while supporting that they, like
those rebellious Zionists of old, continue to use the language and
stories of their inheritance as they march into a new spring.
Pesach
Sameach!
Mishael
p.s.
I can’t resist one more 4 children, the 21st century rendition of
the illustrator of my own Haggadah, A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of
Contemporary Voices, Michel Kichka. For a comprehensive essay on the art of the Four Children.
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| Michel Kichka, Israel 2006 |
