RABBI’S NOTES

Sitting Down with the Devil
Seating arrangements are kind of a big deal. How awful is it when you finally take your seat at the shindig when to your horror you discover that you’re seated directly across the biggest nudnick this side of the Mississippi. Oy is it awful! This minor oversight means you are stuck at the $180 per plate ordeal trying to enjoy the evening as you listen to the shmendrick’s cheesy, recycled jokes while desperately attempting to avoid the wafting stench of his cheap cologne. Like I started saying, seating arrangements are kind of a big deal.
On Passover millions of Jews sit down for the Seder and partake in the annual Holiday experience. “Seder” means order as the rabbis painstakingly and deliberately layout the 15 step program. In fact if you look carefully in your Hagadah (Passover Seder book) you may discover all sorts of minute instructions like “lean to the left while downing 4 ounces of red wine,” or “dip vegetable in salt water and eat in an upright position.” Seemingly the great sages of old thoroughly thought this event through and even regimented the smallest of details like the Queen’s staff obsess over ceremonial banquets.
Despite all the formalities and instructions, it seems like the rabbis missed something. Something rather significant – kind of a big deal. It appears that the ball was dropped when it came to seating arrangements. You see, when we seat the Fab Four (the four sons of the pesach seder: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the one who doesn’t even know to ask) at the highly anticipated Passover shindig we seat the wise son, this upright, pious and saintly chap immediately beside the wicked son, this charlatan cheat – the lowlife whom the Haggadah specifically iterates as irredeemable. Had he lived during the exodus, he’d have been left behind!
Isn’t there already enough drama having the whole family at the same table? Must we stick these two guys next to each other? Are the rabbis trying to create fireworks at the Seder or is there something deeper behind this seeming lapse in the all-important seating department. Perhaps this wasn’t a lapse after all. Perhaps this seeming oversight provides cover to a highly classified mission, a task charged to the wise son because he’s got what it takes to pull it off.
You see, as much as the wicked son appears to be the lowlife he is paraded to be, beneath that mask lies a fellow Jew, a child of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Buried in the depths of the wicked son is a soul - the vivifying “veritable part of G-d above” that animates his very being. So in keeping with the times let me leak this highly covert operation: the wise son’s mission is to tap into the depths of his brother’s being – to re-ignite the spark plugs and to engage his essence. It’s a tall order.
Can he pull it off?
In fact the sages are sending us all a message here. Initiate operation. Don’t write off our “irredeemable” brethren. Engage. Show him some love. Give him a seat at the table. Break some bread-of-faith.
Can you pull it off?