The Wicked Son, and the Kiruv System

“but I’m wondering what the Torah position is when we think about it rationally, leaving our emotions aside.”

“Why would we cast aside our emotions when we are dealing with an emotional question?”

When you are trying to determine the Torah’s position, you must do so from a place of rationality. If you determine that the Torah’s position is that you use your emotions when dealing with your children, then you should use your emotions while dealing with your children. But while you are deciding what the Torah’s position is, you have to keep your emotions at bay.

send them my way and within a few short munites it will become apparent that even though people do avairos they don’t leve behind all that is dear to their families and backgorund unless there is a severe trauma. simple question like “if you kept the torah what would it mean about you” will tell you tons!

“I might seem extreme right wing on the CR, where discussions are theoretical, but I guess I’m much nicer a person in real life, and have friends of all shapes and sizes in different social circles.”

I don’t think there’s a stira between the two. Some of the nicest people I know are extreme right wing… And btw, you do come across as very nice in the CR (which is an accomplishment!).

This is probably not a novel idea, but in reading many of these postings, I thought of viewing the discussion of the four sons in the Haggadah as a metaphor: each of us is an amalgam of all four sons. We are at times wise, wicked, simple and entirely at a loss for words.

The Torah is our guide from wherever we are to where we need to be. Sometimes we need strong, maybe startling mussar, sometimes we just need to be pointed in the right direction and sometimes we need someone to accompany us every step of the way. Even if we’re not in that situation today, there’s no guarantee we won’t be tomorrow.

Perhaps the Torah (and, by extention, the Haggadah) couched these concepts in terms of “v’higaddetta l’bincha” and “ki yishalcha bincha”, first, because sometimes it’s far easier to accept that others are in dire need of guidance than to recognize that need in ourselves and, secondly, to help us be as dedicated and self-sacrificing addressing those (our) needs as we are towards the needs of our children.

I would not consider that boy to be someone who is sinning deliberately and I would not call him a rasha. I would consider him to be in the category of someone who is at-risk because of psychological issues. He was doing aveiros only because he was going through a very hard time.

I don’t know the boy, but I’m not shocked. I think that I and most people have done similar things, although perhaps to a lesser degree. I don’t know if I would have ever said that I was angry at Hashem, but I have certainly done aveiros in my life because I was upset with other people, which is kind of the same thing but to a lesser degree if you think about it (since everything comes from Hashem).

I remember once when I was 16 doing something that I knew was wrong (although I was able to rationalize it as being technically mutar which may or may not have been correct) just because I was upset about something, and I remember thinking that it might not really have been okay but I was too upset to care.

The boy you are describing does not sound anything like the Rasha in the Hagadah. And he does not sound like someone who would have gained from the approach used in the Haggadah.

Personally, I don’t think I ever forget about Hashem. Any time I’ve ever done anything wrong, I was always solidly aware of Hashem – I just felt like I needed to do what ever I was doing. I’m not sure that I understand how it’s possible to not be solidly aware of Hashem (I’m only speaking of myself obviously – I am not sure what goes on in other people’s heads. Obviously, I can also be wrong about what goes on in my own head/heart, but I really don’t think I am).

“Part of the discussion in this thread was supposed to be about exactly this: I’m not sure that the correct response necessarily means the most effective one.”

That’s interesting – I hadn’t realized that was your point. I’ll have to think about that. I think that the point of the response to the Rasha is precisely because it is the most effective for him. Of course, one could “taaneh” as I think someone already did that the point is for the others there. But I think that the point is for him as well. We don’t give up on anyone – certainly not another Jew.

LU & Yekk2 – Thank you for the kind words.

> “Did you come up with it on your own?”
It dawned on me while thinking about some of the discussion
in this forum.

I’m now experiencing an aging parent who is gradually, but
noticeably,losing short term memory and is often challenged
to find the words to convey thoughts and experiences.

It’s made me a lot more conscious of how dependent we are –
or can easily become – on assistance from outside of ourselves.
So, it isn’t quite a huge leap of insight on my part of see the
Haggadah and other sources differently than I have in the past.

yekke2: In your OP you asked “Is our modern day Kiruv model congruous with the advice given in the Haggadah, or is our technique wrong?” I heard last night at a shiur on Pesach that since our approach to kiruv has changed, the advice of the Baal Hagadah may not apply nowadays.

<em I heard last night at a shiur on Pesach that since our approach to kiruv has changed, the advice of the Baal Hagadah may not apply nowadays.

Whose authority is big enough to decide to change our policy from following the Tannaim to a more modern day attitude?

In the time of the Taanim, the Rabbanim had more real control over people, they could force you to keep Halacha and throwing out a Rasha, would likely lead them to Tshuva

Today if you throw out someone calling them a Rasha, will more likely lead them to leave and not come back and maybe even become “successful” and not let you forget it

ZD – while what you are saying may be true, I think the issue is that it seems problematic to say that something that we read at the Seder every year does not apply anymore.

The whole idea of Pesach and the Seder is about passing on the Mesorah from generation to generation, so it does seem difficult to say that the way we are told on Pesach at the Seder to be mechanech our children and pass on the mesorah no longer applies. That is the antithesis of what the Pesach Seder is about!

I think though the answer is what I wrote earlier. We can’t say that it doesn’t apply at all, but we have to think carefully about when and how we apply it. There may be children today who seem like the Rasha in the Haggada but are not.

That is not a complete answer, but only the beginning of an answer. One still has to think about it and figure out how and when to apply it. One of the themes of the Seder is getting the children to ask questions. When I was a kid we had to take a test before Pesach called a “halacha yomis” test on Hilchos Pesach. I remember that half the answers to the questions were “so the children will ask”. I remember thinking about how illogical that was. If the point was “so that the children will ask” then there has to be an answer, so why weren’t we being given an answer?

But I think I just chapped. I think the point is that sometimes a question is better than the answer. I think this is one of those times.

I think this is a question that doesn’t have a simple answer. The answer is neither “Well, today it’s different.” or “No, our generation has it all wrong. We are supposed to be tough, etc.”

The answer is neither of those. The answer is that this is something to think about. Chinuch is not a simple thing. People are complex. Sometimes one must use one method and sometimes another. Each child is different and each situation is different. Don’t make assumptions, but rather, try to understand the person and where his question is coming from and what the tailor-made approach is for him.

Thank you Yekke for providing an excellent question.