Roots and Branches 313: About Pesach's 4 Qs

Jackson Snyder

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Greetings!  Had a very nice Passover Seder last Sabbath – thank you for working so hard to make it memorable!  We hope you are hearing from Yahweh during this Matzah Feast.  Decide to write down what you hear in the spirit these ‘days of awe”; if you are keeping his Feast, he will certainly keep it with you and speak to you about it!

(Note – at the bottom of this email is an invitation for deliverance and prayer ministers to tear down some strongholds in Sebastian this weekend.  Please read.)

Roots and Branches (Our Hebraic Roots and Netzari Branches assembly) will be meeting Friday night at Poinciana 410 just before 7 PM – 8:30 in Vero Beach.  If you would like to attend and need directions, call me at 772-538-4867 or check the website at www.YAHpop.us. 

Here’s a little meat left over from the Feast:

The four questions of the Passover – traditionally children ask them and the leader (or father) answers:

Why do we eat matzah? eat bitter herbs?  dip them twice?  eat reclining? 

Rabbinical sources see these questions as indicative of the type of “son” asking them.

The Matzah Son is wise because he asks about a principle of Torah.
The Herbs Son is wicked because he asks as though he were not a part of Israel.
The Dipping Son is simple, for his question is  only “What is this?”
The Reclining Son is underdeveloped and needs tender guidance. (His is the dumb question.)

Knowing each son’s characteristic is helpful in formulating meaningful answers in the context of Passover unity – each child, no matter the age, must be able to “discern the body” at least a little, assisted by the reply of the elder.  This puts a great deal of responsibility on the grown-ups, no?  If the talmid (student) is to grow into his niche in the body of believers, the elder dare never hasten through the haggadah (service) just to get to the dinner!  The haste is to be in the eating, not in the memorial. 

(Rabbi Leff recounts how every years his father would blaze through the Hebrew service to get to the food.)

While the tale of the four sons makes the context in which the ask clear, the recorders of the Good News are not so clear.  They never come right out and say something like,

“Now Jesus was eating the Passover with his disciples; and lo! He casts a mountain of charoset onto his matzah.” 

Did, according to the Evangelists, Yahshua actually eat the Passover in 33 AD.  There is no bone mentioned.  No easter egg.  In fact, an oft-quoted passage in Luke has Yahshua saying that he has no intention of eating Passover for the next couple thousand years. 

So for you who are anxious about such uncertainly, let us save ourselves from the folly of the second son: WE DO BELIEVE Yahshua did the Passover Seder!  YES WE DO BELIEVE!  WE DO!  WE DO!

Still, an analytical study of the text reveals strong ambiguity. 

One of the accounts, that of Yochanon (John), records four questions asked during what could be the set-apart time of Passover.  Attend -   

First son: Shimeon Kefa: “Master, why can’t I follow you now?”

Second: Toma: “Master, how can we know the way?”

Third: Philip: “Master, will you not reveal the Father to us?”

Fourth: Yahuda: “Master, how will you reveal yourself to us (and not to the world)?”

I don’t know if we can line these fellows up alongside the four sons of the rabbis’ tales, but you have to admit, there is something serendipitous (not quite coincidental) about (1) the questions being right there – AND (2) the fatherly, reasoned answers that the Beloved records from the mouth of his Master.  Hey, these talmidim are already aware that something horrible is going to happen, and soon!  What could this Teacher, who was about to be slaughtered, possibly say to his children that would lead them from their personal horror back to the discernment and unity of the body?  Think!

There are still several days before the end of the Matzah Feast.  Everyone is back to work or doing what they would normally do during non-qadosh time.  Mostly, it seems, people are just worried about the future, mad at the government, or fearful of the end time.  Such are reasons enough to get out the dusty book and look into Yahshua’s amazing answers to the questions of his troubled children – while it is yet the limbic time between holy days – and reconnect with the body in a more mystical fashion than that of the seder feast we enjoyed last week.