Rabbi's Corner

Chad Gadya. You may have wondered, then learned, then maybe forgotten, what exactly this favorite and somewhat harsh folksong is doing in the Passover seder, and how it relates to our Passover story.

Some like to answer that the song, which probably entered the Haggadah from Germany in the late Middle Ages, is included merely to entertain the children--and more specifically, to wake them up so that they can be taken home. It might be so. But others have long found deeper meaning to the chain of violence ending in redemption that Chad Gadya recounts.

Chad Gadya, which in Aramaic means: one goat, begins with a Jewish man going out to purchase a goat to bring back to his family for the Passover dinner. The gadya, the goat or kid, was what the Israelites were instructed to offer as a sacrifice on that night of the tenth plague--the death of the first born from which the Israelites were spared. The goat was also an object of worship within Egyptian culture.

Like Pharaoh who is going to be bested by the Israelite God, the goat, a symbol of Egyptian religion, is going to find itself on the bottom of a merciless hierarchy. The goat is bested by a cat. The cat in turn has its superior—according to the song: a dog, though cat-lovers would surely take issue with that. The dog in turn has its superior, a stick. Then fire burns the stick. Water quenches the fire. An ox drinks the water. A butcher slaughters the ox. The Angel of Death takes the butcher. And Adonai destroying even the Angel of Death is the last one standing. That’s the ultimate point. Adonai is at the top, the CEO of the cosmos.

Now compare the pecking order described in Chad Gadya with that of an earlier rabbinic midrash.

Abraham (Abram) and his father, Terach, lived in Babylonia. Terach made and sold idols. Abram was skeptical of his father’s work, nevertheless when his father asked him to mind the shop while he went on an errand, he didn't object. A customer entered the store and expressed his desire to worship an idol. Abram responded by asking the man how old he was. The man was seventy years old. "Oh my," sighed Abram. "Here you are 70 years old, yet you would worship an idol that was made just this morning." The customer felt insulted and left the store without making a purchase.

Later, a woman entered the shop. She wanted to leave a large flour offering for the idols. Abram raised an eyebrow but nodded for her to do so. After she had left, Abram picked up a stick, smashed all the idols except for the one nearest the offering, and placed the stick in the hands of that remaining idol.

Terach returned to his store to find all of his wares destroyed. Bewildered and in despair, he turned to Abram for an explanation. Abram explained, “A woman came to the store to leave an offering. After she left, each idol wanted its share. The largest idol grabbed this stick and smashed all the others so that he could have the offering all for himself.”

Terach, noting the absurdity of his son's explanation, was furious. "How can you have done such a thing?" he cried. "Do you think I’m going to believe that idols made of wood just this morning could be responsible for this destruction?!"

And that was precisely Abram's point. Why should we believe that idols have any power to do anything at all? The story often ends here if we were only to criticize idol worship. But the midrash continues. Terach was not done punishing his son for his insolence. He brought him before King Nimrod, the king of Babylonia during that time. Nimrod said to Abram, "If you will not worship these idols made by your father, then you should worship fire as I do."

Abram responded that if anything, he should worship water, as water extinguishes fire. So the king told Abram to worship water. Abram reconsidered. Since clouds are really water drawn into the heavens, he should worship clouds.

"Fine," said King Nimrod. "Then worship clouds." 

"Come to think of it," said Abram, "Since air has the power to move clouds via the wind, I should worship the air."

"Then worship air," grunted Nimrod impatiently. The king began to feel that he was being ridiculed.

"Well," said Abram, "Since man has the ability to retain air even though he is full of holes, I should worship man."

King Nimrod lost it. "You are speaking empty and meaningless words. I worship fire and therefore I will cast you into fire and let whatever God you worship save you!" Abram was cast into a fire and was miraculously saved from the Angel of Death by Adonai.

Like the pecking order described in Chad Gadya, there is no object that does not have a superior force acting on it until we get to Adonai. Not even the Angel of death from which Abram was saved from the fiery furnace and from which the Israelites were spared that fateful night of the tenth plague. Adonai alone reigns Supreme. The song, Chad Gadya—its name itself a play on the word Haggadah—praises God's ultimate redemptive power—one of the primary messages of our Passover celebration.

As we continue our observance of Passover this week, commemorating and celebrating our people’s story from degradation to liberation, we are aware of those forces that threaten us—either on a personal level or collectively as the Jewish people, and we take heart. We face malign forces in every generation. And in each generation we learn to overcome. In so doing, may each of us, created in God’s image, serve as redeemers for one another and not as captors or oppressors. Keyn y’hi ratzon. May this be God’s will. Moadim l’simcha.