A second look at the Haggadah's simple child

Of the Haggadah's four archetypal children, the תם — usually translated as simple or simple-minded — may be the most misunderstood and underappreciated. He (or she) appears to earn the name from his unembellished, innocently curious reaction to the Passover service -- ?מה זאת -- "what is this?" The Haggadah seems to present his short and seemingly naive formulation in stark contrast to the question of the wise child. Seeking detailed instruction on the ritual obligations of the Seder, the latter applies technical halakhic categories to the holiday rituals even before he gets his answer.

The traditional view of the תם is encapsulated by a comment in Siddur Rashi, an anonymous anthology from the school of the master exegete:

תם: Neither wise nor wicked, but simple (תמים). He lacks the intelligence to ask “what are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments,” a detailed inquiry into each aspect of the Passover service. He simply asks, "what is this?" 

In the oldest versions of the rabbinic "four children" typology, the dichotomy between the wise child and his intellectual opposite was much more explicit. In those texts, instead of a בן תם there is a בן טיפש, a foolish child. Scholars surmise that when it was incorporated into the Haggadah, the text was deliberately altered to avoid offense.

Medieval Haggadah manuscripts, printed versions from the sixteenth century onward, and illustrated Haggadot still in use almost always portray the wise child as an elderly, pious scholar. But how do you draw the תם, either on paper or in the imagination? 

To take a modern example, the extremely popular Haggadah illustrations of Siegmund Forst (1904-2006) from the 1950s and 1960s include several variations on the simple child, none too flattering: He tends to have an absent or quizzical look, holding a finger to his chin as he tries to make sense of his surroundings, and appearing only marginally more engaged than the silent child ("who does not know how to ask"). In another, somewhat disturbing Forst rendering, he is a grown man playing with blocks. And in his best portrait, from 1959, תם is an Everyman -- in Yiddish, א פשוטע איד -- reading the comics and sports pages while he smokes a cigar. His bearded counterpart, wrapped in a tallit and pondering a page of Talmud, towers over his shoulder. 

Despite the popularity of these images, we may have distorted the image of the תם well beyond recognition. It's time to re-imagine his much maligned personality.

In transforming the בן טיפש into a בן תם, the ancient composers of the Haggadah may have had more in mind than just euphemism. The תם, I believe, is morally advantaged rather than intellectually deficient.

Recall that the wise child is a חכם, but he is no צדיק. He is never praised for his moral or religious aptitude. And while he seems to be, like the תם, genuinely curious, he's also, frankly, a bit of a showoff. His question is fairly pretentious, saturated with "lomdus" (abstract legal conceptualization) but designed to impress as much as to learn. He also seems to have a poorly ordered set of religious-moral priorities.

In the Bible, תם is used exclusively in a moral sense, often in parallel with ישר (morally upright). Not once does the biblical word describe a mediocre intellect; instead, it is reserved for legendary moral and religious figures like Noah, Job, Abraham, Jacob, and David. Understood this way, the תם of the Haggadah's typology stands opposite the wicked child rather than the wise child (see, e.g., Gen. 25:27, which contrasts Jacob, an איש תם, with his evil twin Esau, the cunning hunter; Job 9:22: "He destroys the blameless [תם] and the guilty [רשע]"*).

"What is this?" may sound unsophisticated, but it is also morally and intellectually guileless. It's the kind of question -- full of childlike wonder at everything beautiful, true, and good in the universe -- to which we can all aspire. In the image of Seder's תם, we may recognize those who spend their days practicing unpretentious moral heroism, guided by an uncompromising loyalty to the truth. They are the best among us.

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*My son Yaakov נ״י notes that the Vilna Gaon, in his Haggadah commentary, already cited this verse to argue that תם and רשע are opposite types.