Tateh, [father,] I want to ask of you four questions...

Ma nishtana [what is the difference], in what way are we worse than Shmuel the factory owner, than Meir the banker, than Serach the lender, than Reb Tudros the the rabbi? They do nothing, and have enough to eat and to drink, day and night, a hundred times over... And we labour with all our might the day through, and at night we don't ever have enough to eat, even once over?

They have big mansions, fashionable and furnished with every furnishing. They have many beautiful rooms sitting empty - and we lie pressed together in a hole in the ground and they want to evict us from here, too?

They do nothing, and wear expensive clothes - and we labour like oxen and don't have a shirt on our backs?

They eat a fine dinner, drink a glass of good wine, and lie down to sleep in a soft, warm bed and are "kulanu m'subin" [all relaxing] - and we lean ourselves into the corner on a mattress of straw, only so we can all too soon pick ourselves up again to work?

Tateh, answer me, explain to me the reason why it is so!


haggadah Section: -- Four Questions