The Disengagement Haggadah - Perek Beit

Of four sons we spoke, one Wise, one Wicked, one Simple minded and the Fourth one unable to even ask

"Why are we engaging in this disengagement," the Wise Son asks? "Do we not love our land, every place where our feet step upon it is holy? Do we believe the evil men and the leaders in far-off lands when they promise us peace and security when time and time again their promises have proven false? Do we not see that retreat will only bring the enemy closer to our homes?"

And then you may reply to him, our fathers were strangers in a strange land and often filled with self-hatred from all their persecutions. They believed that by appeasing those men and nations who in their minds held power over them, they could best preserve themselves and by abandoning Judaism, they could best blend in and be free of being persecuted until they came to hate their Judaism and that complex is still with them today.

"What are these settlers to us?" the Wicked Son asks. "They are not my brothers and no part of my people! Throw them out and throw our soldiers out too, it is because of them that we have no peace with our arab neighbors. Throw out the parochial chauvinist religion of this Judaism too and let us embrace humanism and secularism."

Blunt his teeth then and tell him, do you think it is only the settlers that the arabs hate? No it is all Jews whom they hate, regardless of whether they wear beards or hats, whether they are socialists or hassidim. Though you may reject Judaism and the Jewish people, this will not appease the arabs who hate you; only deny a place among the Jewish people and participation in the salvation of G-D that will come to us.

"What should we do? What does this all mean?" The Simple Son asks. "I do not understand all these claims and the media tells me if not for the settlers there would be peace."

Tell him then the story of Jewish history beginning with Avraham our father who dwelled in the land and whose ancestors were promised it by G-D himself in an eternal covenant and we have clung to the land even in exile, struggling to return to live once again on the land of our forefathers. We disobeyed G-D who warned us against making covenants with the inhabitants of the land and every time we have made such covenants the protection of G-D was withdrawn from us and the enemies we made such covenants with gained power over us.

The Fourth Son who is unable to even ask watches TV and then reports for duty when he is called on to evict the settlements without even understanding what is wrong.

Tell him then, Kol Dmei Achicha Zoakim Elai Min Ha'adamah, the voice of the blood of your brother cries out from the earth. The voices of your brothers and sisters murdered on this land by the arabs since the days of the Jewish return from Exile and the second temple, the arab mercenaries who slit open the stomachs of Jewish refugees fleeing the Roman legions in search of Gold to the Arab looters massacring the Jews of Hebron and the Arab children who moved among the bodies searching out the wounded from the dead to finish them off; Arab legionaries shelling our holy city, arab mobs who slaughtered the nurses of Hadassah and the arab terrorists who murdered the Jewish children of Maalot and explode themselves throughout our cities willing to die in order to spill the blood and tear apart the bodies of men, women and children sitting in cafes, at seders and weddings; all their victims, the voices of the Jews murdered by the arabs in their relentless greed for our holy land cry out and command you to desist.