The Four Sons Become a Shema

While reciting the Haggadah and reaching the four sons, the Belzer Rebbe would interrupt to tell a tale. One Pesach night, after finishing his own seder, Rav Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, author of the Bnei Yissoschar, took a stroll with some chassidim to hear how other Jews conducted their seder. They passed a window and heard the landlord reciting the Haggadah with an odd variation. When he reached the four sons, the simple Yid drew out the word Echad before each one, as in Krias Shema: Echaaaad chacham, Echaaaad rasha, Echaaaad tam, Echaaaad sheayno yodea lishol. Some of the chassidim smirked at how comical it sounded. The Bnei Yissoschar remarked, "Look, this Jew has turned the four sons into a Krias Shema. One way to explain it is that it is hinted at in the previous passage of the Haggadah. There the sages were sitting in Bnei Brak, reciting the Haggadah all night, until their students told them that the time for the Krias Shema of Shacharis had arrived. The word Shacharis, spelled shin, ches, reish, yud, sav, can stand for the four sons: ches for chacham, reish for rasha, sav for tam, and shin and yud for sheayno yodea lishol, the child who does not yet know how to ask." The Belzer Rebbe concluded, "When I told this tale and the Bnei Yissoschar's explanation to my father, the Rebbe Rav Yehoshua, I saw his face change colors, and I realized that these were deep matters indeed."