Here the Youngest Child Asks?

The whole Pesach Eve liturgy is based on the Biblical commandment that the children should be educated about the exodus from Egypt. Certain acts done during the ceremonial evening such as taking away items from the table, hiding a part of the Matzah and changing the order of regular customs are done specifically to cause the children to ask questions (Tabory & Stern, 2008, p.25). But although children are an integral part of the Pesach Eve, they are traditionally given only a very small “speaking role” in this elaborate pageant.

Towards the beginning of the Pesach celebrations a child gets up to ask the traditional Four Questions (see lines 43-51). The Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law), authored in Safed by Joseph Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later, states that תינוקות (Tinokkot) “babes”, ask these questions. Joshua Kulp in the Schechter Haggadah (2009, pp. 196-198) discusses the question why it is a child who is supposed to ask these questions. After presenting two possible reasons, one posed by Goldschmidt (who claims that this is a result of a misreading of the Talmud text) and one by David Halevi (who claims it is based on a Braita), Kulp rejects both stating he thinks it developed organically based on the facts that the Mah Nishtana questions are a compulsory part of the Haggadah text and the fact that it is preferably the child who should ask questions on the Seder Night.

But is it necessarily the YOUNGEST child who can ask the questions who should do so? Definitely, according to modern-day Haggadot in which we often find the instruction that "Here the youngest child asks..." When did this custom start? Looking through my corpus of English Haggadah translations I discovered the following:

Neither the first Haggadah translator A. Alexander (1770) nor the second one David Levi (1794) mention who should ask these questions at all. Only the third translator of the Haggadah into English, Isaac Levi (who edited David Levi's translation in 1808) added this information:

Alexander (1770) writes:

“Then fill the glass with wine the second time, and say:”

D. Levi (1794) writes:

“Then fill the Glass with wine the second time, and take the dish from the table, and say,”

I. Levi (1808) adds:

“Then fill the Glass with wine the second time, and take the dish from the table. Then, the youngest in the company asks”

Therefore, Isaac was the very first English Haggadah translator to add this phrase to the English Haggadah. Was he maybe influenced by other Haggadot? Or was he really the very first to add the phrase "the youngest child"?

It seems he was actually the very first to use this exact term in a Haggadah in any language. I have not been able to find the explicit instruction that it has to be “the youngest child/son” in any pre-1808 Haggadah manuscripts nor in Haggadot in any language uploaded to the extensive Hebrewbooks.org website. The best one can find in Hebrew language Haggadot is the term תינוקות ("babes") but never "the youngest child". In addition, there were almost no Haggadot in other languages besides English at that time. As a matter of fact, the ONLY other languages the Haggadah was translated in before 1808 are Italian in Hebrew script (manuscripts), Yiddish and Ladino (not counting three non-Jewish translations in Latin and German) none of which state who should read out loud the Four Questions.

Therefore, I pose it was in the English translation by Isaac Levi from 1808 that this phrase appears for the first time. This can obviously only be verified after examining ALL pre-1808 manuscript Haggadot and all 515 printed ones (Isaac Levi’s Haggadah is Yudlov #516) which goes beyond the scope of this study. Still, as stated above, I did not find any such Haggadah after scrutinizing scores of manuscripts and hundreds of printed Haggadot.

Isaac Levi - the trendsetter who is to blame for shy trembling children who are told to stand on the chair and sing the Mah Nishtana.