וְ אָ תָ א חוּטְ רָ א וְ הִ כָ ה לְ כַ לְ בָ א
And the stick came and hit the dog
As a tzedakah collector once came to my office and I was about to write him a check, he told me to wait a minute. “Before you give me a check, would you mind if I ask you a question on the Haggadah? It is the easiest question you have ever heard. If you can answer it, I don’t want the check; however, if you cannot answer it, I want double.”
Being presented with this deal, I liked what I heard. “It’s an easy question?” I confirmed. “It’s the simplest question you ever heard on the Haggadah!” “Okay, go ahead,” I said.
“In Chad Gadya, we read how a man purchased a goat for two zuzim. Along came a cat and ate the goat; along came a dog and ate the cat; along came a stick and hit the dog; fire then burnt up the stick; water then extinguished the fire; the cow then drank the water; the slaughterer then slaughtered the cow; the angel of death then killed the slaughterer; and then Hashem smote the angel of death.
Everything naturally makes sense in the sequence of events. Cats eat goats, dogs eat cats, water extinguishes fire, cows drink water and so on. But I have one question. How did the stick hit the dog? Sticks don’t walk. It should have said that a person came with a stick and hit the dog. But it doesn’t say that.
Thinking to myself how I have been reading the Haggadah for decades and never even considered this, I sat there silently. “Double the check please,” he said. And I did.
“Let me tell you the answer,” he continued. “The Haggadah was written in this way for a reason. When you read the story of Chad Gadya everything appears to occur naturally. But there is something the author of the Haggadah put into the middle of the story that doesn’t make sense. A stick appears on its own and hits the dog. When you read this, you immediately raise your eyebrows and say, “Wait a second! How did the stick get there?” And then you realize that it must be Hashem holding the stick. And that being the case, the same is true of all the other “natural” sequence of events. Nothing is natural and happens by itself. Even the cat eating the goat and the water extinguishing the fire is the hand of Hashem.”
After the man finished explaining this, I said, “I will triple your check.” I was taken aback by this answer.
All throughout the hardships in our lives, we can never think it is natural. At the end of the Haggadah when we read about the events of Chad Gadya, we are meant to think of all the events in our own personal lives. And then we are to realize that even the stick that hits and the hardships that confront us are from Hashem. He is behind our lives every step of the way.
