Pesach Dvar Torah

In the Haggadah we read about the 4 sons.  The Haggadah discusses the types of questions that each son will ask, and instructs us on how to respond to each of them.  One of the striking things in this section is that the questions of the wise and wicked sons are not all that dissimilar.  Nevertheless, one is considered wise and the other wicked, and the way in which the Haggadah instructs us to respond to each of them is extremely different.
The wise son’s question is: “What are the testimonies and the statutes and the laws that Hashem, our God, has commanded you?”
The wicked son’s question is: “What is this service to you?”
You’ll notice that both sons say, “to you,” and both are asking about what is going on.  In response to the wise son, the Haggadah tells us to reply to his question by teaching him the laws of Pesach and how nothing should be eaten after eating the Paschal offering (or the afikoman which takes its place in the absence of the temple).
But in response to the wicked son the Haggadah tells us to be very harsh. Saying, “when he says “to you,” he is implying “to you,” but not “to him”! because he excludes himself from the rest of the community he has denied a fundamental principle.  You, in turn, should set his teeth on edge and tell him, ‘Because of this Hashem did for me when I left Egypt’ – implying ‘for me,’ but not ‘for him’!  If he had been there he would not have been redeemed.”
Why does the Haggadah tell us to respond so harshly to the wicked son’s use of the phrase, “for you,” and ignore the fact that wise son said the same thing?  What is there to learn about the entire for Seder experience from the vastly different responses for these two sons?
One possible explanation is that the difference between the two sons is in the tone of what they say rather than the content.  The wise son really wants to know and he wants to learn.  He points out that he notices that there are details, “testimonies, statutes, and laws…” and he is willing to go through the trouble and invest the time so that he can know and understand.  The wicked son, however, just says, “this service.”  He’s not interested in learning about the details, he dismisses the nuances, his tone is cynical.  He isn’t interested in learning.  He sees all the same things that the wise son sees, yet he clumps it all together in a dismissing way and is really asking a rhetorical question.  It’s like he’s saying, “why do bother with all of this stuff?”  He isn’t really looking for an answer, because his feelings are that “this service” is really meaningless, it’s a lot of irrelevant ancient practices.
Once we understand the difference in their questions we can understand the way that we are supposed to respond to them.  Since the wise son wants to learn, we respond by teaching him Torah.  The experience of teaching him Torah should leave a lingering taste and love of Torah in his mouth.  This is hinted to in the last line of the response to the wise son which says that we teach him that nothing should be eaten after the Paschal lamb.  Just as the taste of the Paschal lamb should linger in one’s mouth after eating it, the Torah should linger in the mouths of those who love Torah.  When a Jew has this type of love for Torah, this connection helps him through any of the troubles that he or she might experience in life.
By contrast, the wicked son is not interested in learning, he has already rejected the tradition in his mind.  There is no point in engaging him intellectually because he is looking to reject rather than to learn.  The wicked son does not have the Torah to hold on to when things are tough.  He can’t rely on the Torah to give him hope in times of trouble.  
The goal of the seder is to tell the story of Passover- to make sure every Jew knows that we were once slaves who had no hope of salvation, but God saved us.  From this experience, we learn that in every generation the Jewish people face trials and tribulations, but God will always save us.  The seder teaches us that ever since being freed from bondage in Egypt, the heritage of the Jewish people is to always have hope regardless of the situation.  The experience of Jewish history teaches us to have hope, teaching this perspective to our children is the goal of the Seder.  This is why we tell the wicked son, “if you don’t change your attitude about learning then you would not have been saved from Egypt.”  What we’re really saying is that your attitude will not give you the hope that you, as a Jew, will need to survive.  Without hope, you’ll despair and never be able to feel free.