Why did the Aramean wander across the desert? To get to the other Seder!

This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people.

(49) There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.

Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040 – 1105)

(5) ארמי אבד אבי A SYRIAN DESTROYED MY FATHER — He mentions the loving kindness of the Omnipresent saying, ארמי אבד אבי, a Syrian destroyed my father, which means: “Laban wished to exterminate the whole nation” (cf. the Haggadah for Passover) when he pursued Jacob. Because he intended to do it the Omnipresent accounted it unto him as though he had actually done it (and therefore the expression אבד which refers to the past is used), for as far as the nations of the world are concerned the Holy One, blessed be He, accounts unto them intention as an actual deed (cf. Sifrei Devarim 301:3; Onkelos).

Samuel ben Meir (c. 1085 – c. 1158)

(5) ארמי אובד אבי, as if the Torah had written” my father Avraham was an Aramite, lost, and exiled from his birthplace Aram.” God had told him in Genesis 12:1 “go forth for yourself from your homeland, etc.” Later on, Avraham himself relates to Avimelech the king of the Philistines (Genesis 20:13), that God had made him wander, away from his father’s house, etc. The meaning of the word אובד here is similar to תועה, the root Avraham used to describe wandering without specific objective, almost like walking because one is lost. The word occurs clearly in that sense in Psalms 119:176 תעיתי כשה אובד בקש עבדך, “I have strayed like a lost sheep; search for Your servant, etc.!” We also find the word in this connotation in Jeremiah 50:6 עמי רועיהם התעום, “My people were lost sheep; their shepherd led them astray.” In other words, the recital by the farmer goes back to the Jewish people’s origin, the farmer saying: "our forefathers came to this land from an alien country and now God has given it to us."

Chizkiah ben Manoach (1250 - 1310)

(5) ארמי אובד אבי, “my forefather used to be a wandering Aramean.” This verse has been abbreviated. In full, it should have read: “Yaakov my forefather was a wandering Aramean.” While he was serving Lavan in Aram he was no better than a wandering Aramean, he had no house or land of his own; he was not even a resident in that country.”

Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (1475 -1550)

(5) ארמי אובד אבי, my father, i.e. Yaakov, who was for a while a wandering lost person without a home of his own, was not at the time able to establish a nation deserving or fit to inherit this land.