אֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי

(5) And you are to answer and say before HaSHEM, your God: "The Syrians lost my father, and came down out of Egypt, and dwelt there in the land of Egypt, and became there a great, mighty, and populous nation."

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).

ארמי אובד אבי, as if the Torah had written” my father Avraham was an Aramite, lost, and exiled from his birthplace Aram.” G’d 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 G’d 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 G’d has given it to us.

A WANDERING ARAMEAN. The word oved (wandering) is an intransitive verb. If Aramean referred to Laban then Scripture should have read mavid or me’abbed. Furthermore, what reason would Scripture have had for stating, Laban sought to destroy my father and he went down to Egypt? Laban did not cause Jacob to descend to Egypt. It thus appears to me that the term Aramean refers to Jacob. Scripture, as it were, reads, when my father was in Aram he was “perishing.” That is, he was poor, he had no money. Similarly oved (perish) in Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish (Prov. 31:6). Let him drink, and forget his poverty (Prov. 31:7) is proof. The meaning of our phrase thus is, a perishing Aramean was my father. Its import is, I did not inherit the land from my father, for my father was poor when he came to Aram. He was also a stranger in Egypt. He was few in number. He then became a large nation. You O Lord took us out of slavery and gave us a good land. Let the one who disputes not argue, “How could Jacob be called an Aramean?” Look, we find the same with Ithra the Ishmaelite who, as Scripture clearly states, was an Israelite.

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.

וענית is an expression for raising one’s voice (speaking loudly) (Sotah 32b).

"...My father was lost in the Arameans and went down to Egypt" etc. What is the connection between Laban's actions and the descent into Egypt? Apparently the connection is that if Laban had not deceived our forefather Jacob by giving him Leah before Rachel, Joseph, the eldest, would have been known by all the brothers and not hated for his father's favoritism, and in any case he would not have been sold into Egypt, etc. (P. Beshalach 1987)

In the Aramaic verse, "My father was lost and he went down from Egypt, etc.", it must be interpreted according to what is stated in the book of Galia Razia and Z"l because Jacob our father brought a translation language in the Torah. Laban was called Yager, a refugee in the Dota. And Jacob was called Gilead, which is why Israel came in exile from Egypt, etc., see there. And it must be said that what is written in the parashah, "And he sat down and lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, etc., to bring down from Egypt." R"l, who saw that they came from Gilead, because Jacob brought Gilead, a translation language in the Torah, and for this reason Yosef was recognized to bring down from Egypt. And what is written in Aramaic is precisely "My father was lost and he went down from Egypt, R"l, because my father brought an Aramaic language in the Torah, this caused him to be forced to come down from Egypt. And one must interpret this as the saying of the author of the Haggadah, "And went down to Egypt," as teaching that he was forced, according to the exact word of the Lord, because Jacob our father spoke the Aramaic language with Laban, and therefore he was forced to go down to Egypt: