רָשָׁע מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר? מָה הָעֲבוֹדָה הַזּאֹת לָכֶם. לָכֶם - וְלֹא לוֹ. וּלְפִי שֶׁהוֹצִיא אֶת עַצְמוֹ מִן הַכְּלָל כָּפַר בְּעִקָּר. וְאַף אַתָּה הַקְהֵה אֶת שִׁנָּיו וֶאֱמוֹר לוֹ: "בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה' לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם". לִי וְלֹא-לוֹ. אִלּוּ הָיָה שָׁם, לֹא הָיָה נִגְאָל:
What does the evil [son] say? "'What is this worship to you?' (Exodus 12:26)" 'To you' and not 'to him.' And since he excluded himself from the collective, he denied a principle [of the Jewish faith]. And accordingly, you will blunt his teeth and say to him, "'For the sake of this, did the Lord do [this] for me in my going out of Egypt' (Exodus 13:8)." 'For me' and not 'for him.' If he had been there, he would not have been saved.
(א) רשע מה הוא אומר מה העבודה כו'. פי' הרב המקובל עיר וקדיש הרשב"א הלוי זלה"ה בפירושו כ"י דהרשע מבזה המצוה ומזלזל בה והוא יאמין היות השלמות בהשכלה לא במעשה כאשר הוא דעת אותם אשר לא זרח אליהם אור התורה ויראה ולכן דורש רעה מה העבודה הזאת לכם כלו' מה השלמות המושג במעשה אשר אתם עושים? כי מאס בדבר ה' ותרע עינו במצות המעשיות האלה ומאחר שחול האלהות בנו הנה הוא ע"י המצות המעשיות ואפי' כלנו חכמים יודעים את התורה אם לא נקיים המצות לא יחול האלהות בנו וזה הרשע זלזל במצות והוציא עצמו מן הכלל כפר בעיקר,
והושב לו בתורה זבח פסח הוא לה' כלו' "ראה אתה הרשע כי ע"י המצוה הזו אשר בזית חל האלהות בנו ודבקה עמנו ההשגחה אלהית עד שהי' מדלג מבתינו לבתי אויבינו ואת בתינ"ו הציל דוקא ולכן מצא מקום המגיד לדרוש אף אתה הקהה את שיניו כו' לדרוך דרך התורה לי ולא לו ואלו היה שם לא היה נגאל ומתשובת רשע הכתובה בתורה למד כן ופסוק "בעבור זה" לסימן נקטיה גם להורות כי אז היינו בריה חדשה וז"ש עשה ה' לי לי עשה ממש כי לפי שארץ מצרים היתה מלאה גלולים מחכמות ודעות זרות ואני נמצאתי שמה הוצרך לעשות לי בריה חדשה וזה הרשע אלו הי' שם לא הי' נגאל כי אינו מאמין בשלימות מעשה המצות וחדל מעשות הפסח ולא הי' נגאל.
Malbim
The Malbim: I have taken the words of the sages in the Haggadah against the group of reformers who hate our religion, and want to establish the Shabbat on a sunday. They are completely separate from the Jewish community in all things. They have also taught their flocks to annul all the stringencies which exist in the prohibitions of Chametz on Pesach, that Chametz can be annulled within 60, and also to permit the eating of Kitniyot and the like. All of this occurred before Shabbat Hagadol this year. I have said that this [perspective] has already been seen by the sages thousands of years ago, and prepared in our Torah answers for both the righteous and the wicked. They saw what would be asked, and they established 4 sons:
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The Rabbis and those who keep to Rabbinic Law - this is the wise son.
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The majority who listen to the words of the Rabbis who are represented by the simple son.
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The reformers who ask questions and answer falsely.
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Those that follow the reformers, who don’t know how to attack our religion because they lack the knowledge to do so, but would if they could.
The wise son asked: "What are the testimonies, the statutes and the laws which the L-rd, our G‑d, has commanded you?"
The wise son establishes the concept that all the Mitzvot and Torah which has been taught to us by God exist forever. Yet there are three different types of Mitzvot:
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Commandments which testify to the creation and renewal of the world, or God’s involvement in the world
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There are certain commandments which are laws to ensure peace between man and his friend, and finally
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Commandments which don’t have a reason attached to them.
The wise person investigates and learns each one of them, and works out what type the Mitzva fits into, and nonetheless says that all of them are commanded by God. Our answer to the wise son is that in the commandments of Pesach there are serious commandments - some of them involve spiritual excommunication, and some which are less serious serious, positive and negative commandments, some commandments which are only there because of custom like Kitniyot and the lightest of them all - not eating anything after having consumed the Afikoman, which exists only to beautify the commandment. For the wise son, there is no difference between them, and the lightest of them all is as serious as the most serious of them all, and there is no reason to break down anything which has been passed down to us.
The wicked son has two questions:
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“What is the work” - that all the elements of Pesach are there to remember the day that the Jews left Egypt. Why so much work and bother? Couldn’t we just write out a memorial or put it onto a diary and that would suffice?
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What is this work to you - we have all tasted from the fruits of enlightenment. How can we not be embarrassed to keep things which no longer have any relevance?
We answer him as follows: He needs to understand that Hashem passed over the houses of the Israelites, to teach us that we were very nearly judged together with the evil of the Egyptians. The wicked Jews had already died during the three days of darkness, and we hint to the wicked son that he very well may have been one of them ‘if you had been there, you would not have been redeemed’....
Nesivos Shalom
The Hagaddah prefaces the four sons with the statement: baruch Hu...there are elements of blessing and strenghtening in the service of God for each child, no matter who he is [even] if he is the wicked child.
The wicked child’s question is as follows: He serves Hashem but has tripped up at every opportunity, and keeps falling. This results in him giving up hope. He says: What is this work to you? This work doesn’t apply to him, because his evil inclination is so strong in him, and he feels that there is no way that such spiritual and lofty work could ever be his lot! The answer is that the reason that the Jewish people were redeemed was not because of their level - they were on the lowest level. Yet they were still redeemed, because they never gave up hope. He will not be redeemed, not because God can’t do it, but because he feels he can’t do it.