The central theme of the seder is to ask questions. And, it’s not just about asking questions, in
many ways, it’s about getting the younger children and the younger people around
the table to ask questions and to engage with our story.
We read in the Talmud that Abaye as a young pupil was
invited to the seder of Rabba. And, at
the beginning of the seder, Rabba instructed the servants to clear all the
dishes from the table, Abaye said why are
you removing the seder plates when we haven’t yet eaten? Rabba said to Abaye, your question has served
the same function as the usual questions, the Mah Nishtanah. So now let’s dispense with those and proceed
directly to Magid, the telling of the story.
As we can see from this, it wasn’t about asking those specific 4
questions, it was about asking questions in general. And while the seder does lay out the
questions that we should ask it also might be seen as an opportunity to encourage simply the asking of
questions. Because alongside the Mah
Nishtanah, which we think of as the 4 questions, we also have the story of the
4 children and we may read this section as 4 more questions posed by children
to the adults around the table.
Pesach says to us, it’s important to ask questions and to be
inquisitive and curious. And, in many
ways, this fits beautifully with a festival that is all about freedom and
emerging from slavery into freedom. As
free people, we have the ability to ask questions, we have the potential to
question those in authority, to question our elders and to ask questions about
the way that our society is run; something that slaves never have the opportunity to do.
The problem is, that all too often, we fail to question the
authorities in our lives. We fail to ask
important questions of why we should do something, especially when the thing
we’re being told to do may feel unjust or wrong. The seder reminds us that one of the
privileges of being free, is the ability and the obligation to ask
questions. In the Haggadah, 'A Different
Night' by Noam Zion & David Dishon (one of the ones that I like to use), it shares a story of Isidor I. Rabi, the
Nobel Laureate in Physics. He was asked
why he became a scientist rather than any of the other professions that most of
the immigrant kids in his neighborhood pursued.
He said that his mother made him a scientist without intending it,
because while every other Jewish child in Brooklyn was asked “Nu, did you learn
anything today?” his mother said “Izzy did you ask a good question today?” The focus on questions, is what he said made
him into a scientist.
We might not become scientists as a result of asking
questions but through asking questions, we can insure that we stand up to injustice,
that we challenge authority when it abuses its power and that we insure that we
appreciate and make use of the gift of being free people.
Pesach is an opportunity for us to celebrate our freedom
and we must do this by asking questions.
0 comments:
Post a Comment