Chol HaMoed Pesach
Exodus 12:21-51
Numbers 28,16-25
Studies have found that Jews celebrate Passover more than any other Jewish holiday. One reason, experts suggest, is that more memories revolve around Passover than any other Jewish time. It is a mitzvah, a commandment, to create Jewish memories around the Passover seder. Our Haggadah tells us, “A person is obligated to see himself as if he, personally, had left Egypt.”
Each year, we are obligated to find new ways of personalizing the seder story. Each year, we must relive and create new Passover memories.
The idea of personalizing the Passover tale comes from the Torah. This week, during Chol HaMoed Pesach, we read excerpts from the book of Exodus. Of the Passover offering, the Torah relates, “And when in time to come your son asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘It was with a mighty hand that Adonai brought us out from Egypt, the house of bondage.'” (Ex. 13:14)
The way we personalize the telling, the Torah suggests, is by asking questions.
What is one of the most memorable parts of the Passover seder? The Four Questions, of course! We have all recited them at some point, and now look to our children to carry on the tradition. The Four Questions (vier kashas in Yiddish) are meant to illumine the meaning behind the seder symbols. Each answer is meant to arouse new questions. As the old saying goes, “Ask a Jew a question and the Jew answers with a question.”
The Mishnah teaches that it is incumbent upon the parent to instruct the child during the seder. In Mishnah Pesachim 10:4, the Four Questions are attributed to the parent who teaches the child. The Four Questions aren’t really questions at all. Rather, they are four curious behaviors that ought to provoke wonder in the youngest child, who doesn’t even know how to formulate questions.
It’s like saying, “Hey, let’s look around and see what surprises are planned for us tonight. What is this flat bread, this bitter vegetable, this salty water, this pillow?” The questions awaken curiosity and spark the child to add his or her own questions and comments.
Maimonides also had suggestions for stimulating meaning in the Passover seder. He warned against making the seder routine.
“One must make a change on this night so the children will take note and ask, ‘How different this night is from all other nights?’ How does one make a change? By distributing parched corn and nuts, or by removing the plate before they eat, or by snatching things from one another’s hands.” (Mishnah Torah, Laws of Matzah 7:3)
I would have liked being a guest at Maimonides’ seder. Throwing food around the seder table? What’s going on here? That is exactly what we want the children to ask.
It is the leader’s responsibility to capture guests’ attention and question the meaning of things. As the great educator John Dewey wrote, “The art of questioning is the art of guided learning.”
Of course, today there are many ways to personalize the seder experience. Nearly every family has their own seder story. In my family, it is not a seder without my mother’s story about the carp in her bathtub when she was a girl, the annual debate about whether matzah balls should sink or float and the incessant laughter when singing “Chad Gadya.”
We also must ask modern questions: What are the plagues of society today? Who is still enslaved? How can we express gratitude for our freedom? And we must search for responses. Donate your remaining leavened food to those in need. Give tzedakah to the enslaved people in Darfur.
Our stories of seders past, present and future fill us with memories. How do you experience the Exodus this year? What can you say dayenu for in your life?
What is your Passover memory?
Rabbi Karen S. Citrin is the associate rabbi at Reform Peninsula Temple Beth El
in San Mateo.