The Seder is essentially the performance of questions in a highly ritualized way that prompts us to ponder the role of questions in daily life. Intellectual life thrives when people learn to ask ever increasingly detailed, nuanced questions.
As we enter the universe of the four sons, we begin to ponder the role of questions in everyday life and how we might discover the “right questions.” Questions within a framework of conversation demonstrate interest and engagement. Certain questions can transform the course of a life. The question itself becomes a path marker for personal discovery, particularly when the answer is practically consequential. There are also questions we avoid because we are afraid of the answers or believe that the answers are not within our control.
The question is not only the arbiter of knowledge. It is the door to within, to a place that can cause discomfort and alienation. That discomfort brings the questioner to significant or unwanted change precisely because it is not a statement but an invitation, desired or not. A question waits for an answer with a posture of openness, sometimes patient, sometimes in agitation, but never in stillness or stagnation.
Questions lie at the heart of redemption because they allow us to ask about our future and then to change it. One leader, Moses, asked a question about a burning bush and changed all of our lives. He pondered a mystery and the rest became history. Because children are natural questioners, children on Passover become intertwined with the future and with our redemption.