Each of the celebratory days in our calendar bring their own, unique energies. Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres celebrate joy. Shavuos celebrates commitment. Our post-Biblical festivals, Chanukah and Purim, celebrate light over darkness and connecting with G-d even when He can’t always be felt so evidently on the surface. Even days like Lag Ba’omer and Tu B’shvat fuel our passion and growth. How, though, should we accurately describe Pesach’s vibe?
On one hand, the topic of freedom is central to our understanding of Pesach and its host of rituals and customs. The Torah tells us to safeguard the “Festival of the Spring” and make the Pesach offering because that’s when G-d liberated us from Egypt. We drink four cups of wine to recall the four expressions of redemption by which G-d redeemed us from slavery. We recline at our Seder to symbolize how unbound we are today to Pharaoh’s oppression of yesterday. And the list goes on.
A Different Narrative
But the Torah also tells us: “When it will be that your children will ask you…” (Exodus 12:26). And again, “You shall tell your child on that day…” (Ibid. 13:8). And again, “When your child will ask you tomorrow…” (Ibid. 13:14). And yet again, “You shall tell your child, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh…’” (Deuteronomy 6:21). As much as there’s an emphasis on celebrating our freedom from slavery and oppression, there’s another, and very different, narrative altogether: Pesach ushers in the unique energy of education.
In discussing the practice of infusing our Seder with questions, the Kedushas Levi, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchov, teaches that each time a child asks his or her parents a question, he or she is essentially making a mockery of them; children are seemingly inferior in knowledge and life experiences to their parents, yet they expect them to stoop down to their “lower” intellectual capacities and answer them. Pesach teaches us to believe in our worthiness and capability of learning and growing. Just as G-d contracted His infinite Essence prior to creating the finite universe to make space for finitude, so too, our parents “contact” their knowledge and engage with our endless series of questions and curiosities despite the great comprehension divide. On Pesach, we celebrate that we’re each worthy of receiving answers.
But if we’re asking questions solely for the purpose of receiving answers, we’re missing the point. How is this night different? Why do we eat specific foods and abstain from others? What’s the point of dipping our foods? How should we lean during our meal? Yes, the hows and whys of the Seder (and of life, in general) are important pieces of knowledge, and they each have the potential to generate lengthy discussions. Perhaps, though, we’re focusing on the wrong questions.
Why Is This Night Different?
Why and how this night is different from all others is sourced in the very premise that it can be different. Tonight can be different from whatever might have transpired yesterday – or last week, or last year. Just as the moon waxes and wanes each night, reality doesn’t have to be confined to a stagnant, predictable unfolding. We don’t have to confine ourselves to what was. The numerous, and highly detailed, questions of Seder Night are far less about the details than they’re about the very definition of what it means to be, and to live, freely. To be free means to be ever-changing like the moon, living with intentionality and not just going through the motions of life because “it says so in the textbook.” Knowing what to expect in life is comforting; the predictability and consistency of the rising and setting of the sun can feel reassuring. But slavery can also start to become comfortable if we’re confined to it long enough. To be a slave means that we can’t become anything greater than what we’re defined as right now.
The Powerhouse of Education
Pesach is tightly rooted in the parent-child relationship because to be a good parent means to see each of our children as uniquely individual; to hold space for them where they are and not where we think they should be at a given moment in time. King Solomon, the wisest of all men, spoke of the importance of educating our children according to their own personalities, strengths, and needs, so that as they develop through life, they won’t deviate from their inherent ways (Proverbs 22:6). We must educate our children in ways so that what they learn becomes their nature – thereby revealing their authentic nature that’s already there, lying beneath the surface.
Do we empower our children with the curiosity and the courage to ask questions and challenge the status quo, or do our behaviors condition them to give in to those external expectations and pressures, and settle for the nature they observe on the surface? Do we empower them with a growth mindset to push beyond what they think is possible to become their fullest selves, or do we teach them to adopt a fixed mindset and accept reality as they understand it at that particular moment in time?
Education needs to be opportunity-driven, not obstacle-focused. Our schools need to truly internalize that pedagogy and the many details of hows and whys of teaching the curriculum are only as important as the philosophy that students can evolve. We can have the best assessment strategies and the most up-to-date technological resources; we can have the crispest mission statements and use the most inclusive language in our media; but ultimately, we need to empower students to ask how this “night” can be different for them – not just as a product of the system, but as an individual.
The Courage to Question
It takes a great measure of courage to ask questions – about the world and about ourselves. We’re all so conditioned to avoid challenging the status quo and, instead, we merely seek answers. We want others to tell us how something needs to be, and look, and feel. Pesach empowers us to create spaces for those, sometimes difficult, conversations. It offers us the opportunity to question how and what we know, and maybe even re-evaluate our sense of self and our definitions of what success can be. Because, even if we sit alone or if others at our Seder are wiser than us and don’t need our answers, our Sages still call on us to ask the questions of Seder Night to ourselves. Because, in truth, we’re never too alone, or too distant, or too whatever, to rise higher and flip the script that’s handed to us.
We left Egypt in haste then (Exodus 12:11), and we can do so again now. Redemption only takes a nanosecond to happen because freedom is a choice. How we actualize that freedom over time may be a gradual process, because learning takes time (and we need to give ourselves that time and space to grow). Ma nishtana – how will tonight be different? How will we dare to be different as the moon continues to wax?
Kosher, zeesin, and a freilichen Pesach!