At the Seder, Start With a Question: What Does Your Child Say?

"I'd like to get information about Shmuel Cohen in room 208, please," the elderly man asked the operator who answered the phone at the hospital.

"Right away," came the courteous reply. "I'll check with the doctor." A few minutes of muffled whispers on the line, and the nurse returned to the call: "Sir, thank God his blood pressure is fine, the lab work looks good, and Mr. Cohen will be discharged tomorrow."

The elderly man sounded very pleased. The clerk politely asked, "Are you a family member?"

"No. I'm Shmuel Cohen," the old man grumbled. "None of the doctors will volunteer any information to me, so I had to call"...

* * *

The Seder night and Passover are the right time to fulfill the Torah's command "And you shall tell your child." In the familiar wording of the Haggadah: "We pour the second cup, and here the child asks." The Four Questions are asked, and we answer: "We were slaves." Then comes the turn of the Four Sons the Torah speaks about. The Maggid section spells out each child's question—when they know how to ask—and the answer we give them.

And we may ask a simple question: What does this mean?

If we're the ones describing the Four Sons the Torah speaks about, and we're the ones providing the answers—and not only that, in many of our Haggadot (outside the original text) we even add a fifth and sixth child—then why do the children need to ask the Four Questions themselves, when we go ahead and do all the asking and answering out loud for each one?...

Many teens in prewar Poland went out to work at a young age. Crushing poverty forced many parents to send their sons to help support the household; otherwise the burden could break the family. One yeshiva boy, sitting on the benches of the study hall, envied his friends who headed to work each morning, came home with a decent wage at the end of the week or month—each according to his arrangement—and handed it to their parents with the joy of hard-earned effort. He wanted that too.

From thought to action: he closed his Gemara, took a job in a shop, and became an apprentice. Within two days his father found out. He ordered him back to the study hall, threatened and pleaded—and nothing helped. The son was determined to work for a living and help his father with expenses.

Around that time, the revered sage Rabbi Yisrael Meir of Radin came to their city, Lodz. The father took his son and went to see the great Kohen so he would instruct the boy to return to learning. To the father, the Torah from his son's lips was worth more than gold and silver. He laid out his case before the Chafetz Chaim, confident the sage would immediately nod in agreement and tell the son that his father was right.

But the rabbi of Radin had a different spirit about him. "And what does the boy say?" he asked gently. His kind eyes warmed the son and encouraged him to share, in a trembling voice, what had driven him to this decision. He described the hardship and pressure, the poverty and lack. His heart ached for his struggling parents, and he wanted to help with the family income.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir listened and agreed. He praised the boy for his good heart and willingness to help at home. Then he explained sweetly: "See, my son, the trials outside are immense. Your father is obligated by Torah law to provide for his household—he has no choice. But you are not obligated in this, and you must not place yourself in such a test. Return to the study hall, and from Heaven you will see blessing in your spiritual efforts."

And the son returned, eyes shining. The great sage of Israel understood his heart...

It seems this message is worth instilling in our children at all times. Even when the questions and answers are spelled out clearly in the Torah, even when the lesson before us seems obvious in education, we shouldn't just drop it on them from above. First, we need to listen—"And what does the child say?" Let them ask the questions, let them feel heard.

Afterwards, we can expand and explain to each child according to their question and their understanding. But the main thing is the child's sense of being at the center. They are not an "object" we need to "talk at" just because it's written in the Haggadah...

* * *

The idea we suggested in the wording of the Haggadah is just one approach. But we can say plainly that it applies to everyone around us in daily life. No one likes the feeling of doctors whispering in corners and leaving the patient out—until he has to call anonymously to find out what's going on with him...

Even when we're sure the person in front of us—a child, a sibling, an in-law, a relative, a neighbor—has acted wrongly, if we first ask why they did what they did, we'll almost certainly gain twice over. If they're wise, they'll likely see they erred and admit it, and they'll appreciate that we didn't embarrass them by calling it out. And even if we do need to point out the mistake, that feeling of being heard will make the criticism land much more softly.

A "wise" person lets the other explain first—"what he says"...