Pesach 5775 - English

Rabbi Daniela Szuster, 

B´nei Israel Congregation, San José, Costa Rica

The Teaching Strategy of the Pesach Seder

How should we educate our children?  How do we pass on our values and life messages?  Since time immemorial, there have always been strategies to reach the heart of children and help them become good people.  Especially in modern times, we have hundreds of theories to guide us into giving a successful and excellent education.  Today, I’d like to share with you the teaching strategy that arises from the Pesach Seder, conceived thousands of years ago by our sages.

First, we could say that the Pesach Seder (ritual dinner of the two first Passover nights), with its different steps, symbols, rituals and stories, takes us back to the past and leads us to relive the history of our ancestors.  Just like what happens with the time machine imagined by children, or with all the different and symbolic games of play-acting, the dynamic of the Pesach Seder is common to the children’s language.  This means that in order to reach small children, we have to immerse ourselves in their world of game and fantasy.

Some of the rituals are purposefully designed to stir children’s interest; for example, the fact of dipping the vegetable twice in water, or not doing the blessing with the first washing of hands. Several of the customs expect to catch children’s attention, making them wonder why something different is happening that night.  With this, the sages teach us about the importance of drawing children’s attention, to cause them to wonder about their surroundings.

This idea is linked to a central concept of the Seder: the formulation of questions.  The sages want to make children ask questions, by whatever means; if there are no questions, then the telling of the Pesach story cannot start.  So, at the beginning of the Haggadah (guidebook for the Pesach dinner) we find the traditional Mah nishtanah, sung by the youngest able child at the table, who makes the four questions concerning the differences that separate the Pesach night from all other nights of the year.

Isidor Isaac Rabi, Jewish North American physicist who won the Nobel Prize, used to say:  “My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to.  Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: ‘So? Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother; ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘did you ask a good question today?’  That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist.”  Getting children to make good questions turns them into intelligent and deep thinkers, critical of the reality around them.  But above all, as is Pesach’s great objective, instills in them the sense of freedom.

There is a story in the Haggadah of four sons, four very different children with different views and behaviors; the Haggadah is sensitive to the differences among human beings and wisely understands them.  It is written in the book of Mishlei (Proverbs): “Train up a child in the way he should go…” (22:6). This constitutes a core principle in education: you cannot treat all students as equals, without appreciating their individual anxieties, abilities, and potentialities.  If we want them to understand us, we must approach them from the place they are in their path to learning.  Even about the son who does not know how to ask, it is written in the Haggadah: “You must open up for him”; he is never discriminated, he is spoken to and taught, in the hope that someday he will find a way to overcome his fears and venture to ask.

The Pesach night also has us a bit of magic and illusion, so important in children’s lives: waiting for the arrival of Elijah the prophet.  We ask our children to open the door, hoping that the prophet will visit our home that night, drink from the cup of wine served especially for him and, with his arrival, bring us news of peace, justice, and equity everywhere for all humanity.  How many of you will ever forget that magical moment, standing at the door, eagerly looking out, wishing to embrace Eliyahu Hanavi!

Finally, we have the closing of the Seder: the afikoman.  Without a doubt, the moment most heartily expected by the children, which helps them stay awake during the long night.  Explicitly, it is a game in which children must search for a piece of hidden Matzah and win a prize.  Without the afikoman, the Pesach Seder cannot end; without the game, interest, presence, motivation, and joy of children, the Seder has no meaning whatsoever.

These are just some strategies handed down by our sages with the Pesach Seder.  They are tactics that help us raise our children with our same values, giving us real access to their hearts.  Always, with the great goal in mind to help them become honorable people, people who know how to formulate good questions, be thoughtful and critical, and above all else, people who are intrinsically free and advocates for the freedom of all human beings.

Pesach kasher ve’sameach!