What Will Your Question Be?

The preparations had been going on for weeks: shopping, eating up the remaining bread products, the annual spring cleaning of the pantry, refrigerator and freezer; and the schlepping of dishes, pots, pans and miscellaneous gear up from the basement. 

The tables had been set for days. Then there’s the cooking, baking, and more cooking – it started weeks ago. Out-of-town family have arrived. Friends and our children would soon arrive.  Passover, or Pesach as it is known in Hebrew, is upon us. 

A few days ago, I was reviewing our new Haggadah (the special book used as the script, as it were, for the Passover Seder.) This year’s is a new one written by a friend and rabbinic colleague from Israel. Yet it wasn’t just the reality of a new book for this year’s Seder that held my attention. It was a line in the text of the Haggadah narrative that caught me. In Exodus chapter 12 we read: This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread . . .“Yocu shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants. . . And when you enter the land . . . you shall observe this rite. And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to Adonai, because God passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt . . .”

“And when your children ask you . . .” This is the basis of so much of the ritual which will be observed in Jewish homes the world over. Each year I invite those at our Seder to add their own questions to those handed down for nearly two millennia, and known as “the Four Questions.” Each year, the questions are fascinating, often shaped by the state of the world in which we are living. (I can only imagine what this evening’s query will bring!) 

Those words, “And when your children ask,” takes on new meaning for our family, for at this year’s Seder, for the very first time in my life, four generations of Gurvis family members will be seated. As I held my one-month old grandson Ian the other day, I wondered, “What will you ask me? What will your ask your parents in years to come? Tonight, perhaps we’ll hear a squeal or a coo from Ian, which I will undoubtedly interpret as his question as the youngest person at the table. According to the rabbis who framed this entire ritual nearly two millennia ago, it is that question which is necessary to kick off the retelling.

Tonight’s gathering will have a deeper meaning than any before. To be blessed with the first of an entirely new generation is surely a moment to savor. As we rejoice in our celebration of freedom, we will reflect on the lessons of Passover for us this year: the plight of refugees, the degradation of human beings in so many corners of our world, ongoing enslavement in many forms, and so much more. 

I, for one, will be reflecting on words I spoke to my grandson when I first held him a bit over a month ago. As I held him close, I whispered, “Ian, we are so thrilled to welcome you. I am sorry for the state of the world into which you have been born. But you and I are going to do something to change that.”