The Wicked Child Asks the Best Question

Soon we’ll be reading about the arba’ah banim, the four children, at the Seder.  I’ve always felt that the רשע rasha, the so-called wicked child, gets treated unfairly.  On closer reflection I actually want to intensify my reaction to say that the rasha asks just about the most important question there is.  He, she – deserves a careful answer.

What’s the question?  Invoking the words of the Torah (Exodus 12:26) the rasha asks מה העבודה הזאת לכם Ma ha’avodah hazot lakhem.  What does this mean to you?  This ritual, this worship, this whole enterprise – what does it mean to you?

A contemporary artistic rendering of the four children

According to the Haggadah, because the child removes him or herself from what’s going on and denies God, we’re supposed to say to such a child, this is because of what God did for me when I left Egypt.  Implication – had the child been there, the child would not have been redeemed.

What’s going on here?  First of all, assumptions.  The child is removing him or herself.  The child is denying God.  Then an answer that, if anything, is going to move the child further away.

We may find it more comfortable to hear the question of the hakham, the wise child – "what are all the things I have to do?"  

"What do I do" is an important question, but it probably won't have the same degree of traction unless it comes with a deep, personal understanding of why.  In 2016, can you think of a more important question than a child, of any age, frankly – turning to someone of previous generations and asking, “Why do you do this?  What does all of this mean to you?”  

What an opportunity!  Why would our inclination be to be annoyed by the question?  Why wouldn’t we seize an opportunity to talk to a loved one about what our tradition, our people, our land, our philosophy, all mean to us?

Unless we’re not sure what it all means to us because we haven’t given it much thought.  Or we have our own misgivings and ambivalence.  Or some other cluster of reasons.

We can’t afford to give angry answers to this question.  We can’t afford to ignore the question.  Rather, we should think carefully about it and we should find thoughtful ways of answering it.  

And even if we’re not actually asked the question, we should find opportunities – with children and grandchildren, ours and others’ (judiciously of course) – to raise it ourselves.  And we should understand that responding to the question “what does this mean to you” – whether someone else asks or we raise it – is just the beginning of a conversation.  

This concept is vast and I’ll just sketch out some ideas – related to a few major areas.

The first – Jewish rituals.  We can get specific – and talk about what the matza or the maror, etc. mean to us.  Or we can have a conversation about our relationship with Jewish tradition overall.  

Personally, I’m enjoying a new phase in the lives of my children – all of whom are in their 20’s.  I don’t wait for them to ask “What does this mean to you?” though sometimes they ask.  

Occasionally in a text message, through a picture, in phone conversations or in person when I see them or by forwarding an article or whatever – I raise it.  I want my children to see not just the value, not just the pleasure, but the struggles that I have with aspects of our tradition.  And the responses are as varied as their personalities and sensibilities and the circumstances of the particular moment.

We are watching a generation emerge as adults in the world who are less likely than ever to accept “this is just the way it’s done” as an answer.

So I’ve said, kind of like a broken record, that the way that I see it, Jewish tradition provides a template for improving our lives and improving the world.  

We’ve talked about, for example, the dynamic on Passover of recognizing ourselves as the victims and what it means when the victims gain power, not just over themselves, but over others.  

We’ve talked about aligning details with vision -  how to prioritize resources of time, love and dollars when it comes to buying just the right matzah, giving tzedakah, creating a seder experience that is welcoming for everyone around the Seder.  So, for example, if you spend more time worrying about the food on the table than the people around the table, maybe it’s time for some recalibration.

When was the last time that you spoke about what the Seder means to you?  About what this holiday means to you?  About what any of our tradition means to you?  You can’t outsource that conversation to the rabbi, though I and other rabbis are certainly prepared to help you refine your thinking. But this is your conversation, to have with your loved ones – whether or not they explicitly ask to have it.

Second area – which I hinted at and I’ll get more explicit now – has to do with our relationship to Israel.  The question applied in this area is what does Israel mean to you, to us?  Several articles have recently been written about the growing gap between Israeli and American Jews, particularly the younger generations.

Daniel Gordis, Donniel Hartman and others have been weighing in regarding some possible reasons for this.  Including less of a shared cultural vocabulary than existed between Israelis and Americans 60 years ago.  Also a growing disconnected ideologically and politically between an American Jewish population becoming increasingly liberal and autonomy-driven and an Israeli population becoming increasingly nationalistic.

It is crucial, I believe, for all the generations to be talking to each other about their connection to Israel – to get past trivialities, to get past Israel as Disneyland for Jews – and not just talking but visiting together. 

The group of families that I traveled with several summers ago got a flavor for Israel and wrote about their experiences in a blog that I highly recommend - experiences of Jerusalem, of Ashkelon and our sister synagogue Netzach Israel that we visited and the shelters built there, of Muslims breaking Ramadan fasts in parks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, of mystics and soldiers, etc. 

So the “what does Israel mean to us” question is one which is informed by the range of what we read and experience.

I hope that we will take the time to help our connection to Israel evolve to the point where we recognize, celebrate, and share her successes and her shortcomings – where she doesn’t need to be perfect or blameless in order to be profoundly worthy of our support.  

“This impossible country,” as the protagonist in David Grossman’s novel, To the End of Earth, refers to Israel – deserves for us to devote the time to articulate what she means to us, to ourselves and to others.

I hope we’re talking in our families about what the American electoral process means to us, about what the issues mean to us, about what American democracy means to us, how to balance the importance of social issues, economic issues and foreign policy, including Israel.  I hope we’re discussing more than the idiosyncrasies of each candidate and the most outrageous recent comment made by this one or that one.

All of these topics – what our tradition means to us, what Israel means to us, what America means to us – are not best left to occasional soliloquies – they are the foundation of ongoing conversation and engagement with the people around us, specifically those who may be looking to us for some direction – children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

The question of the rasha is actually the perfect question to ask yourself as you try to make sense of the world.  The child of 5 or 15 or 25 or older who asks that question may well be wondering how a trusted figure makes sense of the world – not so he or she can copy it – but so he or she can consider it as part of an evolving sensibility.  So be prepared.

Whoever chose the haftarah for this morning, the Shabbat before Pesach, gave us the chance to consider a mind-blowing possibility, one with vast repercussions for our continuity and excellence as a people and as a species.  And that possibility is expressed by the words, והשיב לב אבות על בנים ולב בנים על אבותם v’heishiv lev avot al banim v’lev banim al avotam.

God saying to the prophet Malachi, one day, I will send the prophet Elijah to the people.  He will reconcile parents with children and children with their parents, is how the JPS Bible translates it.

But the actual expression of the Hebrew is subtler – more realistic and I believe more helpful.  Elijah will turn the hearts of parents toward their children and the hearts of children toward their parents. 

That doesn’t necessarily mean reconciliation.  It means receptivity.  I turn my heart toward you and you turn your heart toward me.

If a child or a grandchild or anyone else, for that matter, turns his or her heart toward us enough to ask, “What does this mean to you?” ...

The last thing we should do is turn our hearts away.  This is the invitation to open our hearts as we share the ups and downs, the ins and outs, of what our faith, our traditions, our lands – mean to us.

If we’re asked, great.  If we’re not asked – well, see the response to child number four, the one who doesn’t ask.  את פתח לו At p’tach lo.  You – WE - need to start the conversation.  

Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck on Shabbat Hagadol 5776, April 16, 2016