Pesah and the Child within Us
Rabbi Yosef Benarroch

This morning I woke up to the singing of my youngest child Yonatan who is four years old. At six in the morning I am hardly a model of concentration, but after a few minutes I managed to make out what song he was singing. He was preparing the "Mah Nishtana" that of course he will be singing at our "Seder" next Saturday night. It was, even at that early hour, music to my ears.

It would be an understatement to say that on Pesah at the Seder children play a vital role. There is the "Mah Nishtana", the four sons, and an entire night that revolves around children. The entire evening's obligation to recite the "Haggadah" is based on the biblical verse "And it shall be when your child asks what is this, and you shall answer him, with a strong hand G-d took us out of Egypt" (Shemot 13:14).

In the Haggadah our children ask the questions and we the adults are obligated to provide the answers. From this verse most commentaries agree that as long as one child asks the questions, then we can proceed with the answer.The one commentary who disagrees with this is Maimonides. It is his view I wish to elaborate on.

This is what Maimonides writes in his code on the laws of "Hametz and Matza" chapter 8:2. "A second cup (of wine) is poured, and here the son asks (Mah Nishtana) and then the reader repeats "Mah Nishtana" why is this night different from all other nights etc..."

If you paid close attention to the words of Maimonides then you should have picked up on a subtle point. It is not enough that the child asks the question, according to Maimonides the parent or leader must then repeat the question, only then can we continue with the answers written in the Haggadah. According to Maimonides one who has not asked the questions has not fulfilled the obligation of the "Haggadah".

I think Maimonides is making us aware of a very important principle. It is very easy to get a child to ask questions. Children by their very nature are inquisitive, wanting to know everything from why the sky is blue to where does G-d live.
What is difficult is to get an adult to ask questions. We are supposed to be the providers of answers, we are supposed to know it all. We get so hung up on this that it becomes very difficult for us to admit mistakes. To admit a mistake we feel is to expose a weakness.

How beautiful the words of Maimonides are, on this night we too must ask. On this night we must find the child within us who is inquisitive who wants to know, who is not a provider but a seeker. In short on this night we must all become children.

In the Talmud there was a famous Rabbi known as "Shemuel Hakatan" Shemuel the small one. There are various opinions in the Talmud as to why he was called the small one. One opinion is that he was childlike. The late Rav Soloveichik was bothered by this description. Shemuel Hakatan was a great Rabbi how could he be referred to as childlike. Rabbi Soloveichik explained that what it means is that he had a side to him that was like a child. He was inquisitive, always wanting to know more, constantly asking questions. With each answer he displayed the excitement of a child, and it spurned him on to the next question.

This is a quality of a child we must never lose. It must accompany us even into our adulthood. I believe that on Pesah at the Seder we are reminded of this quality within us.

One of the commentaries asks an interesting question. Why is it that on this night we have four cups of wine? After all the four cups are not mentioned in the Torah. Our Rabbis instituted four cups because in the Torah there are four different words used to describe redemption. Each cup of wine represents one of those words. If this is so then why did our Rabbis choose four cups of wine, why not four Matzot or four pieces of Maror?

The answer is that wine plays an important role in bringing us to a certain mindset on this night. With each glass of wine we turn back into ourselves. A layer of our facade is shed and hopefully by the end of the night we are like children our inhibitions gone. Wine has the power of bringing out the child within us, it has the ability to bring us to joy and let our souls soar to a new height, it is for this reason that we have four cups.

A story is told of a child who one day was playing a game with his friends. They placed a plank on a wall, and the object of the game was to climb to the top o f the plank. Each of his friends took a turn, but when they got halfway up they fell to the ground. The boy took his turn and managed to climb right to the top of the plank. His grandfather was watching and so he asked the boy how he succeeded when everyone else failed. The boy answered "It was simple, whne the other boys climbed they kept looking down. When they saw how high they were they got dizzy and fell off. But when I climbed I did not look down rather I looked up to the heavens. When I realized how far I was from heaven all I wanted to do was just go higher and higher until I reached the top of the plank".

How beautiful it would be if this coming Pesah we be not only surrounded by children, but by the children within us. As children we should look to the heavens and want to go higher and higher. Let the questions flow and next year may we all merit to celebrate our "Seder" in Jerusalem.