On The Importance of Questions

Haggadah Section: -- Four Questions

On The Importance Of Questions
The eldest reads:
Nobel Prize winning physicist Isaac Isadore Rabi’s mother did not ask him: “What did you learn in school today?” each day. She asked him: “Did you ask a good question today?”

More Questions
The oldest teenager, or the person older than 19, yet closest to the teen years reads:
Why do the same questions get asked each year?
I probably have more questions than the youngest, why does a child ask the questions?
How come we ask these questions, but you rarely give a straight answer?
 

Some Answers
Questioning is a sign of freedom, and so we begin with questions.
To ritualize only one answer would be to deny that there can be many, often conflicting answers. To think that life is only black and white, or wine and Maror, bitter or sweet, or even that the cup is half empty or half full is to enslave ourselves to simplicity.
Each of us feels the challenge to search for our own answers. The ability to question is only the first stage of freedom. The search for answers is the next.
Can we fulfill the promise of the Exodus in our own lives if we do not search for our own answers?
Does every question have an answer? Is the ability to function without having all the answers one more stage of liberation? Can we be enslaved to an obsessive search for the answer?
Do you have the answer?

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Table of contents
    Introduction
  • Night of Questions!
  • "Седер на Песах". авторка Зоя Черкаська-Ннаді
  • #MyKeshetSeder
  • Asian Jewish Seder Plate
    • Introduction, Maror, Koreich
  • A Civil War Passover
    • Urchatz
  • Urchatz: A Deeper Dive into Handwashing at the Seder
    • Yachatz
  • It Cracks
    • -- Four Questions
  • On The Importance of Questions
  • The Four Questions translated and transliterated from Hebrew and Yiddish
  • The History of the Four Questions
  • MAZON's Fifth Question 2023
    • -- Four Children
  • Four Children
  • The Four Children
    • -- Exodus Story
  • Passover From Miriam's Eyes
    • -- Ten Plagues
  • ChatGPT - 10 Plagues as WWE
    • -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
  • Being LGBTQ and Enough: A Queer Dayeinu
  • Second Cup: Stages of Life
    • Motzi-Matzah
  • Stained Glass Matzah
    • Bareich
  • The Third Cup: Transformation
  • Pour Out Your Wrath
    • Nirtzah
  • Cleanup Time
    • Commentary / Readings
  • Excerpts from “Passover Nights,” Hava Shapiro (1925)
  • A Prayer for the Defenders of Ukraine!
  • Reflection Questions/Preguntas Para Reflexionar
  • Clarity in Liberation
  • Memorials/Bereavement at the Passover Seder
  • Blessing for Pets
    • Songs
  • Miriam’s Dance Party
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