The Four Adults

Haggadah Section: -- Four Children

It is a tradition at the Seder to include a section entitled “the Four Children.” We have turned it upside down, to remind us that as adults we have a lot to learn from youth. From the U.S. to South Africa to Palestine, young people have been, and are, at the forefront of most of the social justice movements on this planet. If there is a mix of ages of people at your seder, perhaps some of the older people would like to practice asking questions, and the younger folks would like to respond:

The Angry Adult – Violent and oppressive things are happening to me, the people I love and people I don’t even know. Why can’t we make the people in power hurt the way we are all hurting? Hatred and violence can never overcome hatred and violence. Only love and compassion can transform our world. 

Cambodian Buddhist monk Maha Ghosananda, whose family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, has written:  It is a law of the universe that retaliation, hatred, and revenge only continue the cycle and never stop it. Reconciliation does not mean that we surrender rights and conditions, but means rather that we use love in all our negotiations. It means that we see ourselves in the opponent -- for what is the opponent but a being in ignorance, and we ourselves are also ignorant of many things. Therefore, only loving kindness and right-mindfulness can free us.

The Ashamed Adult – I’m so ashamed of what my people are doing that I have no way of dealing with it?!? We must acknowledge our feelings of guilt, shame and disappointment, while ultimately using the fire of injustice to fuel us in working for change. We must also remember the amazing people in all cultures, who are working to dismantle oppression together everyday. 

Marianne Williamson said:  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of G-d. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of G-d that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The Fearful Adult – Why should I care about ‘those people’ when they don’t care about me? If I share what I have, there won’t be enough and I will end up suffering. We must challenge the sense of scarcity that we have learned from capitalism and our histories of oppression. If we change the way food, housing, education, and resources are distributed, we could all have enough.

Martin Luther King said:  It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.

The Compassionate Adult – How can I struggle for justice with an open heart? How can we live in a way that builds the world we want to live in, without losing hope? This is the question that we answer with our lives.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:  Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. And yet being alive is no answer to the problems of living. To be or not to be is not the question. The vital question is: how to be and how not to be…to pray is to recollect passionately the perpetual urgency of this vital question.

Anne Frank wrote:  It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all of my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too; I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out."

Each of us bears in our own belly the angry one, the ashamed one, the frightened one, the compassionate one. Which of these children shall we bring to birth? Only if we can deeply hear all four of them can we truthfully answer the fourth question. Only if we can deeply hear all four of them can we bring to birth a child, a people that is truly wise.

--------------

from the Love and Justice in Times of War Haggadah , compiled and created by Dara Silverman and Micah Bazant

Source:  
Love and Justice Haggadah
Clip Featured in Haggadot'sGreatest Hits Haggadah
Edit Clip
Greatest Hits Haggadah
HA
Haggadot
Table of contents
    Introduction
  • OurJewishCommunity.org Introduction
  • Seder Plate
  • Silent Meditation on Candelighting
  • A Seder plate for current events
  • Passover Themes Meaningful to Interfaith Families
  • The Cup of Deliverance- Second Cup of Wine
  • Matzah
    • Kadesh
  • Wine
  • Four Cups of Wine
  • Traditional - Kadesh
  • Kadesh
    • Urchatz
  • Handwashing - Urchatz
  • Urchatz
  • Hand Washing
  • Urchatz
    • Karpas
  • Karpas
  • Karpas
  • Karpas Kavannah
  • Dip Parsley in Saltwater
    • Yachatz
  • Breaking the matzah - hunger
  • The Middle Matzah Horcrux
  • Entering the Broken World
  • Yachatz - Break the Middle Matzah
    • Maggid - Beginning
  • Maggid
    • -- Four Questions
  • Traditional - Four Questions
  • Four Questions in Fictional Languages
    • -- Four Children
  • Four Daughters
  • Four Children
  • the four children
  • Four Children
  • The Four Adults
  • Golden Girls Wise Child
    • -- Exodus Story
  • Natalia Kadish
  • Exodus Story
  • Geulah
  • The Memory of Pesach: A Tale of Two Stories
  • Min Hametzar - Calling Out from the Narrow Place
  • The 21 Jump Street
  • Letter to My Old Master
  • DAYENU: An Exercise in Gratitude
    • -- Ten Plagues
  • Ten ancient and modern plagues
  • Circle of Plagues
  • The Journey Towards Liberation - The Hard Parts
  • Ten Plagues - Frog
  • 10 Plagues, Amsterdam Haggadah, 1738, NLI
    • -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
  • dayeinu graph
  • Maggid Closing - Dayenu
  • Pesach Matzah Maror
  • The Passover Symbols, The Orange & Miriam's Cup
  • Dayenu with English Hebrew and Transliteration
  • love
  • Opening the door for Elijah
    • The Second Cup
    • Who Knows One?
      • Rachtzah
    • Rachtzah
      • Motzi-Matzah
    • Motzi-Matzah
    • DIY Matzoh Baking
    • What is the meaning of matzah?
    • Eating the Matza
    • Why Flatbread?
      • Maror
    • Horseradish
    • The Journey Towards Liberation - The complicated parts
    • Marror- Daniela Hojda
    • maror
    • Maror
    • Maror Cocktail
      • Koreich
    • Hillel Sandwich
    • Mixing the Bitter and the Sweet
    • The Future, the Past, and the Present
    • who invented the sandwhich
    • Hillel's Sandwich
      • Shulchan Oreich
    • A Fish Tale
    • The Meal
    • Shulchan Orech
    • Passover Around The World Trivia
    • Dinner is Served
      • Tzafun
    • Afikomen - bread of subjectivity
    • The Afikoman
      • Bareich
    • Opening the Door for Elijah
    • After Such A Fine Story: Blessing After Eating the Seder Meal
    • Blessing for the third cup of wine
    • Miriam's Cup
    • Miriam's Cup by Miriam Jerris
    • Ruth's Cup: A New Passover Ritual Celebrating Jewish Diversity
      • Hallel
    • Sharing Responsibility
    • To Say Nothing But Thank You
    • Zeroah
      • Commentary / Readings
    • Praise the Contrary and Its Defenders
      • Nirtzah
    • NEXT YEAR IN... : A Note to my Future Self
    • won't you celebrate with me, by Lucille Clifton
    • Nirtzah
    • Nirtzah
    • Neertzah
    • Echad Mi Yodea -- Who Knows One -- Hebrew / English / Transliteration
    • Counting the Omer
      • Songs
    • One Little Goat - חַד גַּדְיָא
    • Miriams Song
    • Adir Hu
    • Hatikva
    • Ki Lo Naeh
    • Inspired to create
      your own Haggadah?

      Make your own Haggadah and share with other Seder lovers around the world

      Have an idea
      for a clip?

      People like you bring their creativity to Haggadot.com when they share their ideas in a clip

      Support Us
      with your donation

      Help us build moments of meaning and connection through
      home-based Jewish rituals.

      OUR TOP CONTRIBUTORS

      contributor image
      Esther Kustanowitz
      4 Haggadahs44 Clips
      contributor image
      JQ International
      1 Haggadah40 Clips
      contributor image
      MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
      5 Haggadahs109 Clips
      contributor image
      18Doors
      1 Haggadah13 Clips
      contributor image
      JewishBoston
      1 Haggadah78 Clips
      contributor image
      Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
      1 Haggadah36 Clips
      contributor image
      American Jewish World Service
      1 Haggadah44 Clips
      contributor image
      JewBelong
      3 Haggadahs57 Clips
      contributor image
      Repair the World
      12 Clips
      contributor image
      HIAS
      5 Haggadahs48 Clips
      contributor image
      Be'chol Lashon
      2 Haggadahs27 Clips
      contributor image
      PJ Library
      1 Haggadah17 Clips
      contributor image
      Jewish World Watch
      3 Haggadahs42 Clips
      contributor image
      Secular Synagogue
      10 Clips
      contributor image
      SVIVAH
      1 Haggadah9 Clips
      contributor image
      The Blue Dove Foundation
      20 Clips
      contributor image
      ReformJudaism.org
      24 Clips
      contributor image
      Jewish Emergent Network
      1 Haggadah22 Clips

      Passover Guide

      Hosting your first Passover Seder? Not sure what food to serve? Curious to
      know more about the holiday? Explore our Passover 101 Guide for answers
      to all of your questions.

      Haggadot

      Haggadot.com by Recustom, is a free resource for all backgrounds and experiences. Consider making a donation to help support the continuation of this free platform.

      Copyright © 2024 Custom and Craft Jewish Rituals Inc, dba Recustom, dba Haggadot.com.
      All Rights Reserved. 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. EIN: 82-4765805.