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What if our teens don't care about the 4 questions? (מה נשתנה)
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Part 2 of Ma Nishtana - why it's not just for kids
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The manishana, the four questions that
we open with in discussing the Passover
story are described by many commentaries
as this ethos in Judaism where we are
all accepting of questions and Judaism
is about questions and is about
challenging ourselves and getting to a
deeper
understanding. The irony here is these
are not such complicated deep
philosophical questions. Why is this
knight different than all other knights?
Why do we eat matzah? Why do we eat
marur? Why do we lean to the left? Why
do we dip multiple times? These don't
seem like deep philosophical or
complicated questions, but rather quite
elementary. But the way the Abarbanel
explains it is that when we analyze
these four questions, what we see here
is a very stark contrast, almost a
dichotomy. We look at the matzah in
contrast to ktz. Matzah is the poor
man's bread and on some level it
represents the antithesis of freedom.
It's cheap bread that has to be baked
really quickly because you don't have
enough money to leave the fire on like
the commentaries in the Talmud explain.
You look at the mur bitter herbs again
reminding us of slavery of the
bitterness of slavery. But then you talk
about the leaning to the left which is
something of royalty which represents
freedom. You talk about dipping multiple
times that represents freedom as well
not just once but
twice. So we see so many different
things at this seder that is confusing.
We're getting mixed messaging here. Is
tonight a night to lament our slavery to
remember our slavery? or is at night to
remember our
freedom. And if we can find freedom,
inner freedom, and discuss freedom and
anticipate freedom even in confusing
times, even when life seems to be giving
us mixed
messaging, then we can be truly free.
It's easy to feel free when that is the
obvious obvious environment on the
outside. It's easy to know what to do
and what to pray for when things are
obviously difficult on the outside, but
when things are confusing on the
outside, things look good and they also
look less than perfect and we get mixed
messages. We feel like we're caught in
two different worlds. We now have the
opportunity to shine as our best selves
as we discuss the Pesak story. That's my
story and I'm sticking to it.