Playing Roles on Pesach

Not "Rolls"

PESACH

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Overheard from a second grade rebbe: "If I don't load the kids up with Pesach preparation, parents think they haven't learned anything all year."

            

I don't know if that is a truism across the board, if many parents think that way, or if just a minority take the Pesach prep as a reflection of the entire school year. But I think such a notion is antithetical to what Pesach is all about.

            

We are doing it all backwards.

            

Any student of Torah (and even the Haggadah) knows that the Torah presents a number of circumstances in which it will either be the parent's responsibility to tell (Shmot 10:2), or to respond to the queries (Shmot 12:26, 13:14, Devarim 6:20), or to engage in a conversation (if at all possible) (Shmot 13:8) with one's child about the great miracles that transpired at the time of the Exodus from Egypt.

            

It stands to reason that if children spend a month preparing for Pesach in school, it is unlikely for them to have many (if any) questions for their parents by the time the holiday rolls around. They know everything that is age-appropriate!

            

Parents who do not prepare for the holiday (as they should!) find themselves asking their children what they learned, and listening to the Torah teachings their children have been robotized to transmit at the Seder.

            

What a sad role reversal!

            

The Mishnah in Pesachim (10:4) says that after pouring the second cup, the child "asks," seemingly suggesting that the inquisitive and bright child will be asking questions unrelated to the Mah Nishtanah through merely observing that the night is different. Some sample questions (mine, not the mishnah's): Why did everyone have their own cup for Kiddush – you didn't even pour any of your kiddish wine in to others' cups! Why did we just pour a second cup? Why did we just break that matzah? Saltwater? What is this seder plate? Why pillows? A kittel?

            

Similarly, Rambam (Laws of Chametz and Matzah 7:1-3) writes of engaging the children in a dialogue, piquing curiosity, and doing things in a way that will encourage questions.

            

If the children are so well-trained, the Seder might still be an event, but it is not a fulfillment of what should be taking place.

            

With the clock having changed recently, the Seder becomes an additional challenge: How do we keep people interested through Maggid, which starts late and ends even later, when we are hungry, tired, and perhaps not in the mood for long discussions, or even just reading all these words?

            

What I am about to suggest is not for the purists. If you are a stickler for reading every word of the Haggadah (though both the Mishnah and Rambam cited above make clear what the 'minimum' is), read no further. You will not like what you read.

            

But if you truly believe the seder is all about the children, fulfilling "Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim" – literally telling over the story, in an exciting way that is engaging to the children, then only use the Haggadah as a guide or when you are stuck.

            

One can argue that even the Mah Nishtanah is a response to a lack of human creativity. The Mishnah says, "If the child has no knowledge then the father teaches him" the Mah Nishtanah.

            

But if we can be creative in our story telling, we will have fulfilled the mitzvah of telling the story in a manner which will be engaging and memorable at the same time. What is more important – telling a story about 5 rabbis in Bnei Brak, or telling a tale of a slave in Egypt?

            

Use Devarim 26:5-8 as a base. But "darshan" it yourself. Get up from the table. Act it out. Build buildings with toy blocks or Lincoln logs. Knock them down and build them again. Bring a glass pitcher filled with red liquid to the table and call it blood. Throw a ton of toy frogs at everyone. Have the little kids pinch the adults and call it lice. Have little kids jump on your lap pretending to be wild animals. Everyone drop dead after saying your last "Moo" or "Baa." Roll up your sleeve and put some pomegranate juice on your arm to simulate a boil. Throw ice at the Lincoln log buildings you'll have built as slaves. Have the local "locusts" remove all the food from the table. Put blindfolds around select "Egyptians" around your table, and have them walk around blindly in the "dark" while the Israelites can see!

            

Pretend your table is the table of the Israelites in Egypt on the last night. Have some people go around the house and scream as if the Death of the Firstborn is taking place. Be very quiet at your table. Bring pillowcases, put a towel or shirt in each one, sling it over your shoulder, announce that Pharaoh has let us free, pick up a piece of matzah and walk out of the house!

            

Get blue bedsheets or towels and hold them in a manner that simulates a body of water, and then have them held as walls of water as the children walk between them (and the angry adults chasing them get covered with the "water").

            

And have an adult mysteriously disappear from the table, put on a costume (coat, sunglasses and hat) only to reappear at the front door when it's time to greet Elijah the Prophet.

            

Make it your most memorable seder ever.

            

Chag Sameach.