Seder Challenge 2014: What actually happened

I got the boys to nap in the afternoon.  I was of two minds about this.  On one hand, maybe just put them to bed at 8pm and they'll have seder when they are old enough.  On the other hand, they are old enough to remember it is special and exciting, and with a nap, they'll be able to manage.  It was a challenge to get them to sleep, but it did pay off.  They were alert, not cranky, and not wild.  We were guests for both sedarim this year.  When we are home, we do one seder with just the family and no guests so that we can tailor it completely to the children's needs.  This year, Sarah was old enough to participate with the general seder, but Ari did the boys the first night as soon as he captured their attention (I wore a hat that kids get from the matza factory and was asked why I was wearing it a few times, which segued into conversation about how telling the story of the night is best done via questions and answers), pretty soon after Karpas.  Chana sat next to me the first night, and as you know, I had been wracking my brain the previous week trying to figure out what would be the most interesting thing for her during the seder.

Sometimes you just get lucky.  As I sat next to her, I asked her questions as I thought of them.  I tried to think of questions that she might find interesting.  At one point, I asked her why she thought blood was the first plague.  Like what was Hashem trying to accomplish with the plagues, and how was blood a good first choice.  Chana gave a solid explanation about how the Nile was the source of all their sustenance, how it was a deity, and how blood would have a powerful emotional effect.  I asked her why she thought frogs would be next.  This question really captivated her and for the next hour, she hypothesized about each plague and why it was chosen and why that order.  She was more satisfied with some of her answers than others, and she made a few points that I had never thought of.  It was a fantastic discussion, completely driven by her and her interest, and she kept coming up with theories and was eager to discuss it.  It was everything I hoped and wished for in terms of her being excited, involved, and stimulated.

The second night I put the boys to bed before the seder.  Ari sat next to Chana and I sat next to Sarah.  It was a really profound experience for me to sit next to Sarah.  We sort of had our own little chevrusa during the seder.  It's remarkable to be at the end of the chinuch road, and to see Sarah so interested in learning, so capable of analytic thought, and so thoughtful in the answers she gives to questions.
At one point, she said that the essence of the hagada is to tell the story, but we always tell the story for the little kids, and we never do "sippur" (telling the story) on an advanced level for adults.  So I told her to tell it to me, and she did, and it was fascinating to hear her perspective and which details she chose to include.  At one point she admitted that it was probably advisable to take out a chumash and actually look more closely at the pesukim!  I hope that as the children grow, we will be able to take her up on that.

the Seder Challenge 2014 III

I like the general approach of thinking of questions that might appeal to Chana and then asking her thoughts.

- Were the Makkos fair?  Is that how punishments should work?  What is the goal of a punishment?

- What is the point of doing Makkos if Hashem promised from the beginning that Pharoah would refuse?  Is Hashem playing games with Pharoah?


This reminds me of the list of questions I made in 2008, when Sarah was... 12, actually!  I wrote each question on a strip of paper, and put one on every plate, and we went around the room and everyone answered his or her question.  I tried to choose questions that could be answered on all levels.  I would LOVE some new questions.

Which mitzvah do you find the hardest?  How does it help you become a better person?

What do you think was the worst part of being slaves in Mitzrayim?

What part of yetziyas mitzrayim do you wish you could see?

What do you think was the hardest part for Moshe?

Which makka do you think you would have been able to wait out?

Which makka would you beg Moshe to ask Hashem to stop?

Which is more impressive, Yam Suf or the Makkos?

Do the mitzvos make us slaves or set us free?

Tell the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim  in your own words

How does having matza and no chometz for a week make you feel about food?

the Seder Challenge 2014 II

So I started off having a conversation.  With teens, it's always best to hear what they are thinking and get their input.

There were tears and screaming.  Not mine, this time, I'm happy to report.  Here are the highlights:

-It won't be fun, it can't be fun, it will never be fun.
-She already knows the story.  If I want it to be fun, go back in time 6 years when she didn't know the story and was excited to learn it.  Now she knows it.
-She does not want to read the story again.
-She doesn't want to learn it inside; it's Daddy's responsibility to tell it to her.
-(And she already knows it)

So I conclude that having her read it inside and seeing what new insights emerge is NOT going to work this year.

I'm going to need a different approach where somehow it is interesting.

the Seder Challenge

One of the interesting things I learned about the Seder is that the essence of Hagada is not written in the Hagada.  The mitzva of Sipur Yetzias Mitzrayim, to tell your child the story of the Exodus, is done in many forms (using question answer, using props ["pesach, matza, maror"], using "drasha").  But the mishna (Pesachim 10:4) says:
ולפי דעתו של בן אביו מלמדו
The father should teach his child according to the child's ability.  That means, by definition, it can't be a formulaic telling of the story.  It has to be tailored to the particular child.  (We homeschoolers are familiar with this approach.)

I once heard a shiur by R' Pinny Rosenthal (and it might even be somewhere on the internet) where he suggested taking time to prepare before the Seder.  To think about each child that will be at the Seder and where they are at, mentally and emotionally, and to think about what aspect of the story will appeal to them, and what methodology would be most effective to use to tell it to them.  Yes, this takes preparation.  In addition to preparing the house and preparing food, preparing for the Seder by thinking about how you are going to do the mitzva of "sippur" [telling the story] to your children is perhaps the most fundamental preparation.

I was thinking about this for Chana this year.  She is probably the most challenging.  The boys still don't know the story that well or what exactly will be happening during the Seder, and the activities of the night themselves will be fascinating (if they stay awake).  Sarah is older and will be able to participate on a sophisticated level.  The 12 year old, Chana, however, already knows the story and doesn't enjoy learning very much.

I remember when Sarah was that age, one year we chose a particular makka (plague) to study more intensely during the seder.  She chose which one she found most intriguing, and we read it carefully and talked about it.  Another year we made a huge chart with all sorts of factors and during the seder we looked at which makos had which factors (like who did the plague, was there a warning, did Pharoah negotiate, etc).

What I would really love to do with Chana this year is somehow help her find some joy in the process of limud Torah.  I feel like all our learning together has been so focused on skillwork, it has made her reluctant to play with Torah and to enjoy thinking about it.  She does ask questions because the human mind naturally comes up with questions, but she doesn't enjoy thinking about them or wondering or pondering.

Chana has done the story of Shmos and it will be interesting to see how much of the text she can easily translate, and how much she doesn't remember.  Perhaps for the next week (before Pesach), I should have her read it in Hebrew and ask me for translation of any word of phrase she doesn't remember, with the goal of thinking about the story as a whole and thinking deeply about it and pondering and asking questions.

Will reading it in Hebrew be too difficult for her to ALSO think about it?  Or are her skills up to the task?  Will she become too fatigued from translating to think about it in a deeper way?

Is there a better way to have her engage intellectually and emotionally with the story?  What is it?

hagada and seder

Here is the Hagada I printed out this year.  There's not much to it.  I made it so they can color in the Hebrew letters.  I made some spaces for them to practice writing (script or print) and left room to color or to cut things out and paste them.  We use construction paper to cut matzas and karpas and maror etc.  I'm doing this because I've been hired to teach it.  For my own kids, I do nothing to prepare for Seder.  (Nothing with them [unless they request].  I do think about each child on his or her level and how to engage them best at the Seder.)

As a rule, Ari prefers that our preschool children walk into the Seder knowing nothing or as little as possible.  He prefers to do as much teaching as possible that night, and if they don't know the story yet, he wants it to be for the first time at the Seder.  He doesn't want them to know the order of what is coming.  He wants the strange order and strange things to be a surprise.  He wants those things to get the children to ask, to engage them, to get them interested and questioning.

He does not want the Seder to be about children telling what they learned.  He wants to do "והגדת לבנך ביום ההוא," to tell his children on that day the story of what happened.