Can You Be Grateful for Each of Your 'Four Children'?

Rabbi YY Jacobson

For Source Sheets: https://www.theyeshiva.net/jewish/9276
This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Tazria, 1 Nissan, 5784, April 9, 2024, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

Who are the four children of the Haggadah? What’s this great hullabaloo about them? Why four and not five, six, or ten? Why are they central to our Passover experience? What are their questions, and why are these questions so important?

The premise to answering these questions is that the four children are not external to us; they are within each of us: Within each of our hearts, there are “four children” who ask four distinct questions.

What are four big questions on Judaism? 1) The strange laws that we simply cannot wrap our brains ahead. 2) How can small people believe that G-d cares about their lives and actions, especially in a painful and scary universe? 3) I lead my own life and define my destiny; I don’t need G-d. 4) I don’t care.

The Haggadah addresses each of these four powerful questions, with which each of us struggles in one way or another.

Erev Pesach in Bergen Belzen. The Bloshever Rebbe sacrificed his life to obtain matzah. But when the Nazis discovered the matzah bakery, all was gone besides a few matzos. He decided the elderly would get them. Until a woman's voice was heard: “Binaranu ubezkananu,” the youth must come first.
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