By Didi Poliak
With Passover coming up soon, Rabbi Cohen chose to focus his most recent session on leadership through the lens of the “Four Children” of the Passover Hagaddah. The story of the four children is one I know well from reading at my family’s Passover seder every year. However, typically the story of the four children is told and no one asks any questions about it, which is kind of ironic. During the session with Rabbi Cohen, we looked more deeply into the four children and learned about the deeper meaning behind the different types of people.
For each of the four children, we looked at the text in which their stories are found in and thought about what their titles could mean. In looking closer, it is evident that sometimes the four children are a bit misunderstood, and that their titles are not always what they seem. We also talked about how each one of us has a bit of each of the four children in us.
The most difficult child for me to completely understand has always been the child who doesn’t know how to ask questions. I always wondered if he or she did not ask questions simply because he or she did not have any, or because he or she was just shy. There are many different reasons why this particular child would not know how to ask questions. Throughout my time in Israel on the Nachshon Project, I have learned that sometimes it is really hard to ask questions. We hear from so many inspiring speakers who are experts in their respective fields and sometimes it is overwhelming and difficult to try to formulate questions, or even process exactly what we had just learned about. There are also times that I feel that I have to just observe and soak up everything that is happening around me, and I’m left almost speechless. My experience and time on the Nachshon Project has allowed me to understand and realize that it is OK to sometimes be the child who does not know how to ask questions, and it has also given me many resources so that one day I will know how to ask the necessary questions.
Throughout the session, we also shared some of our favorite family traditions during Passover. For my family, we have our own Hagaddah that is full of the traditional Passover story with a bunch of fun songs in between! Passover has always been one of my favorite holidays to celebrate because I absolutely love the way that my family does the seder. It was really nice to also hear about other people’s traditions and to truly see that every family has a unique way of celebrating!
