Content note: This post is more Jewish-specific than my posts usually are. Feel free to reblog it if it speaks to you.

Seders are supposed to be about asking questions, but that doesn’t always happen in practice. (For any number of reasons.)

Here’s one way to look for questions to ask about the seder. You can look at any piece of it and ask:

• What is this doing in the haggadah?
• What does it have to do with the Exodus from Egypt?
• What does it have to do with the world the rabbis were living in? 
• What does this have to do with the world we’re living in?

And if you’d like some examples, here are some of the questions I’ve been thinking about:

What’s the deal with dayenu?

• There’s a whole long list of things that we seem to be saying “It would have been enough” about. 
• Which ones make sense to you? Which ones don’t? Why?
• Why do you think we say all of these things?
• Is there anything you think belongs on the list that isn’t there?

What’s the deal with the four sons/daughters/children?

• Why are we even talking about this here? Why talk about this rather than details of the story of leaving Egypt?
• What do you think of the categories? Do these seem like real types of people or types of responses to you?
• What examples can you think of?

Regarding the “one who does not know how to ask”:

• What are some reasons that some Jews aren’t able to ask their questions at the seder?
• What could be done about that?
• Which questions do you have that you aren’t able to ask? (Or aren’t yet able to ask).
• What might make it possible to ask them?

What does freedom mean this year?

• Some parts of the haggadah say that we used to be slaves, and that we are now free.
• Other parts say that we are still slaves, and that we hope to be liberated.
• What does this mean to you? Why do you think the haggadah says both?
• Do you think that there are ways in which we are both free and unfree?
• What liberation are we still hoping for?

Why do we open by making promises we can’t keep?

• The beginning of the story part (maggid) opens with ha lakhma anya (this is the bread of affliction.
• As part of this, we say “let all who are hungry come and eat” and “let all who are in need come and offer the Passover sacrifice”.
• We know that people are hungry who we’re not really inviting to eat, and that we’re not going to offer the Passover sacrifice at this meal.
• What’s the point of saying this?

(And actually, wearing my other hat, I’m involved in a weekly Twitter parsha discussion). This week (Thursday 7:30 EDT April) we’re going to be discussing seder-related questions instead of parsha questions.

Short version Passover Seders are supposed to be about questions. Scroll up for an approach to looking for questions, and some of the questions I’ve been asking.