Passover: Inner Child Challenges

Ah, to be a child again.What do you miss most? Playing in the park with wild joy, crying without holding back, taking all the attention for yourself?

On Passover, the answer is clear: questions. Curiosity abounds and wonder overflows. No shame. No limits. So real.

You might be surprised. In Yiddish, the Four Questions are called the “fir kashyes,” the Four Challenges. At the depth of our deepest questions is a challenge.

The truest questions that roar our hearts to life reflect a tension, a struggle to understand why the world is what it is. Something doesn’t seem right. 

Why do we fall? Should we not always rise up? 

Why does it hurt? Shouldn’t the world be a place of pleasure? 

Why are you leaving me? Can’t you stay with me always, never leave me alone? 

“Why is this night different than all the other nights?” Is there something missing from those other nights—something lacking in my life, something that must change?

Grownups—oy vey. Kids ask; adults pretend to know the answers.

Traditionally, everyone must ask the four questions; the children are just a reminder, drawing us back to our inner curiosity and the deep challenges that we’ve locked up in the recesses of our heart.

The questions we carry—about our purpose, our direction, the state of the world—are the fuel that feeds our search. They drive us to read, think, write, travel, give, and grow. The answer to the questions is the life that we choose to lead with fire and conviction—our path and our deeds.

But the trail is rocky, and there are many falls. We inevitably become enslaved—to thinking we have the answers, to giving up on the possibility of finding any answers, to the busy grind of our daily routine and fears of shaking the boat.

A life without questions feels comfortable. No surprises, consistency, safety.  But it’s not a trek, not an adventure.

Passover invites us to break out. The Seder is paradoxically designed to disrupt our sense of all order and familiarity. It guides us back into curiosity, challenge, and renewal.

This Pesach, let’s express the challenges in our hearts and reawaken the inner child whose curiosity propels us toward an alive, connected, and purposeful journey.