Each year, as we read the parable of the four children, I think about all those other children not mentioned in this historically, simplified description of human behavior.
“One who is wise or thoughtful.
One who is wicked or rebellious.
One who is simple or innocent.
One who does not know how to ask.”
Adapted from A Night to Remember, by Mishael Zion and Noam Zion
The Seder’s Four Children ask us to consider what is wisdom, rebelliousness, simplicity or, even being unable to ask? Emotions and questions that would seem to relate to the average child’s experience of learning and growing, of being and becoming a worthy individual.
The cousins. March, 2015
Children. What do we want for them? So much. Make the right choices. Give the right answers. Live up to expectation. Make of yourself something that society values. Excel and shine, learn to be caring human beings, exemplify the wise and thoughtful child of the Four Children. Who would want different?
How do we react when they behave badly? Not well. You’re the evil child.
Get an A? You’re the wise child.
Seem sort of off? The innocent child.
More off? The child who lacks communication, who doesn’t even know how to ask. For so many things.
Becoming, of course, doesn’t happen in an instant. It takes time, along with fostering a range of necessary life experiences for each individual – part of their development and maturation process. Their actions and choices may vacillate, be they wise and unwise. Their big questions may be answered or left unresolved, their personal balance lost or found, their lives opened or kept closed to personal growth. As for their siblings and family members – they’re either carried along with them on their path to adult enlightenment or left behind in the dust of self-discovery. We parents can only leave the door wide open and hope that they will return to ask and discuss those ever so important four questions at the Seder.
While we now have many Haggadic variations on the four children – ones that do consider a different take on the traditional view of childhood and development – the tale of these four children can still be a moment of sadness for those with disabilities (and those who love them) at a Seder, or, of feeling marginalized because these descriptions don’t match their childhood (and parenting) challenges and experiences.
For this year, I offer up this take on the four children, recognizing that there will always be children who fly under the radar of general acceptance and love.
The one who is wise to people’s feelings, who senses happiness and sadness.
The one who struggles to understand and control their impulses and behavior.
The one who is innocent of unkind thoughts, who greets the world with pleasure and happiness.
The one who wishes to be welcomed and spoken to in public, while lacking traditional forms of communication.
Pesach Sameach.
By Beth Steinberg.
Originally posted on the Times of Israel