The Four Sons in the Passover Haggadah are teachable movements. “Meet the person where they are at” and “Teach them according to their ways,” was part of Neva Goldstein-Hellman’s pre-Pesach shiur. Central Queens Jewish Community Circle sponsored the Zoom presentation.
Forest Hills resident Neva Goldstein-Hellman is an Instructor of Speech and Language Development at Touro University and a Speech Language Pathologist at The Churchill School in Manhattan. She was an Adjunct Instructor at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for 25 years teaching Speech, Language, and Communication issues.
“The rabbis of old were keenly aware of the need to teach each person in the way that individuals can learn,” said Goldstein-Hellman. The Four Sons is “now more appropriately known as the tale of the four children.” “I would like to suggest that we are all those children.”
The Four Sons are verses taken from the Torah and quoted in the Midrash, which are the Rabbis’ response on how to teach children about Passover. They “assign each verse to a type of child who might approach an adult using such and such words.” “The overarching value is “to follow their lead for the most effective way to inspire them,” said Goldstein-Hellman.
“When the Wise Child asks, ‘What are about the laws, rituals, and rules G-d has commanded?’ We talk to him or her about the laws…G-d commanded us to keep all these rules so that we would remain in awe of G-d for all time.”
“The rabbis didn’t like the attitude of the child whom they called Wicked. They perceived that child as kind of asking, ‘What’s it to you?’ in a disrespectful way. They suggested, albeit in idioms of old, that we support that child to adjust his attitude.”
The Simple Child, “perhaps because he or she is still young, or perhaps because of a learning difference, asks a very simple question and is given a developmentally appropriate answer on the level of the question, an introduction to the main idea of the Passover story.”
“I hope we all have Seder guests who ask to be brought into the conversation with such a basic question.”
The Simple Child, “Perhaps he or she doesn’t yet know how to ask or perhaps, rather than seeking the classic wisdom of Halachah, this child is the one who is overwhelmed with fascination and wonder about it all.”
“Rashi explains it well,” said Goldstein-Hellman, “You shall open for him or her with the words of the story that compel the heart. It’s about agadah, the story, and at least not yet, about halachah, the law for this child.” “This is the spiritual Seder guest whose wonder is at the center of his or her experience. And our response to this guest should be in that different realm.”
“This child is neither asking a question per se nor making any verbal statement at all. Perhaps the child is just looking on quizzically… The Midrash has imagined a child without a verbal question.”
“The primary commandment for the Seder night is to tell the story.” The Rabbis made “individualizing education meaningful for each learner.”
Goldstein-Hellman, quoting Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, said the Seder helps children “understand who they are, where they came from, what happened to their ancestors, to make them the distinctive people they became, and to give our children an identity by turning history into memory.”
“The long walk to freedom is about telling the story and passing it on to give a child confidence, trust, and hope, along with a sense of identity, belonging, and at Wholeness with the universe.”
“Today, there are countless props with which to individualize the storytelling for every learner at our tables,” said Hellman-Goldstein. Toy frogs that hop, masks for the characters of Chad Gadya, graphic Haggadahs that read like comic books, Haggadahs with Dry Bones cartoons, serious halachah-based Haggadahs, and Haggadahs in many languages “so the story can be accessible and meaningful to everyone.”
The responses to the Four Children make it “so that each participant tastes the bitterness of slavery and the exhilaration of freedom in the way that compels his or her soul to make the story their own.”
Neva Goldstein-Hellman dedicated her d’var Torah to her father, Karl Goldstein, whose yahrzeit was the same night as her presentation on Monday, March 24. As a busy Tax Accountant, the Seder “was very important to him as a time for family.”
The fifth child, not at the Seder, is what Rebbetzin Muskhy Mendelson of Congregation Machane Chodosh in Forest Hills (and founder of the Central Queens Jewish Community Circle) spoke about. They could be unaware that it’s Passover, they don’t know of a Seder to go to, or they don’t have family or friends. The Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke about this in 1957.
As someone passionate about combating loneliness and isolation, Rebbetzin Mendelson urged, “Let’s remember to look out for the “fifth child (person), who is not even at the Seder.”
In 2018, Rebbetzin Mendelson founded Central Queens Jewish Community Circle. Gift packages are given to the “homebound or struggling or vulnerable, to help feel less alone.” They have 100 people and another nearly 100 people on a waitlist.
Central Queens Jewish Community Circle is looking for a place to open a Center on 108th Street. Their “goal and vision” is a space for people to come for meals, support groups, activities, and a Jewish library for adults and children, “to really create a space where the community feels like it’s their living room.”
For more information, call or text Rebbetzin Mendelson at 917-754-3006 or go to their website, www.cqjcc.org.
By David Schneier
