By Rabbi David Sofian, Temple Israel, Dayton, Ohio

Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

I would like to draw your attention to one of the beloved sections of the Pesach Haggadah which hopefully all of us will soon experience, the section about the four sons.

Certainly today, we are more comfortable referring to it as the section of the four children.

After all, neither wisdom, nor wickedness, nor simplicity are limited to a single gender.

Yet as interesting as those first three children are, for just a moment I would like to focus on the fourth child.

As I am sure you remember, this child is the person unable to ask. The Haggadah text tells us that for such a child we are not to wait for a question, but to begin the explanation on our own.

For such a child, we are told to begin by quoting Exodus 13:18, “You shall tell your child on that day, saying: ‘This is because of what God did for me when I went free from Egypt.’”

I think the interesting question to ask is what does it mean to say God did it for me? Were we actually there in Egypt at the Exodus so long ago that we can say and mean, God did it for me? I believe right here is the secret of having the fullest Seder experience possible.

What makes Pesach so powerful and significant is not merely reciting the narrative year after year. What makes Pesach so powerful and significant to us as Jews is that every year we get a chance to do our best to relive the experience of what we consider to be the greatest story ever told.

How are we to do this? Indeed, everything about the Seder is designed to help us do this. The Seder is composed so that our senses, our emotions and our intellect are brought into play for this purpose.

This is why we eat, drink, smell and see and feel all the symbols. It is not enough to merely recite the section on the 10 Plagues. We have to touch the wine as we remove the drops. It is not enough to recite the chain of feats God did for us. We must sing Dayenu to better feel its impact.

It is not enough to recite words about the degradation of slavery. We must eat the bread of affliction and cry tears even if they are caused by potent horseradish. It is not enough to recite the story by rote. We must dwell on it, adding rabbinic interpretation to it, using our brains to stretch it so that we might eke out every possible smidgen of meaning.

Indeed, the secret is embedded in Exodus 13:18, “You shall tell your child on that day, saying: ‘This is because of what God did for me when I went from Egypt.’”

Don’t be afraid to dwell on each and every aspect of the Seder. Ask questions, discuss answers, add readings, and carefully taste, smell, see and feel all the symbols. I know to do so will make your Seder profoundly meaningful.