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Questions—and Answers

by Ozer Bergman
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Part of the freedom process that culminates in the existence and celebration of Pesach is asking questions. You’ve got to ask! The son “who doesn’t know how to ask” is not, according to the Maharal of Prague, someone who is unwise. He is someone who is indifferent, someone who is criminally negligent. Rebbe Nachman teaches (Likutey Moharan I, Lesson #5) that we have to look around in the world and see what needs fixing—perhaps the world is enslaved, mentally, physically or spiritually.

But it’s not enough to leave it at “Here the son asks: Why is this night different…?” After you shake off your adulthood complacency and awake from your grown-up apathy, you have to answer the child who asked. But it’s not same old you that was stuck or the challenging “child” who can answer. It’s a higher level of inner wisdom that you have that must answer. This wisdom is the av (father), the knowing that it is wise to return to the beginning—to alef bet—to admit that starting over with the right changes is necessary if we are to redeem and be redeemed.

As per the Haggadah, however wise, intuitive, learned and experienced we may be, we must recount anew the story of the Exodus. The more we search the story of God’s directing our fate, the closer we come to the dawn of a new day, to practical answers of how to live God’s will in a way that results in the fulfillment of His promises to our ancestors, to freedom and to tikkun. Amen.

© Copyright 2011 Breslov Research Institute

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