“The Simple Child”

  While Passover is a couple of months away, the story of the Exodus is the focus of the Torah portions this time of the year. In fact, in my Bar Mitzvah portion read this week, we find the verse, “When your (child) asks you ‘What is this,’ you shall say…”. This is the basis of the “Simple” child of the Haggadah. The youngest child isn’t able to verbalize any question, but the Simple one gets down to the point, “Hey, Pop, what’s going on?” 

  I’ve often believed that this was the most important question. The queries of both the wise and wicked child reveal their preconceived perspectives; yes, there’s a bias even in their questions. The parent’s answer will be interpreted according to the child’s place on a spiritual spectrum. The simple child, however, leaves it open; s/he wants to know the facts. From there conclusions can be drawn but up until that point they are a blank slate…what will be written on that slate hasn’t been determined. The simple child will listen and go from there.

  We should all be “simple” children, regardless our age. I know that I sometimes have preconceived notions usually in the realm of “We’ve always done it this way,” but I fight it. I want to learn, contemplate and from there make a decision…and even that decision shouldn’t be written in stone.

  That’s a foundation of Reform Judaism. We’re not called “ReformED” for that would imply “and we’re done.” From the realm of social justice to liturgy to theology, we’ve been open. Now I’ve mentioned that some of our UAHC (precursor of the URJ) congregations of a few generations back were more orthodox (lower case “o”) than the Orthodox (upper case “o”) in their resolve to maintain what early Reform created. Today however that is rarely the case. And we can be grateful for coming out of that trap. Openness is a virtue on many levels, so we should thank the simple child for teaching us that.