Unveiling Wisdom: Lessons from the Seder on Passing Down Values to Our Children

There is only one true guarantee in life: it always ends in death — an inescapable fact, constantly lurking somewhere in our consciousness. This awareness fuels a desire to leave something on Earth when we are gone, a powerful force driving many of our life decisions, consciously and subconsciously.  There are many ways we navigate this drive, one of which is having children.  When someone is blessed with children, the finality of death seems less absolute. When someone is blessed with children who carry on their values, the finality of death diminishes even further.  We feel comforted with the feeling that we are leaving a part of ourselves behind, both physically and spiritually. Yet the question remains: how do we effectively transmit our values to our children? How do we ensure our children will maintain the beliefs we hold dear?

Research has consistently shown a correlation between specific family behaviors and the probability of children upholding their parents’ values. The first step in passing down values is for the parent to recognize and define the values that are most meaningful to them. Surprisingly, even within communities of similar religious observance, values that parents want their children to maintain can vary greatly across a spectrum. The next step, after defining the values that are most dear to them, is for the parent to make sure they are modeling these values—and practicing what they preach. Children learn what’s important to adults not by what the adults say, but by what the adults do and by what the adults pay attention to. Modeling is a sure way for children to learn what is important to their parents. In addition, what parents choose to notice in their child’s behavior also clues their children into what their parents value.

Next, research has shown that parents who are more emotionally connected to their children exert a stronger influence on their children’s religious lives. In other words, parents who develop strong relationships with their children have a much more powerful influence on their children’s decisions relating to values. Preserving, deepening, and respecting the parent-child relationship is at the heart of trying to pass on faith and values. Children want to follow adults they love and respect, not adults they fear. On the flip side, research has also shown that coercion and force cannot “make” a child adopt their parents’ values. Coercion and force lose their power as soon as the child begins to experience independence and can ironically create a distaste for the very values the parents want their children to hold dear.

Finally, engaging a child in discussions about values and moral decisions on a regular basis has a powerful influence on what a child retains. When questions are encouraged, and a child’s desire to understand and make the values their own is respected, the child can incorporate the values of their parents on a much deeper level.

So what does all of this have to do with Pesach? For a few thousand years, we have used the seder to educate the next generation—where we come from, what our mission is, and why this mission is so important to maintain. The setup of the seder gives us a great roadmap for how to pass down values.

To begin with, the seder is primarily about modeling behavior that our children observe and imitate. On a deeper level, the seder gives even more sophisticated lessons in how to pass on values.  The seder is interactive and is intended to be a response to the questions children will ask.

Rav Hirsh points out that Pesach is where the Torah delineates the mission of Jewish education. The seder serves as our manual for imparting our values. “Not through unthinking habit, nor through mere moralizing, should our children be led to faithfully observe the Torah’s commandments; those methods will not suffice.  Rather, we must show them the way by our own enthusiastic example, and at the same time awaken their hearts and minds by explaining to them what it is we are doing, so that they learn to practice the mitzvot with intelligence and awareness, and come excited about and fascinated by the task of Judaism.” (Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, Exodus 13:8).

How do we convey our values to our children during the seder?

These four passages have become famous for their quotes in the Haggadah, each correlating with a different type of child: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who doesn’t know how to ask. The sages explain that the Torah does NOT tell us one way to explain our values to our children—it gives us four different ways—in response to four different types of questions. We may think that our values are clear and objective, and to educate our children, we must tell them our values and expect them to comply- especially, during that one night of the year where we have the most direct command to teach our children, the night when we are given the quintessential task of educating our children with the core values of our religion. But that’s not what our sages say! The sages make it clear that we share our values by responding when our children ask and by responding to the way they ask. Even more so, the sages make it clear that we should be encouraging our children to ask questions. Because we pass down our values, we educate our children, NOT with authoritarian forcefulness but by getting our children to question, to search, and then to seek answers.

The seder makes a clear point in telling us about the four sons—about understanding the differences, about responding according to these differences. Education isn’t about deciding what you want to teach and then forcing it on an audience. It’s about learning who your audience is and then responding to what they are seeking, what they need.

When there is something so valuable to us that we want to impart it to our children, it’s natural to want to enforce it with an authoritarian approach. The more we want to make sure our children internalize a value, the more forcefully our instincts seem to tell us to enforce it. But the message of the seder is so powerful and so different. When there is a lesson that we want to impart to our children, it’s ineffective to force, command, or preach. Rather, it’s most effective to: Individualize. Understand. Encourage. Educate. Share. Show.  And CONNECT!