The Festival of Education

Passover is the festival of education. A time in which a deep movement is created between the generations, from parents to children and from children back to parents. Rav Kook teaches that alongside the great responsibility placed upon parents and educators, there is in the time spent with children also a deep spiritual reward and an opportunity to reconnect with childhood, with the innocence and tenderness within us, that which has not been worn away by the journey of life and has not lost the capacity to wonder, to believe, and to dream. A few days ago we sat at the Seder table and told our children of the exodus from Egypt. But it was not merely a story, but an actual act of going forth – for them and also for us. Not only an ancient memory but a continuing, living telling, one that returns us to being like a one-year-old without sin, even when we are already laden with the burdens of many years. To go out from Egypt is not merely to mark a historical boundary but to strip away layers that have hardened around us, to free ourselves from heavy habits, and to merit to look again upon the world with the soft eyes of a child who believes that one can begin anew.

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