A story, for Passover:
***
Saul—age eleven—had grown tired of having to recite the Four Questions. As the youngest among all his siblings and cousins, he knew that no matter how old he was, he would never outgrow this youngest-child responsibility. As a kid, Saul had thought it a special privilege to read the Four Questions; in a large and noisy family like his, it felt good, if only for a few minutes, to be in the spotlight. But now, after many years of family seders, he was beginning to wonder why he should have to continue to ask these questions to which he already knew the answers.
It was hard for Saul, as the youngest, to always be last in line for any major accomplishment. While his older cousins were busy preparing for SATs and college searches, Saul was bringing up the rear with Fifth Grade Graduation. What were for him milestones seemed to be for the rest of his family old news. He was always following in someone else’s footsteps. No matter how much he grew, there was always someone taller; no matter how much he learned, there was always someone smarter.
If there was one person in the family who truly understood Saul, that person was Grandpa Harry. When he was with his Grandpa Harry, Saul felt smart. His grandpa used to quiz him on all sorts of topics—the countries of the world and their capitals, US presidents, Major League Baseball teams—and for every question that Saul could correctly answer, his grandfather would reward him with a prize. It was Grandpa Harry who had taught Saul to sing the Four Questions in the first place. Saul was a natural. He learned the whole thing, without using transliteration, in less than 20 minutes. Grandpa Harry was proud. If only the rest of the family could see Saul the way that Grandpa Harry saw him, then maybe they wouldn’t think of him as just a kid.
And so it was at Grandpa Harry’s seder table one Passover night that Saul decided that this would be the year in which he would make his big debut, in which he would prove that he wasn’t just a kid, in which he would prove, once and for all, that yes, he knew the Four Questions, but more importantly, he had answers.
Saul realized his opportunity to prove himself when Grandpa Harry went to hide the afikomen. That hidden piece of matzah was like the answer to some sort of secret question, and only the quick-witted would be clever enough to uncover its mystery. He watched with eyes as big as silver dollars as Grandpa Harry carefully wrapped the coveted prize in a dinner napkin, tucked it into his breast pocket, and disappeared to some other room in the house.
Throughout the rest of the seder, Saul could focus on nothing else but devising a plan to find the afikomen before his older cousins did. He made a mental list of all the places Grandpa might have hidden it, and systematically determined the rooms that deserved the most attention. It was a puzzle, and Saul was going to solve it.
The seder seemed to drag on endlessly. But finally, after nearly two grueling hours during which Saul did indeed feel as if he had been a slave in Egypt, finally it was time to search for the afikomen.
Saul and his siblings and cousins each raced off to different rooms of the house, looking under every chair and behind every piece of furniture. It was only a matter of minutes before Saul returned, with a broken piece of matzah in hand, shouting: “I found it! I found it!” He raced over to where his grandpa was sitting and proudly held up for him the coveted prize. “I found it, grandpa! I found it first!”
“Alright, alright, slow down, boychik.”
Saul had never been more proud of himself. In his head, his siblings and cousins were already clapping him on the back, saying, “Way to go, Sauly! How’d you find it so fast?” His mom and dad were already ruffling his hair, smiles aglow across their faces. In his head, he was being paraded around the house, held high on his family members’ shoulders. He could almost hear his grandpa uttering the words: “My boy, I think you may be the best afikomen-finder that this family has ever seen.”
But these weren’t the words that were coming out of grandpa’s mouth. There was no one ruffling his hair or parading him around the house. Rather, grandpa was puzzling over the broken piece of matzah that Saul had just brought to him, trying to make it fit with the piece from which it had been broken. But like a three-pronged plug in a two-hole socket, the pieces didn’t fit.
“Saul, what have you done?” his grandfather asked.
The parade in Saul’s head came to a halt. He’d been found out. Grandpa looked at him disapprovingly. Saul’s face turned red. He felt like he wanted to throw up. He could almost taste the charoset, that strange mix of sweetness and mortar, in the back of his throat.
Just then, his cousin came running into the room, shouting, “I found it! I found it!” Saul’s eyes—green as sprigs of parsley—filled, like bowls of salt water. As he ran out of the house and down the street, his grandfather’s words—What have you done?—were still ringing in his ears, as he tried desperately to get as far away from the house as possible, where no one could ask him any more questions.
***
Second seder was held the next night at his parents’ house. Saul stayed up in his room until the last possible minute. He didn’t want to have to talk to anybody. When he finally came downstairs, he felt as if everybody was walking on eggshells. He sat sullenly on the couch, as a slow trickle of aunts and uncles approached to ask him a series of idiotic questions that, while trying to avoid the sensitive topic of last night’s debacle, only made him more and more aware of it.
He was relieved that Grandpa Harry didn’t try to come and talk to him. He didn’t think he could bear it. Grandpa Harry gave him only a nod hello when he walked in the door—a nod that seemed to say: “I’m disappointed.” Or maybe: “We all make mistakes.” Saul wasn’t sure.
At last, they sat down to begin the seder. Saul cringed as Grandpa Harry removed the middle matzah from its cover, lifted it high and the air, snapped it in two, and proclaimed: “This is the afikomen.” Though every head stared intently at its own plate, Saul felt as if all eyes were on him.
Slowly, as the seder progressed, the tension began to subside. Saul sang the Four Questions as flawlessly as ever, and the whole table breathed a deep sigh of relief. Hopefully, Saul thought to himself, this night would be different from last night.
Things began to fall back into their usual order. They went around the table, taking turns reading passages from the Haggadah. Eventually, Saul forgot about the previous night’s debacle—forgot, that is, until they got to the passage about the Four Children. As they read about each child, Saul wondered which one he was: the Wise one, or the Rebellious one? Wise, because he knew more than the rest of his family gave him credit for. Or Rebellious, because he had tried to prove it with a lie.
Just then, it was his grandfather’s turn to read: “As for the child who does not know how to ask a question: you shall tell him the Passover story from the beginning—so that even in his silence, he will absorb what he can.”
And Saul, who had so easily memorized the Four Questions; who had learned them in twenty minutes, without transliteration; who, year after year, had recited them flawlessly—Saul now sat there in silence. He had learned how to read the Questions many years before; but he had never learned how to ask them.
As the seder continued on around him, Saul felt himself in a blur. These rituals that only the night before had seemed like old news, suddenly felt completely strange and new. He was dipping his pinky in a glass of wine. He was singing songs in a foreign language about places he’d never been. At long last, Saul broke his confused silence. “Grandpa,” he asked, “why does the Haggadah tell us to drink the second cup of wine while reclining to the left?”
His Grandpa gave him a smile. “An excellent question, Sauly.”
Saul wasn’t even sure he heard the answer, or that one was even given. His head was filling up with new questions. Saul—who had never learned to ask a question—sat there in silence, absorbing what he could.