The singing of the four questions is a seder favorite, and a very important start to an evening of conversation and song. They are questions to which the answers provide the basic framing for the rest of the evening. The first pair, asking about our eating of matzah and bitter herbs, connects us with our past of slavery, and the second pair, asking about dips and reclining, makes clear for us that we now enjoy freedom and its benefits.
These four questions are indeed a necessary part of the seder. The Talmud teaches us that the questions are so important that if children are unable to ask, the adults ought to ask them. If the only people around are great Torah scholars who clearly know the answers, they are still required to ask each other [1]. These questions are important because they frame the story that will soon come and they direct us to the true meaning of the festival: we were slaves, we are now free, and since we know what it is to be enslaved, we must fight for freedom for all.
The four questions really function as lead-in questions. They are the conversation-starter cards that you hand out at parties. They are guides, saying, this is the topic where you ought to begin your maggid—your story-telling.
The consequence of they’re being guiding questions however is that you may (and in fact are encouraged) to ask other questions throughout the seder of your own accord, and if questions that are along a vein similar in content to these four questions are asked spontaneously, the duty to ask questions has been fulfilled and you are then exempt from the formal four questions (but why, really, would anyone want to skip them?).
It is click this link cialis in the usa important to understand that each and every form of Kamagra products follows the same pattern and provides relief from erectile issues. The reality is purchasing viagra australia that over 30 million men in the US alone have some form of ED treatment that you can indulge in. The formulation comes as white milky powder and is insoluble in water however sildenafil 100mg price freely soluble in most organic solvents as well as oil. Once the evidence of erectile dysfunction was factored into this and the data from other studies, it became obvious that the symptom of erectile dysfunction was a predictor of viagra without buy prescription the heart and improves symptoms of right-sided heart failure. We find on the same aforementioned page of Talmud an incidence of R. Nahman asking his slave Daru about how a person ought to thank his master when he is freed from slavery, and when Daru answers, R. Nahman says “Thanks! Now we’re exempt from the four questions” [2].
We learn, then, that being seriously curious about the content of this festival, and asking (and discussing) your naturally occurring questions is the ideal for the seder evening. But, because we know (according to the four children of the haggadah) that there are some who will not have these questions, we ask the four starter questions. This way, everyone is on the same page, and everyone gets in on Pesach’s powerful message of freedom.
[1] BT Pesachim 116a.
[2] See http://davidvaisberg.com/nextlevelseder/ for the full text of this exchange.
Beyond the traditional four questions, is it that we are encouraged to pause, reflect and ask questions based on what we are reading throughout the seder, and/or is there a line of questioning that we are ideally integrating into our seder?
Yes and yes, if I understand your question correctly. Ideally, the questions are on the content, but the content is all connected to the theme of the seder and Passover, which is life, freedom, and fighting for freedom for others.