I’ve spent much of this week glued to the coverage of Artemis II. I am in awe of the astronauts’ work as scientists and explorers. As one observer noted, “It’s not a coincidence that the astronauts who’ve traveled further than any human don’t speak like they know everything. They speak like students and explorers. Their wonder and curiosity are on full display. That’s what science does to you. It dissolves your ego and forces you to confront the vastness of the unknown. It makes you more careful with your words, more open to being wrong, and more in awe of the questions than obsessed with the answers.”
Being more in awe of the questions than obsessed with the answers sounds like an extremely Jewish quality! While curiosity is of course innate to the human condition, questioning is innate to looking at the world through a Jewish lens. One line from the haggadah has been sticking with me since our seders last week. In the description of the Four Children, the last is called “שאינו יודע לשאול – she’eino yodeia lishol, the one who does not know how to ask.” The other children – the wise, wicked, and simple – appear to be personality characteristics, while the fourth child sounds like an ordinary developmental phase all infants go through as they learn to communicate with the world around them. But perhaps this quality of not knowing how to question too is a personality trait. After all, the haggadah does not call this child “the one who does not know how to speak.” Perhaps the one who doesn’t know how to ask is one who is too caught up in their own hubris and certainty that their knowledge, opinions, and outlook on the world is sufficient. Or, the one who does not know how to ask is a person who has become too complacent, too accepting of the world as it is. They don’t question the status quo; they don’t bother imagining the world as it could be.
Questioning what is and imagining what could be are essential to redemption. The one who does not how to ask has the potential to be just as fatal to Jewish continuity as the traditional depictions of the wicked child. We must let go of our tight hold on our own certainty, and question the world around us. We must soften, and open our eyes to the possible.
