Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. Today’s message is gleaned from the night of the Seder. In our Haggadah, there are four sons who ask questions, one of which is called the תם Tam, the simple son, who asks, Mah Zot/What is this?
It’s interesting that these questions asked by the four sons aren’t specifically referring to the night of the Seder. They’re general, types of questions, from other times of the year. It’s actually in our Tefilin, which says that when you come into the land of Israel and you have a firstborn donkey, you have a choice: You can either redeem the donkey for a sheep, or if you don't want to redeem the donkey on a sheep (I.e. you don't want to give the sheep to the kohen), you have to decapitate the donkey. So you have this seemingly innocent donkey that has its head chopped off with an ax, and the Tam asks, Mah Zot/what is going on? That's where the question shows up. It doesn't show up in the night of the Seder. But what exactly is this question of Mah Zot? It comes from someone who’s living life on automatic pilot. He takes everything for granted. He only wakes up when something's strange happens. When there’s an aberration, something extraordinary or of the norm, then he wakes up. But that's not the proper approach. That's the approach of a simpleton. A healthy, good person should always be thinking about and appreciating what's going on in his life.
This question of Mah Zot also shows up in Tehilim, in Mizmor Shir L’Yom HaShabbat, where it says,
אִֽישׁ־בַּ֭עַר לֹ֣א יֵדָ֑ע וּ֝כְסִ֗יל לֹא־יָבִ֥ין אֶת־זֹֽאת׃
This empty one does not know, and the fool does not understand ‘Et Zot/ this.’
Mah Zot? What’s ‘this?’
I once heard a beautiful mashal from Rabbi Hillel Zaks, the late Rosh Yeshiva of Hebron.. A little boy gets onto a plane in pre-9/11 days, and the pilot takes the child into cockpit where there are all kinds of different gauges, lights and buttons. The child looks one a red button and says, “What's that?”
That's a foolish question. Does he understand how everything else in the cockpit works? His only question is, “What's this?”
On the night of the Seder, we make changes so that the children will ask. Children need changes in order to ask questions. Some adults can still be children, but mature people are supposed to delve into things and not take things for granted. It’s like saying, “I don't understand why they chop the donkey's head off, but Tzitzit, I understand, Mezuza I understand, Tefilin, understand…”
Some people go through life on auto autopilot, without questioning, without delving.
The goal of the Seder is not to just wake up on this extraordinary night of the seder, but to take that into our entire year.
This is similar to the concept of the Ramban, at the end of Parashat Bo that says, “From the open miracles, we start contemplating the hidden miracles. From the extraordinary, we contemplate the ordinary.”
Don't be the fool that says, “What's going on?” Why is it that only when a person has kidney failure, lo Alenu, does he wake up and realize that he has kidneys. Or when has v’shalom, a person has diabetes, he wakes up that and realizes he has a pancreas and there's insulin.
Don't wait for a ‘Mah Zot/What's going on’ event to appreciate what's going on in your life. Look and appreciate every day. As the Chatam Sofer says, the goal of the night of the Seder is to walk out saying a paragraph that we say in our Korbanot: “Ashrenu/how fortunate we are! How great is our lot!
How beautiful is our inheritance! How fortunate, when we come early and go late to our shuls and houses of study. Every single day, we say Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokenu. Hashem Echad. That daily Shema Yisrael is something to get excited about. We should not wait for the Seder night to be excited about religion, and then just go back to sleep until the next Seder. Don't wait for the extraordinary, the Mah Zot…
An emotionally well person is someone that's always contemplating, always delving, always looking, always asking, not just sitting back and waiting to be jolted into a question. We have to make changes so that the children ask questions. But it’s a sign of emotional wellness that you don’t wait to ask about the exceptions. Don’t be a Tam, don't be the simpleton that only asks, “What's this?”
Start paying attention to the common.
Pay attention to the apple and the banana and the pear, not just to the strange new fish found miles under the ocean’s surface, or a new fish that appears in Japan. Don't wait for that to get excited. Get excited about the every day. That's one of the lessons of Pesach, and that's a general lesson in emotional wellness.
Have a great day.