The Four Questions are the questions most commonly associated with the Passover Seder. Though they are thought of as four separate questions, they are really just subsets of the single question: what makes tonight so special? Eventually the Haggadah gives us some answers about that, in the retelling of the Pesach story.

But the Haggadah neglects to ask: what makes us so special? Not us, Jews in the abstract. Us, those of us here tonight! We accept that tonight is particular but do we ever think about the ways in which we are particular ourselves for sitting around this table? For being able to come to the table in the first place? Each of us tonight bears particular privileges that many others don't have, preventing them from doing so.

The Haggadah leads us to ask this question, but won't ask it for us: who is not here? And why?


haggadah Section: -- Four Questions
Source: Original