A Moment in Time: “Teaching our Children to Ask Questions”

Dear all,

In 1988, a the following letter to the editor appeared in the New York Times (penned by Donald Sheff):

Isidor I. Rabbi, the Nobel laureate in physics, was once asked, “Why did you become a scientist, rather than a doctor or lawyer or businessman, like the other immigrant kids in your neighborhood?”

”My mother made me a scientist without ever intending it. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, ‘Nu? Did you learn anything today?’ But not my mother. She always asked me a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say, ‘Did you ask a good question today?’ That difference – asking good questions ‘ made me become a scientist.”

I share this letter as I reflect on this past week of Passover, which began with a seder during which Maya and Eli asked the Haggadah’s “Four Questions.” From the youngest age, we encourage questions more than answers, explorations more than conclusions, and journeys more than destinations.

Let’s take a moment in time to listen, really listen, to the questions. And let’s accept the challenge of asking good questions whenever and wherever we possibly can!

With love and shalom,

Rabbi Zach Shapiro

(Letter to the Times can be found in The Family Participation Haggadah: A Different Night, by Noam Zion and David Dishon. Published by the Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel)