I would like to transmit this treasure in my turn

Passover, the Jewish Passover, which takes place this year on April 5, is the feast of transmission. First by its long preparation, this cleaning of the whole house in order to eliminate from all the nooks and crannies the “hametz”, that is to say the leaven, which makes the dough rise. Indeed, the Hebrews, when they fled from Egypt and the pharaoh, did not have time to make their bread because they escaped at night, in haste. This is the reason why they took away flat cakes, which we eat today as a souvenir, and which are called “matzah”, or unleavened bread.

The “hametz” designates the leaven, and more generally all that ferments: hatred, the unspoken, the accumulation of grievances, guilt, the chains that one imposes on oneself, without being able to free oneself because one is bogged down in one’s life: it represents everything that is set aside, and which, when allowed to rise, poisons human relations. This is negative transmission. The “matzah” symbolizes what should not be transmitted.

But on Passover night, when the “Seder” takes place, it is the moment of positive transmission. The table is set, and during dinner we read passages from the Haggadah, this book of transmission, which relates certain rabbinical discussions. It is the evening when the father is called upon to answer his son concerning the exodus from Egypt, because this event only makes sense when it is told, by parents to their children, from generation to generation. . At the beginning of this reading are presented “the four sons”, who personify four possible attitudes towards transmission.

The first, the “wise man”, states the question: “What are the testimonies, the laws and the precepts which the Eternal our God has commanded you? The second, the “wicked,” asks, “What are these laws that you keep?” By this “you”, he dissociates himself from the community, defines himself against the law, apart from the people who are nevertheless his own. The third, the “simple”, says only: “What is this?” », question reduced to its simplest expression, he does not have the tools to propose a relevant or provocative idea. Finally comes the last, the fourth, “the one who does not know how to ask the question”. This one is outside the chain of transmission, much more than the villain who questions the text, since he is unaware that he does not know.

The four threads of which the Haggada speaks represent the four dimensions of transmission. The first is a questioning from the tradition expressed by the word of “our God”, while the second, that of the “wicked”, places the questioner outside the community. The third, the “simple”, results from ignorance. Finally, the last, that of the fourth, “the one who does not know how to ask the question”, is outside the chain of transmission, insensitive to what is happening.

What to do and how to act with this last child? The response from the Haggadah is this: “You, go ahead as the scripture demands: on that day you will tell your son the story, saying: ‘For this purpose God has acted in my favor when I came out of Egypt”. For the parents, it is a question of interesting their child by telling him the story of the exodus from Egypt linked to a rite that takes place at the table: the transmission takes place in these moments when we share , through a meal, stories and rituals. And I remember that it is in this essential moment of the shared dinner that we transmit.

Such is the human being: he is defined more by the question than by the answer. And I ask myself a question: how can I transmit to my children what I received from my father? Haggadah means “story”. Its radical means “to tell”. Our fathers are the wise, their children are the challengers who challenged tradition, we are the simple, we care without involvement, and soon our children will be the ones who no longer know how to ask questions, lost in the flow of information, as if lost by the multitude of subjects, flabbergasted.

Our techno-capitalistic modernity does not bother with traditions that hinder its inescapable force of commercial proposals. Thirty-five centuries of culture would suddenly be extinguished, in one generation? I would like to answer this question. I would like to bring them books, and make their eyes go wide. Images that arouse their curiosity. The story of a liberation, which gave birth to a culture, a people, a history. I don’t know anything about it, they say. What is this ? they think. What do you mean ? It is our responsibility to awaken their awakening to the world. It is our resignation to give it up. It is our mission to achieve this. I’ll take them by the hand, and I’ll lead them to the question. I would like to transmit this treasure in my turn.

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