What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk: Silence At The Seder©

Parashat Vayikra/Leviticus - 2025/5785

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Moshe says to his friend David, "I've been doing a lot of thinking recently and based on many years of marriage, I've come to a remarkable conclusion."

David turns to him, “Nu, tell me about your wonderful conclusion."

Moshe says, “Here's what I've discovered, if a husband only slightly upsets his wife, it's almost certain that she will shout at him.  But if the husband continues to upset her, she won't shout louder but instead will give him the silent treatment.”

David says to Moshe, “So the lesson is, sometimes it’s worthwhile to put in a little extra effort?”

There is an old adage that silence is golden, but I don’t think it was ever translated into Yiddish or Ladino. Jews are anything but silent.

Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, our tradition does think that silence can have value, but like most of things in life, it’s all about timing and intention. 

Take for example, the small aleph at the beginning of today’s book: Vayikra. The word, Vayikra, ends with the letter alef, but in the actual Torah scroll, the letter is written smaller than all the other letters.  It teaches us that letter alef is the most humble letter in the alphabet.  It doesn’t actually make a sound, it needs other letters to help it make a sound, but on the other hand, the other letters need the alef to bridge the gap between letters and be able to make sense. 

If the aleph was missing, we would see the word, Vayikar, and which means “happened upon”. The midrash tells us the story of this mysterious alef: “Moses was both great and humble, and wanted only to write Vayikar, signifying "chance", as if the Holy Blessed One appeared to him only in a dream, but God made Moses write the aleph in order to tell Moses, “No, I’m calling out to you intentionally.” To take it a step further, God is teaching Moses a lesson: be intentional with your words, and how you call out to others, and Moses teaches us that we must do so with humility. 

Which begs the questions, how do we ‘call out’ to others in today’s age? Do we do it intentionally? Do we do it with humility? 

It got me thinking of an interesting discussion on an online rabbinic group I’m a part of. A recently ordained anonymous rabbi asked, “I am careful not to be overly political in my sermons or when I represent the synagogue, but does a synagogue has the right to curtail posting about my personal under my own name?

The rabbi is asking, can I have one place in the world where I can just say how I really feel without it bleeding into my work life?!? 

For those of a certain age in the room, not sharing everything in your brain with the world is easy. Many look with astonishment and let’s face it, disappointment, at a younger generation sharing everything online, and telling everyone exactly how you feel at this moment. What’s up with our generation?!? Why are we like this? 

Dr. Jean Twenge, in her book Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America's Future, notes that it’s not just historical events that shape us, but cultural shifts due to new technologies are arguably more powerful in shaping who we are today. For example, in the past, sharing a political opinion meant attending a rally or writing a letter. Today, it’s as easy as tapping a screen. Never before has it been so easy to have our voices heard, but on the other hand, it’s never been harder to know what’s truly worth saying. 

As I mentioned, the book of Leviticus opens up with the virtue of silence.

וַיִּקְרָ֖א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְי אֵלָ֔יו מֵאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר׃

The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:

Here is the situation – the Mishkan is completed – it has been dedicated, so now, what's next?  

What's puzzling in this very first sentence, God calls out to Moses, and then, God speaks to Moses.  The question is, why does God call out to Moses and then speak to him?  Rashi notes that sometimes we see this verb, call out, Vayikra, before Dibbur, speaking, as it divides up large sections of dialogue.  He says, the following:  “It gave Moses an interval for reflection between one division and another and between one subject and another — something which is all the more necessary for an ordinary man receiving instruction from an ordinary man.”

We live in a time of rapid communication – when something happens, it seems like we have to comment almost immediately.  If someone asks us a question, we have to answer it, no matter if we know the answer or not.  Here we see something very interesting – Moses, the greatest Jewish mind ever, needed time to reflect, he needed time for silence which leads to reflection, and ultimately, to growth.  

The Passover Seder is one of the most beautiful Jewish rituals our tradition has to offer the world, but, it’s not entirely Jewish. The Torah speaks about the obligation of each family eating the Pascal lamb on the evening of Passover, and not leaving anything left over for the morning, eating matzah and marror (bitter herbs), sprinkling some blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and it also instructs the father to teach his son about the Exodus on Pesah. 

But the Torah doesn’t really mention how we do these things during the you can eat-night long kosher meat fest. Ben Zion Bokser, who wrote the Origin of the Seder thinks that the Sages adopted the symposium after the destruction of the Second Temple in order to find a replacement for the Paschal sacrifice, which could no longer be brought. 

Over the rabbinic period, the Passover Seder was developed based on the mitzvoth I mentioned. Just as service of the heart—prayer—replaced Temple sacrifice, the Seder and the conversations it sparks replace the physical act of offering the Pascal lamb. The Haggadah doesn’t just tell a story—it creates space for dialogue, questions, and even silence. The Seder is built to provoke discussion—not just for the talkers, but for the silent ones too.

Silence is not a sin, but not asking questions is. 

During the Seder we read about the Four Sons, but there is a son that we actually never talk about - the child who doesn’t know how to ask, in other words, the silent child. 

Even the wicked child gets more attention than the silent child! So is silence, a sin? The child who does not know how to ask can teach us about the virtue of silence, and intentional speech through curiosity. 

A commentary states that since each of the four children is supposed to ask and only the fourth child doesn’t do so, we provoke him by speaking acting in a strange fashion. …Since they do not ask questions by themselves you must get them to open up and ask questions. Give them the space to ask questions. From the way you speak to them they will know about what to ask questions.”

Rabbi Miriam Spitzer encourages us to look at this section of the seder in an entirely new way. She writes, “Perhaps the Haggadah deliberately provides caricatures of four types of children to teach us something about the care we must take when we answer questions. Each person at our seder is coming from a different place. This one is older and more experienced. That one has never been to a seder before. That other one is sick and did not expect to make it to seder, but is there. That one never learned how to read Hebrew, and that one knows French.” She explains that the point of including the four children has really less to do with the questions they do or do not ask and more about the way we choose to respond and answer the questions that come our way. How many times do we say to adults and children alike—I don’t have time for that question right now. Or, that question has nothing to do with what we are discussing tonight. Seder night is an opportunity for discussion about the best ways we answer hard questions. We often sneer at the wicked child but guess what—that child, is sitting at our table—what a gift. And so perhaps you will look around seder and see the most challenging and sometimes belligerent students or guests as now, an opportunity to bring them closer, and encourage all in attendance, to not hold back, but to ask, wonder, test and debate.

Perhaps the hardest part of the Seder today is not giving answers—it’s sitting in the discomfort of questions we don’t yet have answers to. Especially when those questions come from our children who feel differently than we do about core Jewish values or Israel, the greatest gift we can give them is not a perfect answer—but space. 

Not every question needs an exact answer in the moment. But think of the difference between creating an atmosphere where questions are welcomed rather than creating an environment where questions are pushed away? 

But this culture of sacred questioning doesn't stay confined to the Seder table—it also challenges us to think about how we speak and stay silent outside that space.

Returning to my younger colleague’s question of where they can post how they really feel online, my colleague, Rabbi Eli Garfinkel responded with the wisest words I have heard in a long time: 

“I have never regretted a decision not to post my opinion, but to answer your specific question: I don’t think they have a right to silence you, but they do have a right not to employ you.”

Wise words to live by. I want to focus on the first part of his statement though: “I have never regretted a decision not to post my opinion.”

There is of course, a danger to silence. In this week's Torah reading, we find this passage that lists a person as a sinner, although he committed no positive sinful act. Their sin was withholding vital information, refusing to come forward even after the court issued an order for all those with evidence to appear in court. 

This person didn't lie, or cheat or steal: this person simply remained silent; they opted out. The Torah tells us that staying silent when you have evidence is a sin--a sin of omission if not of commission. One must atone for the sin of remaining silent. It is a moral outrage; it is a desecration of the teachings of Torah.

Even if a person commits no overt sin, they may be guilty of sin simply by remaining silent, by looking the other way, by sidestepping responsibility. The question is, what does making our voice heard look like? 

As human beings in the digital age, every person has a soap box, and boy do we love commenting on everything, whether we know anything about it or not, but if we take these two teachings together, the power of silence in order to say what is really important, and then, the obligation to act on these words once said, is the essence of what it means to be a Jew.  

The Passover Seder, like any good meal, is supposed to be memorable. Matzah takes a long time to digest, and so too should the words spoke at the Seder take a long time to digest. That’s why the words we speak at the Seder should be thoughtful and intentional—words that elevate not just the table, but everyone gathered around it.

Let us teach by listening, respond with care, and remember that sometimes, the holiest words are the ones we take the time to say—or not to say—at all.