OPINION: Pesach may be the most remarkable piece of educational theatre ever created

Across the world, on the same night, Jewish families gather around a table and perform the same ritual Jews have performed for centuries. We eat matzah, dip bitter herbs, lean as free people and drink too much wine. We read words that have travelled with our people through exile, persecution and survival.

But the most important moment of the evening is not the rituals. It is the questions and specifically those asked by our children.

Mah Nishtanah – why is this night different?

The seder is built on a radical idea: that the survival of the Jewish people depends not on institutions or politics, but on a conversation between generations. Children ask, parents answer, elders explain. A story passed forward like an like an unextinguished flame.

The Torah does not simply command us to remember the Exodus, it commands us to teach it.

“And you shall tell your child on that day…”

For thousands of years, that instruction has been the engine of Jewish continuity. Empires rose and fell, Jews were expelled, persecuted, massacred and scattered. Yet the story endured because each generation sat down with the next and said: this is who we are. Pesach is not simply the story of liberation from Egypt, but a blueprint for Jewish survival — one more relevant than ever.

Since October 7th, Jews across the world have been forced to confront something deeply unsettling. Not only the horror of that day itself, but the reaction that followed, the speed with which Jewish suffering was minimised, ancient hatreds resurfaced and the willingness to celebrate Jewish pain.

It revealed something many of us had been reluctant to accept.

For decades we have spent enormous energy explaining ourselves to the outside world — explaining Zionism, Israel, Jewish history, and why Jewish safety matters. But October 7 and its aftermath exposed the limits of that strategy. No amount of messaging can persuade those determined not to hear.

The future of Jewish life, particularly in the diaspora, will not be secured by convincing everyone else. It will be secured by inspiring our children.

Someone understood this thousands of years ago and embedded it into Pesach itself. The seder does not instruct us to defend our story to strangers; It instructs us to sit with our children and make sure they understand it.

The Haggadah describes four children: wise, questioning, simple and the one too young to ask. Each child asks a question, each deserves an answer.

Within that framework lies one of Judaism’s most profound truths: we do not fear the questions of the next generation. We welcome and answer them honestly. Because unanswered questions do not remain unanswered for long – someone else will fill the silence.

Today our children encounter these questions everywhere — in classrooms, on campuses, online and among their peers. They hear distorted Jewish history, see Zionism misrepresented and witness a world that too often treats Jewish identity as suspect rather than something to celebrate.

So, the responsibility falls to us. Not simply to defend Judaism, but to teach it, to inspire pride.

We must speak to our children about Israel not apologetically but confidently, as the modern expression of a three-thousand-year connection between a people and their homeland — the belief that the Jewish people deserve the same right to safety and self-determination as every other nation. We must show them that Jewish strength and Jewish humanity are not contradictions, they are inseparable.

Pesach reminds us the Exodus did not begin with power, but with belief — and that belief is what we must pass forward now. Our children are watching closely: whether we stand tall or shrink back, whether we wear our Jewish identity proudly or cautiously, whether we speak about Israel with clarity or hesitation.

From those signals, they will decide how they themselves should stand in the world.

Pesach offers the perfect moment to reset that conversation: a table surrounded by generations, questions asked with curiosity, answers given with pride. Not just a once-a-year exercise, but something bigger — an ongoing dialogue between parents and children about identity, history and responsibility.

Our ancestors whispered this story when they had no choice. They passed it down in ghettos, camps, battlefields and exile. We have the responsibility of saying it out loud.

So, this Pesach, when our children ask their questions, we must answer them with clarity and pride. We must explain who we are, where we come from and why the story of the Jewish people continues.

We must give them something stronger than fear:

Belief in their identity, their history, in the enduring justice of Jewish self-determination. Because the most important audience for the Jewish story was never the world outside, it has always been the child sitting across the table.

At the end of the seder we say the same words Jews have said for centuries: “Next year in Jerusalem.” For much of our history those words were a dream. Today they are also a reminder that Jewish history moves forward when Jews believe in their future.

When our children ask why this night is different, we must answer with pride, because the future of the Jewish people depends on the courage of that answer.

Leo Pearlman is Co-CEO of Fulwell Entertainment