And it shall come to pass that your child will ask you, tomorrow, "What is this?" And you shall tell him: "With a mighty hand, G-d took us out of Egypt..."
"Your child shall ask you, tomorrow" - there is a "tomorrow" that is immediate, and there is a "tomorrow" that is a long way off. Rashi.
There are children who are of an immediate tomorrow. You both inhabit the same world, and your discourse is predicated on the same axioms.
But there are also children who are of a far-off tomorrow. Children who inhabit a distant world, who speak a distant language and relate to distant values. Children, who a vast gulf separates their tomorrow from your today. Children whose questions are of a different nature entirely: challenging, alien, hostile. What is one to do with such a child, with such a questioner?
Answer him, says the Torah, speak to him, for he is your child. He is a child of your people, and a child of your making - for perhaps, just perhaps, you share in the responsibility for the fact that this child is wandering in the time-warp of a disconnected tomorrow?
When, more than in our day, has this "far off tomorrow" been so painful a reality? How many Jewish children inhabit such alien tomorrows! How many Jewish children are mired in bizarre "Egypts," receding, with horrifying speed, to tomorrows of increasing distance and disconnection!
When such a Jewish child comes with his questions - the apathetic-bitter questions of a rootless generation - remember, he is your child.
Devote your heart, soul and life to him, and illuminate his way back to his holy source.
See the articles below for more spiritual insights on this stage of the Seder.
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