joshuazelinsky

One of the standard explanations for why some things are done at the Seder is that some things deliberately done oddly so that children will ask what one is doing. One problem with this is that then when that specific thing is explained, "Oh, we did that so you'd ask about it," is an obviously unsatisfying explanation. But another problem is that the vast majority of children at Seders know much of the ritual because they've seen it before and because they've learned about it in school. So, in order for this to really work, what we should do is innovate each year with new weird things for the kids to be like "What? We didn't learn about that." To help start this off, I'm going to suggest a few people can consider, all of which are particularly likely to puzzle children because they involve taking pieces of other holidays they are likely familiar with:

1. Early on in the Seder, right after Kiddush, race down the hall on a skateboard while juggling etrogs.

2. After discussing why we dip the egg in salt water, dip an egg in honey. (Bonus: You can say this is to have a sweet new year, and then explain to children that historically Nissan was also the new year for some purposes so this one actually makes sense.)

3. Put next to the seder plate a menorah with some dreidels, but no candles in the menorah. Instead have the dreidels upside down with their tops jammed into the menorah's candleholders.

You want kids to ask what is going on, then give them a real reason to ask what is going on.