This I Believe: The Power of Questions

I firmly believe that life’s greatest rewards come not from knowing all the answers, but from asking the questions.

I remember, as the youngest cousin in my reformed Jewish family – which meant we practiced kind of a diluted version of high holiday observance -- I had the traditional honor of reciting the mah nish’tanah at Passover, most often at the home of my favorite aunt. Actually, it wasn’t a reciting, but an asking of four pertinent questions to the reasons for the celebration of that high holy day. Most years, it was the predictable routine, my singing the verses I had memorized from Hebrew School, after which my father, never having really memorized the “response portion”, read the English translation from the Hagaddah.

While we always showed reverence for the traditions in front of my grandparents, Sylvia and Joe, once we lost these loving guardians of our faith, things slowly changed. It was even comical at times. Once, in my twenties, before my cousins had their children and I was still the youngest in the family, it was my Dad’s turn to respond to the four questions. But I caught him off-guard while he was pouring the wine, and his Haggadah was on the wrong page, so in a manner very much like my dad, he said, “Because I SAID so. Pass the matzah.”

What strikes me, now, is that his answer isn’t unlike the response one often gets nowadays, when putting forth important questions.

After 9/11, like everyone other American, and our friends across the world, I wanted to know who was responsible, and figure out how it happened, so it could never happen again. But I also wanted to know what could bring people to a point of such hate. But it seemed that question was dismissed or derided. “They’re terrorists”, I was told, as if the label itself was a sufficient answer.

My nephew is 11 and has already taken standardized tests – which I didn’t take for the first time until 13 -- presumably for his benefit, but more likely to rank his school and get access to federal funding. It strikes me as a pretty early age to send the message that the most important thing is to get the right answers.

Seven Rules, the Five Habits, the Twelve Steps -- I don’t mean to dismiss any well- considered approaches designed to help people make better and smarter choices in their lives, but really, I can’t help but wonder…why is it only the answers we seem to validate, and not the asking of questions? Why is saying “I don’t know” a sign of weakness?

I know, in my life, I’ve made some of the richest friendships by gravitating more towards the people that had completely different upbringings than me – the one’s formed after asking the question, “What was it like growing up for you?”

I know I’ve had some of my most interesting jobs – representing voiceover actors for commercial work or editing for a fledging dot-com company before the internet became

widespread – by asking the question, “I wonder what this would be like”, and “What’s the potential here?”

And since last year, when my favorite aunt was diagnosed with a late stage cancer, I’ve found much more peace and she’s been much better served by asking questions about the potential of an experimental treatment, rather than trying to extract a definitive answer from her oncologist about mortality rates.

In my experience, there’s much more joy, and hope, possibility, and yes, vulnerability and risk in admitting our uncertainty and asking questions. But I believe the rewards are worth it.