I’m sorry for the blogging lapse. Teaching, traveling, feeling worn down (from the aforementioned teaching and traveling), losing myself in engaging books and mesmerizing jazz recordings, rubbing Goldberry’s belly, filling my belly with ash reshteh (courtesy of one of my graduate students), and so forth—as I’ve written elsewhere, I have no shortage of excuses. So, let’s not dwell on them and move on. Before doing so, however, I’ll mention one bit of traveling that was both exhausting and rejuvenating, if that makes any sense (I never promised coherence in this blog). It was a spring break road trip across ten states that featured stops for research, table tennis, family visits, and priceless time with cherished friends of my youth that included used bookstore scavenging, overeating, a serene day-hike along the Appalachian Trail, and warm laughter. It was the type of road trip I would have taken as a college teen—hence the rejuvenation—but I am no longer a college teen—hence the exhaustion. Every day of that trip deserves a blog, but something else is on my mind, so that is where I will focus my attention, and hopefully yours as well. Specifically, I want to discuss the value of asking questions.
Questions are on my mind because April is the month of Passover (this year at least)1 and the Passover Seder is, if nothing else, a time for questions. I am not just referring to the ritualized “Four Questions” customarily recited by the children, which at least in the Hebrew aren’t even technically questions.2 (Yes, asking why these statements are referred to as questions, is a good Seder question, that is, for a rabbi or historian, not a simple anthropologist.) Rather, I am referring to the Q&A graduate seminar format that imbues the entire Seder.
The Passover Seder reveals myriad themes: slavery, freedom, power, order, memory, free will, peoplehood, learning, gratitude, and the list goes on. Over the centuries erudite rabbis have explored these themes as well as offered countless explanations for what is happening throughout this strange, astonishing evening. One common suggestion is that the evening’s oddities—dipping twice, washing hands before that first dipping, leaning while consuming that now salt-soaked dipped parsley…this list is also endless—are aimed at encouraging the children to ask questions, such as “Have the adults collectively lost their minds?” Indeed, according to the Rambam, I believe (but don’t quote me, which is a good rule in general regarding this blog),3 if the children have already asked a question before reaching the “Four Questions” in the Haggadah, these four pseudo-questions can be skipped. Rabbis don’t normally do a lot of skipping, although on occasion I’ve seen a few jogging and running (toward a mitzvah or matzah brei, I presume—I run for the latter too). As centuries passed and the hoarding tendencies of the rabbis became undeniable—adding (but never discarding) prayers to every Jewish service,4 including the Seder—faster recitation emerged as the solution rather than skipping, although the Seder is generally resistant to such speed-praying. The rabbis, in fact, incorporated warnings into the Haggadah to avoid wholesale skipping. For instance, just in case you were feeling logy and thought perhaps you could forgo the Seder entirely, having already heard the story last year, the Haggadah, which typically delivers its messages as hints and allusions, offers a rare moment of clarity: this is one obligation without exceptions. No excuses. As we read in the Haggadah, “Even if all of us were scholars, all of us sages, all of us elders, all of us learned in Torah, we would still be required to recount the story of the Exodus from Egypt.” Fortunately, I like stories, and the story of how a tribe of argumentative slaves escaped from Egypt and introduced the world to matzah ball soup is a doozy.
The Seder is long and questions keep the children (and adults) attentive and engaged. Moreover, since the rabbis have offered copious interpretations of every aspect of the Seder, there is no shortage of diverse answers to any question, so the discussion changes from year to year, even if the story doesn’t. Despite this diversity, there seems to be some agreement about the purpose of the post-meal search for a designated piece of matzah known as the afikomen: it is aimed at keeping the kids awake.
The afikomen is supposed to be the last thing eaten at the Seder. In other words, the rabbis, ever humorous and ironic, decided that a delicious holiday meal, celebrating freedom, should be capped off with a cracker that tastes like dry cardboard for dessert. According to halacha (Jewish law), the afikomen should be eaten by hatzot, which is often translated as midnight, but really refers to the mid-point between sunset and sunrise. In April, hatzot is usually well after midnight, which is fortunate, since we never eat by midnight. The truth is, though, we are not strict about this halacha as we often eat the afikomen after hatzot, whenever that might be.
Early in the Seder evening, while everyone is still awake, the afikomen is separated from the “middle” matzah (there is a stack of three matzot on the Seder table) and it is then hidden by either a parent or the children. If the former, as in our family’s Seder, the children hunt for the afikomen after the meal; if the latter, a parent tries to find the afikomen. Whatever the tradition, the children (usually) remain awake in anticipation. Following the search, the children are in control of the afikomen because parental searches are invariably futile and children’s searches will be assisted with clues until the afikomen is found. Thus, in one of those common role-reversal rituals that anthropologists love to write about,5 the children have significant bargaining power since consuming the afikomen is required to complete the Seder. Hence, a deal with the children must be struck; the children demand a gift in return for the afikomen.
For years my go-to bargaining gift was four cans of Israeli pickles, one for each child. Seriously. My kids love pickles and to have their own can that was exempt from the household egalitarian food-sharing rule, adopted from hunter-gatherers, was a treat.6 Or, more accurately, it was initially a treat. After a few years, my kids revolted and promised they would not trade the afikomen if all I could tender was canned pickles. I think the critical turning point came when I, regrettably, offered one of my children a different afikomen gift than the other kids. In that fateful year I forgot the golden rule of parenting—distribute your love and M&M’s equally—and I handed one of my kids an acceptance letter to their top college choice, which had arrived in the mail earlier that day. For this child, it was a joyous and memorable moment. For the others, it was also memorable: pickles for the fourth year in a row no longer looked so good. In general, my kids are not jealous of each other, but this rebellion had probably been brewing for at least a year and my parenting blunder had stoked the fire. I got an earful from the pickle recipients, who were justifiably annoyed at the imbalance of my afikomen presents, and that was the end of the pickles.
At our Seder my kids ask a lot of questions. We never finish the Seder before 3:00 a.m., so guests often ask a lot of questions too, or more accurately, variations on the same question: “Will we be eating soon?” We don’t usually begin eating until around 1:00 a.m., which means that over the years the self-selection process has dwindled the number of guests at our Seders, beyond the nuclear family and house pets, to a whopping zero. Yes, embarrassingly, there were years when guests left our home before reaching the meal (“Can we give you a doggie bag of matzah for the road?”). My kids are able to stave off hunger because throughout the Seder they are rewarded with candies for any good questions they ask. And they receive extra candies if their questions reference The Lord of the Rings (Daddy, were there any hobbits in Egypt? Was Pharaoh more evil than Sauron? What would have happened if Moses had the One Ring?…). Needless to say, my kids are barely hungry by the time we are eating matzah at 1:00 a.m.
So, questions are the core of every Seder and as a teacher I certainly appreciate that questions are central to any didactic activity. Yet, while I want to build up the case for the merit of asking questions (yes, that is the direction in which I am heading, although I appreciate that it may not yet be evident, since, as usual, my route is circuitous), I wish to pause for a moment and highlight two questions you should never ask a professor.
First, if you are student who misses a lecture, do not, upon your return to class, ask the professor, “Did I miss anything?” Missing class may have been excusable; this question is not. If I am in a generous mood I’ll respond something like, “No, you didn’t miss a thing. When I noticed you were absent, rather than delivering the lecture I had prepared, I decided to entertain your classmates by juggling, playing guitar, and telling funny stories about my dog, Goldberry, such as the time she ate a box of matzah.” If I am not in a generous mood, sarcasm is replaced by nastiness. This is one of the underappreciated perks of tenure.
The other question you should never ask a professor is one that is invariably posed by naïve friends and family who have not spent their lives in the so-called ivory tower. Following the end of the spring semester, these well-meaning busy-bodies can’t seem to resist: “Now that you are on vacation all summer, what are your plans?” Unfortunately, a snarky retort such as “Oh, I think I’ll set up a beach chair in your office under a sun lamp and sip martinis” usually fails to prompt the type of shame I am hoping to elicit. A more direct response is needed to clarify that although I don’t teach over the summer, I do have to work, full-time in fact. Indeed, I likely work more over the summer than during the academic year since it is the one extended period of time I can focus exclusively on my research, which I generally find more stimulating than preparing and delivering lectures.
While some situations warrant “don’t ask” questions, such as the ones just described, asking questions is usually essential for functional social existence. The Seder uses the Q&A format as a didactic tool, but this format not only serves to transmit Jewish culture from one generation to the next. It genuinely provides a narrative for Jewish life and imbues Seder participants with a sense of identity, and importantly, agency in creating that identity. Consequently, asking questions builds community by enabling those at the Seder to collectively develop and negotiate shared responses. This doesn’t mean there is always agreement, but it does provide a setting and ritual framework in which differing opinions can coexist and even respectfully live in tension with each other. As Adam Seligman and Robert Weller note in Rethinking Pluralism (2012), ritual does not eliminate the differences and ambiguities of social life, but it does allow us to live with those differences and ambiguities.
So, as the title of this blog asks, what can USA Table Tennis learn from a Passover Seder? In short, the value of asking questions. The US table tennis community needs spaces where everyday players can ask questions to administrative leaders and anticipate reliable, open responses. The lesson of the Seder is that such an exchange will foster identity, empowerment, and most notably, community. Currently, there is a disconnect between non-elite club players and the USATT leadership; players are asking questions, but they are asking these questions among themselves since there are a lack of opportunities for players to access USATT leaders. And players’ questions among themselves, I believe, are revealing what is missing in the US table tennis community.
Here, for example, are two questions I’ve heard repeatedly over the past year at clubs and tournaments that helped me reach this conclusion; in other words, questions that exposed what is specifically missing in the US table tennis world, which I will discuss in a moment:
Why did the best male player in the US, ranked within the top 30 players in the world, suddenly drop out of the sport for a year? And why isn’t the US sending a Men’s Team to the Olympics?
These are fair questions. Did our highest ranked male player and the rest of the US Men’s Team decide to leave table tennis to explore the world of pickleball? Or did our top player take time off to try out for the lead role of Frodo in a musical production of The Lord of the Rings? Maybe fellow team members followed suit, aiming to be cast as other hobbits in the show?
I am well-aware of the likely answers to these questions, or what I think are the likely answers (incidentally, the evidence does not support speculations about hobbits or pickleball). And I assume many readers who are table tennis players have heard rumors as well. But these are questions that shouldn’t be answered by rumor. The problem is that USATT has remained silent on these and other embarrassing issues, such as how the US Men’s Team lost a tie 3-1 to Kazakhstan at the 2024 World Team Championship in Korea despite the fact that everyone watching (live and online) saw the US Men win two matches. The public face of the USATT, since 2015, is USATT Insider, the official e-newsletter of USA Table Tennis. But you’d have better luck finding the afikomen in a Beverly Hills McMansion than finding answers to these questions in USATT’s weekly newsletter. And without credible information, ignorance breeds rumors, conspiracy theories, and the spread of misinformation. And misinformation, unfortunately, is not inevitably as innocuous as hobbits and pickleball.
USATT has not always swept its embarrassments under the rug. Predecessors to USATT Insider, such as the monthly magazine Table Tennis Topics, provided genuine news about competitive table tennis in the US for decades. These periodicals, especially Table Tennis Topics, were informative, critical, and at times even opinionated; they served the US table tennis community and documented much of what was happening in our sport. They not only highlighted the successes of our international stars, which USATT Insider is also wont to do, but players could also read about the results of local and regional tournaments. And more importantly, their editors wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and they called for change when change was appropriate. Such a magazine is precisely what is currently lacking in the US table tennis community.
With many recent developments, table tennis in the US appears to have reached a pivotal juncture. The good: the birth of Major League Table Tennis and the international success of our top women players. The bad: for the first time in years the US is not sending a Men’s Team to the Olympics. The ugly: while our top players remain committed, many casual and non-elite table tennis players are gravitating toward pickleball, and some table tennis clubs are facilitating this migration by closing up tables to make room for indoor pickleball courts. These and other vital topics ought to be discussed and debated in print, not just in courtside conversations at table tennis clubs. In other words, a critically informative table tennis magazine is needed more than ever. There are questions to be asked and there are stories to be told (good, bad, and ugly). If these stories are told accurately and thoroughly, certain questions wouldn’t need to be asked, and I wouldn’t be facetiously suggesting that our top players are wannabe hobbits or pickleball defectors.
Speaking of stories to be told, I will close this blog with one that should have been written about in USATT Insider, but inexplicably wasn’t. Indeed, it captured headlines and elicited articles in leading news outlets such as The New York Times, CBS News, and People magazine. I’m referring to the stroke recently suffered by one of the pillars of the US table tennis community: Will Shortz. As you’ve likely seen in various news reports, Will is continuing his recovery and I want to send my heartfelt wishes for a speedy return to full health. I’ve spent a lot of time conducting research at the Westchester Table Tennis Center over the past year, and words (or at least, my words) cannot express what Will has accomplished in building this club, and what his efforts have contributed to table tennis in this country. His generosity and commitment are simply unparalleled.
Relating Will’s achievements—a playing streak of nearly 4000 consecutive days that recently ended, founding the largest table tennis club on the East Coast, deliberately designing the most welcoming table tennis club in the US, developing and financially supporting the most successful US monthly tournament ever, and so on—is most certainly a story that needs to be narrated in a conventional and comprehensive regularly-published US table tennis magazine. Hopefully someone will heed the call and establish such a periodical, so stories like Will’s can be told, alongside articles that may be less savory, such as recent events surrounding our Men’s Team. And questions can be asked and answered. Maybe, if I’m lucky, the magazine will need the services of a story-loving vegetarian anthropologist who has a fondness for matzah brei and ash reshteh (speaking of savory), and an incurable habit of writing meandering blogs. If they ask, I’ll be ready.
Notes
1The Jewish calendar is lunar with seasonal corrections, so the Jewish holidays accordingly shift months in the solar year. In the Jewish calendar, Passover always begins in the evening on the 14th day of Nisan, which typically falls in either March or April.
2In Hebrew, this section of the Haggadah is referred to as Mah Nishtanah, which does not refer to questions, but rather roughly translates as “Why/What is Different.”
3I’m glad you didn’t quote me. With the help of a learned friend, I tried to find the textual source for this memory. It actually derives from a scene in the Talmud (Pesachim 115b) in which Abaye asks why his tray is being removed before he has eaten, and Rabbah responds that Abaye (through asking this question) has exempted those gathered from reciting Mah Nishtanah. This, at least, is Rashbam’s interpretation of the scene, but I could find no evidence in the Mishneh Torah (Hilchot Chametz U’Matzah) that Rambam shared this view, so I evidently confused Rambam for Rashbam. A forgivable error, I hope. And of course, this is a rabbinic discussion, so like a room full of anthropologists, there is always disagreement. Tosafot, if I understood the commentaries on this passage of Pesachim correctly, disagree with Rashbam’s interpretation. But as I said, I’m a mere anthropologist, not a rabbi, so it is probably a good policy not to uncritically accept my Judaic musings in this blog.
4See my 2009 article Why are Synagogue Services so Long? An Evolutionary Examination of Jewish Ritual Signals.
5See Victor Turner (1969) The Ritual Process.
6Scones, as I admitted in another blog, are exempt from this rule in our house, which seems reasonable since hunter-gatherers evidently don’t care much for scones.
Richard Sosis 