Dayenu 5771: Taking the Korban Pesach; Its Contemporary Sequels in Kindness, Emunah?

Each year, this author puts forth factors that relate to the state of B’nai Yisrael — right here and right now. And so, the lessons of Dayenu are vital now, just as they were in the first year that I emailed this vort out or, for that matter, as vital as they were when it was quoted in Segal’s compilation of the book in its copyright year 1988.

As we approach Pesach 5771, we take time again to ponder this brief section about Dayenu and wonder what tests of emunah Hashem will toss our way as a Klal which might approach or exceed his tests of our forefathers in Mitzrayim; i.e., taking the Mitzri avodah zora — my parody about “Tying the Korban Pesach to the Bedpost Overnight”, then slaughtering it, and applying its blood to our doorposts so that the Moloch HaMavet passes over
our Jewish homes… and eating it at the Seder table on the night before going out from Mitzriyim. Are we there? Can we place our mindsets there?

What tests akin to the Korban Pesach, or Kri’yat Yom Suf (crossing the Reed Sea) does Hashem have in mind us
this Pesach, as Moshiach approaches B’ezrat Hashem, to test OUR mettle, both individually and as a kehal, as a
nation, as Jews? Do we have the backbone, the “fire in the belly” to stand up and physically express in a multitude of ways our sovereignty and our ownership of Eretz Yisrael? Do we have the inner strength and gumption to do right by our fellow Jews? Are the modern-day tests akin to the tests, the challenges our brethren faced in the day of Pharoah and Mitzrayim?

Dayenu!!!

My Introduction:

In the Book “Dear Brothers”, the story is told how Pesach 5738 (1968) was approaching when the first group of
Pioneers endeavored to establish themselves in Chevron. Among this hearty group were Rabbis Haim Druckman, Eliezer Waldman, Moshe Levinger, Shlomo Aviner and others:

We pick up the story as the participants, “Sixty people sat down to that historical first Seder…” in Chevron.

“Another participant was the author Moshe Shamir, formerly affiliated with the leftist Hashomer Hatzair(the Young Guard). As he did with each of the celebrants during the Seder, Rabbi Druckman asked Shamir to make some comments appropriate to the festival. The others braced themselves for the minor unpleasantness that was sure to result…”

In our time the road continues for B’nai Yisrael. Entebbe, Israel’s successful bombing of the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor, Gulf War 1, The 10 1/2 years of the continuing “Oslo” War, 9/11, the bombings of a Syrian nuclear site as well as bombings of military convoys in the Sudan carrying military contrand to terrorists in Gaza, and other such events, as well as ever-growing concern about Iranian Nuclear Reactor and developments, the Roadmap/Seperation wall/Expulsion/Annapolis machinations of current governments of Israel … — these are physical, political national road.

And the spiritual road leading to Jewish self-esteem?? It is travelled by way of tefillos, our Avodat Hashem and
common decency toward our fellow Jews — V’ahavtah L’rei’cha Komocha as existed amongst B’nai Yisrael even in the depths of Mitzri enslavement, as well as by way of the strength of our convictions regarding Emunah in Hashem and by striving for the perceived “unachievable”; both inward and outward expressions and manifestations of limitless love for our fellow Jew and for our Holy Land.

But an indispensable key to the spiritual road is our chessed — not just throwing money at a need, but expressing
our chessed through kindnesses done for our fellow Yid in need, even in the Eikev Mitzvot — like providing a fellow Yid with change for a 10 shekel piece in the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

We tend to function, each in our own domain first and foremost. We operate out of expediency — with speed-of-
light Davening, at the place of business, dealing with our families. We, in our autos, speed past our brother,
ignoring his welfare or that he has his finger out to go exactly where you are going. We see our brother running to
catch a bus and don’t make an effort, on his behalf, to get the driver to wait that extra second. We flatly refuse to help a brother in even the smallest of ways. And we are given excuses and rationalizations for this refusal, i.e., how they live such a hard life in Israel. A hard life??

Are they slaves with a quota of bricks each day and no straw to produce them? Are they beaten unmercifully with whips? In Mitzrayim even then, a Jew reached out to help another Jew. But in modern-day Israel, Israeli merchant after Israeli merchant flatly refuse to reach into one’s cash register, or pocket, to make change for a Jewish pedestrian’s 10 shekel piece. And we seem, often at the hghest communal levels, to turn a blind-eye and deaf ear to domestic or child abuse, criminality in the neighborhood, etc.

Instead we give our brother a blank countenance, or a state of indifference and/or blunt insensitivity as we are only self-concerned. We are not totally forthcoming and truthful with our brother concerning the facts of a business or banking transaction often putting “obstacles in the way of the blind” as we grub for that last shekel at the other guy’s expense. We give and take bribes — protexia at all levels, if it’ll increase our personal influence, our place in history or our position on “the bottom line.” And we are totally blase’ about OUR Land — Eretz Yisrael, so much so that we continue, business as usual, even as we are in mortal danger from the evil regime controlling affairs of state turning a blind eye and deaf ear to their constituency, their fellow Jews. A regime where each group has an agenda working against every other group thereby dividing us all and letting the evil ones “divide and conquer.”

We’ve lost our sense of unity of national purpose — the bond that in the past held us together as one such that an
attack on my brother in Hevron, in Beitar, by Arab forklift drivers in Jerusalem, in the Golan or in Ramat Aviv Bet, on a Mall in Haifa, or massacres such as took place in Adura in 2002, or in Itamar a few weeks ago would previously been felt by all to have been an attack upon ME — and I would get my dander and do something about it. We’ve lost our sense of unity of national purpose of which all of our sectarian differences, prejudices, etc. were heretofore subordinate and subserviant.

This author recently finished reading the sefer “Let My Nation Go” by Yosef Deutsch. It is interesting that on the final pages of the sefer, after some 402 pages of describing the evolvement of the Jewish enslavement in
Mitzrayim, Moshe’s birth and time in Pharaoh’s palace, Hashem’s placement of leadership upon Moshe, the Divine Makkot upon the Mitzriyim, Hashem’s release of B’nai Yisrael from enslavement and finally, the crossing of the Yom Suf (the sea) with Pharaoh and the Mitzriyim in full persuit — on the final couple of pages, Deutsch indicates that when the Jews saw the dead Mitzriyim float up to the surface with all of their riches and booty, there were some among them who had the unmitigaated chutzpah to suggest that with all the booty in their possession, they should go back and take over Egypt.

And so, there is the old adage that a Government is but a mirror image of the people it leads. I hold that the purity and freshness of our Tefillah, Avodah, Mitzvot and awareness of OUR unique relationship with Hashem, as well as our outward displays of unity and love for our brethren are directly related to Dayenu. These outward displays of unity would be manifested by fighting the current anti-Torah, cruel decrees of evil regimes and the modern-day medina’s mega-evil “justice system” in every way in order that every believing Jew grasp the true extent of the evil being contemplated against them.