This year will mark eighteen years, and my fifteenth Pesach in Eretz Yisrael, in which I have emailed, as it has become tradition with me from prior to my Aliyah, the rendition of Dayenu quoted from the book “Dear Brothers”, by former Arutz Sheva columnist Haggai Segal. In each year, Dayenu holds a unique perspective, unlike the perspective of any previous year.
Each year, this author tries to put 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 5773, 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 — that 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?
Are we really there? Are we really into having that personal dialogue with Hashem three times daily? Or, are we merely, one-two-six, carrying out the by-rote rabbinic injunction and obligation? And similarly, at the Pesach Seder, Are WE really there? Can we feel and understand how it was to be in Mitzrayim, how it was to live through the generations following the death of Yosef HaTzaddik and through the evolution of the enslavement and persecution of B’nai Yisrael by Pharoah and the Mitzriyim? As we make the primary focus of our Pesach Seder experience toward the young children, are we still able to direct the Seder experience in such a way as to instill, among the other age segments around the Seder table, insghts and transplantation such that they feel as if they are/were there and experiencing the dire pain of their ancestors?
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, OUR loyalty to one Jonathan Pollard who has suffered endlessly for 28 years that Medinat Yisrael would survive and thrive, and OUR ownership of Eretz Yisrael? Do we have the inner strength and gumption to do right, whatever it takes, 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? Or the days of Esther, Mordechai, the evil Haman and King Achashveirosh??
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…”
But at every Seder since then; other guests have repeated the Drosh that Moshe Shamir delivered that first Passover Seder in Chevron and so I try to give it over each year to my friends and relatives on Pesach via the Internet(MB):
“The fourteen verses in the song Dayenu (It would have sufficed) have drawn the attention of the commentators throughout the ages. Why should we imply that we could forgo even one of the gifts given to us by Hashem three thousand years ago? How would we have gotten along at all without every one of them? The truth is that this part of the Haggadah has only one aim: to teach us how each and every generation of Jews tends to settle for the achievements of the past, to settle for what its forefathers had accomplished — and to rest on its laurels, with no aspiration for anything not achieved thus far. We, too, right here have that same tendency to say Dayenu — ‘It would have sufficed for us.’ The State of Israel? Dayenu. Unified Jerusalem and liberated Hebron ? Dayenu. Wasn’t it just last year at the Seder [before the 6-day War — MB] that we said, ‘If Hashem had given us Israel but had not given us Jerusalem and Hebron — dayenu? That’s why we’ve got to know that we’ll be facing many more ‘dayenus’ until we reach full redemption.”
The book recounts that Rabbi Druckman stood up and kissed Shamir’s forehead.
The commentary in the Artscroll Pesach Haggadah cites the Malbim and speaks about Dayenu in this way;
“…The bondage of our forefathers was two-fold — physical and spiritual — and so was their redemption. The physical bondage came to an end on Pesach night, but the spiritual redemption reached it’s climax only with the building of the Temple and Hashem’s self-revelation in his sanctuary.”
“Every step on the road to this ultimate goal was a further act of Divine kindness to us, a further revelation of Hashem’s majesty. That’s why we give thanks for each …favor (MB; kindness) bestowed upon us. For every single step, we say Dayenu — it would have sufficed by itself to give our thanks (attributed to Malbim).”
This does not mean that any one step would have sufficed by itself to bring us to our goal. It does mean, however, that each of the happenings of Yetziyat Mitzrayim, Giving of Torah at Har Sinai, the travels through Bamidbar, entry of the Jewish People into Eretz Yisrael through to the building of the Beit HaMikdash “represented a new remarkable miracle — …that Hashem need not have performed these miracles if he had not seen a particular purpose for each.
Dayenu seems to mean recognizing the great chessed that Hashem has done for us with every gift that he has given to the Jewish people from Yetziyat Mitzrayim until now as well as the chessed inherent in the gifts yet to come — B’Ezrat Hashem; Moshiach, Ge’ula Shlaima, Torah leadership and government and an end to the current cruel, often brutal, heartless, totalitarian, dictatorial rulers.
What is the spiritual road leading to Jewish self-esteem?? It seems travelled by way of our kavanah (intent) and ratzon (desire) in our 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.
Having read the sefer “Let My Nation Go” by Yosef Deutsch, it is interesting that, 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 sefer’s 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 unmitigated chutzpah to suggest that with all the booty in their possession, they should go back and take over Egypt.
The sefer “Let My Nation Go”, and indeed the Pesach seder, also holds within an important lesson for the Jews in Chutz L’Aretz. That lesson is how the 70 beings who went down to Mitzrayim with Yaakov Aveinu grew, mushroomed and evolved into viewing that residence as their permanent home, due to their understanding (passed on from prior generations) of 400 years of residence in Mitzrayim. The lesson is how assimilation — calling their country of residence “home”, thus conforming to and melding into the general population resulted in our losing our Jewish identity, spirituality and connection in the process. It is a lesson inherent in the Pesach seder and one which seems an imperative, as fundamental an imperative as that ALL Jews belong being in Eretz Yisrael — our biblical, historical homeland and the only place where a Jew can live feeling spiritually and Jewishly whole and completed.
As writer Moshe Shamir said years ago in his little Pesach vort;
” That’s why we’ve got to know that we’ll be facing many more ‘dayenus’ until we reach full redemption.”
May we, the B’nai Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them at leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized gunpoint, that our dear brethren Jonathan Pollard and Sholom Rubashkin, as well as the other MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Yom Tov! Chag Kosher V’Some’ach and, remember: BE THERE at the Pesach Seder!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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