Freedom Seder- Dayeinu

Haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu

[Raise the cup. All sing or recite Dayenu:]

Had You taken us out of slavery, but not torn the Sea apart for us, it would have been enough for us!

Had You brought us through it dry, but not sunk our oppressors in its midst, it would have been enough for us!

Had You sunk our oppressors in its midst, but not freely fed us manna, it would have been enough for us!

Had You freely fed us manna, but not rested us with Shabbat, it would have been enough for us!

Had You rested us with Shabbat, but not given us the Teaching, it would have been enough for us!

I-lu ho-tzi ho-tzi-a-nu, ho-tzi-anu mi-mitz-ra-yim, ho-tzi-a-nu mi-mitz-rayim dai-ye-nu.

DAI-DAI-YE-NU, DAI-DAI-YE-NU, DAI-DAI-YE-NU, Dayenu, dayenu!

I-lu na-tan na-tan la-nu, na-tan la-nu et ha-sha-bat, na-tan la-nu et ha-sha-bat, dai-ye-nu.

DAI-DAI-YE-NU, DAI-DAI-YE-NU, DAI-DAI-YE-NU, Dayenu, dayenu!

[Someone says:]

What does this mean, "It would have been enough"? Surely no one of these alone would indeed have been enough for us.

It means to celebrate each step toward freedom as if it were enough, then to start out on the next step.

It means that if we reject each step because it is not the whole liberation, we will never be able to achieve the whole liberation.

It means to sing each verse as if it were the whole song and then sing the next verse! [All read:]

How many and how hard are the tasks the Redeemer has set before us!

If we were to free the peoples of the world, but not to beat the swords of every nation into plowshares, it would not be enough for us.

If we were to beat the swords of every nation into plowshares, but not to share our food and end all hunger, it would not be enough for us.

If we were to share our food and end all hunger, but not to cleanse our earth and air of poison, it would not be enough for us.

If we were to cleanse our earth and air of poison, but not to turn to wind and sun for energy, it would not be enough for us.

If we were to turn to wind and sun for energy, But not to set aside some time for love and laughter, it would not be enough for us

Then how great, doubled and redoubled, are the claims the Redeemer makes upon our effort! You call us to struggle, work, share, give, think, plan, organize, sit-in, speak out, dream, hope, and pray for the great Redemption: to end the oppression of all peoples, to prevent the extinction of a million species, to shape a planet joyful in our shared abundance, to turn to wind and sun for energy, and to set aside some time for love and laughter, All these!

[Someone reads:] Before entering … the Hajj {Pilgrimage to Mecca], which is the beginning of a great change and revolution, you must declare your intention. It is the intention of a "transferral" from your house to the house of people, from life to love, from the self to Allah, from slavery to freedom, from racial discrimination to equality, sincerity and truth, from being clothed to being naked, from a daily life to an eternal life and from selfishness and aimlessness to devotion and responsibility. — Ali Shariati, Hajj

One of the most powerful, and deeply spiritual, ways to work for social change is for us to take action in the present that embodies — right now! — the future vision that we seek. Forty years ago, the sit-in movement had a vision of the future: integrated restaurants. The sit-ins did not beg legislators to change the law. They did not attack the restaurant-owners. They went, Black and white together, to integrate them. What happened next was up to the owners and the police. They could accept integration, they could beat people up, they could put them in jail, they could kill them, they could change the law. They did all those things, but mostly, ultimately, people changed the law.

The vision of new possibility was not left in the hands of visionaries, for it was embodied in defiant love. It made real the spiritual teaching that the means and the ends are indivisible, for it made the ends themselves into the means, not in a far-off future but in Now. And it gave actual faces to the "issue." It was no longer a matter of courts and law books but of real live students, restaurant-owners, waitresses, police. So the public responded. The sit-ins seeded a fruitful American politics that is still nourishing us, even in days of Imperial War and Insatiable Wealth. — Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow

Source:  
SEDER FOR THE EARTH: Facing the Plagues & Pharaohs of Our Generation, Shalom Center

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