What Does 'Dayenu' Mean Today?

Haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu

by Joshua Ratner, Rabbis Without Borders

One of my favorite parts of the Passover seder is the singing that takes place after we finish eating. There are so many great, fun songs, from “Ehad Mi Yodeah” to "Chad Gadya."Perhaps my favorite song is “Dayenu.” The words are fairly easy to sing in Hebrew, and the chorus is so catchy that even those who don’t know Hebrew can easily join in. But beyond its functionality, the content of Dayenu (literally “it would have been enough”) also carries a deep amount of wisdom.

Dayenu consists of 15 stanzas referencing different historical contexts the Israelites experienced, from slavery in Egypt to the building of the Temple in Israel. After each stanza, we sing the chorus, signifying that if this was the total of God’s miraculous intervention into the lives of the Israelites, it would have been sufficient.

One of the primary purposes of the Passover seder is to make us feel as if we personally experienced the exodus from Egypt and the redemption from slavery to freedom. This is no less true for the way we understand the Dayenu song. Dayenu provides a powerful contemporary hashkafah (outlook on life), a call to mindfulness about the way we currently lead our lives. We live in an era when capitalism is our state (and increasingly global) religion. Consumption is unfettered by any internal sense of restraint, from the amount of soda we can drink to how much money Wall Street executives can make. We live in a world where it is okay that the richest 85 people in the world have total wealth equal to that of the poorest 3.5 billion people on the planet!

Dayenu reminds us that there is another way. Judaism offers an outlook on wealth, consumption, and sufficiency (sova) that is very counter-cultural. InPirkei Avot(Ethics of our Fathers) 4:1, Ben Zoma teaches: “Who is rich? The one who is content with what one has.” Even more austere, the Talmud instructs: “An individual who can eat barley bread but eats wheat bread is guilty of transgressing the law of bal tashchit (unlawful waste). Rabbi Papa states: one who can drink beer but drinks wine instead is guilty of transgressing the law of bal tashchit.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 140b). Judaism is not, to be sure, an ascetic religion. We are encouraged to carve out occasions for excess, for enjoying the finer parts of living—on Shabbat, holidays, and other joyous occasions. But the wisdom of Judaism is that, if we want to experience delight on these special occasions, we also need moments of restraint. It is the juxtaposition of restraint and largess that creates a life of meaning.

Beyond the individual experience, we also are becoming increasingly aware of the global consequences of championing unbridled materialism over a sense of sufficiency. From income inequality to climate change, our refusal to entertain limits on what we do and how much we consume are wreaking destructive consequences. By returning to a sense of Dayenu, of thinking deeply about what is enough, we have the potential to change ourselves and our world. May we be blessed, on this Pesah and beyond, to replace the idolatry of consumption with an embrace of all that we have.

Hag Sameach!

Source:  
Joshua Ratner, Rabbis Without Borders
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Table of contents
    Introduction
  • Human Rights Quote
  • Introduction
  • Human Trafficking Today
  • Introduction
  • Freedom - by Emory Douglas
  • March on Washington, 1963
  • "Седер на Песах". авторка Зоя Черкаська-Ннаді
  • #MyKeshetSeder
  • WHO SITS WITH US AT OUR SEDER??
    • Commentary / Readings
  • Praise the Contrary and Its Defenders
  • Four Cups of Wine: Social Justice Readings for Your Seder
  • Then they came
  • Poetry - Reading The Haggadah Backwards
  • The Brutality of Corrective Rape
  • Liberation in God's Image. Progressive Islam as an Islamic Humanism
  • The Ten Plagues of Domestic Poverty
  • The Banana on the Seder Plate: A Ritual to Reflect the Refugee Crisis
  • Reflection Questions/Preguntas Para Reflexionar
    • Bareich
  • Social Justice Blessing
  • The Third Cup: Transformation
  • Pour Out Your Wrath
    • -- Ten Plagues
  • Heschel Quote
  • Ten Modern Plagues
  • Gentrification: "It's Not About Race...”
  • LGBT Stats
  • Ten Plagues Facing Refugees in the U.S. and Worldwide
    • Human Rights Prayer
      • Yachatz
    • Breaking the matzah - hunger
    • Let All Who are Hungry, Come and Eat—A Reading for The Passover Seder - A Supplement from AJWS
    • Matzah
      • Maggid - Beginning
    • Child Labor in the Cocoa Fields
    • Adding Fair Trade Chocolate to the Seder Plate
    • Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Immigration Seder Ritual
    • The Thesis Statement of the Haggadah
    • Tomato on the Seder Plate
      • -- Four Questions
    • 4 Questions
    • The 5th Question
    • Ask the Fifth Question
    • The Four Questions: What Questions Must We Ask Tonight?
    • Four Questions Through the Lens of Food Justice
    • Four Questions: Human Trafficking
    • Four Questions: Worker's Rights
      • -- Four Children
    • 5th Question
    • Four Children Through the Lens of Food Justice
    • The Four Children: A Racial Justice Haggadah Insert
    • An anti-racist passover resource
      • -- Exodus Story
    • Social Justice - Modern Slavery
    • Maggid & Persecution of Native Americans
    • Heschel on Selma
    • Stand With Refugees This Passover
    • Ruby Bridges
    • Justice For All
    • The Statue of Liberty Reimagined
    • Bread and Roses
      • -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
    • Dayenu intro
    • What Does 'Dayenu' Mean Today?
    • Miriam's Cup - Winona LaDuke, Native American Activist
    • Being LGBTQ and Enough: A Queer Dayeinu
    • Dayenu
      • Rachtzah
    • Rachtzah: A Deeper Washing
      • Motzi-Matzah
    • Dissatisfied...
      • Maror
    • Rights for All Workers
    • Maror
      • Hallel
    • Hallel Prayer for Children of Pilgrims, Slaves & Native American Peoples
      • Songs
    • L'Internationale
    • A Social Justice Commentary on Chad Gadya
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