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Dayenu
Contributed by Secular Synagogue

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

Submitted by Michelle Sajadi:

Dayeinu: What in our lives do we take for granted, but may actually be enough for us? Let's share! After each person shares, respond: Dayeinu!
 
As we gather virtually this year, at this difficult time, let's think about the aspects of our lives that we take for granted, but actually may be enough for us. This year, Dayenu will be about gratitude for those things. In turn, please recite what would have been enough for you.
 
Mine: I am grateful this year to be able to celebrate with my loved ones. While I wish we could be together in person, I'm thankful that we have the means to connect virtually and to make those connections meaningful.
 
Group: Day-Day-Einu, Day-Day-Einu, Day-Day-Einu, Dayeinu Dayeinu!
 
etc...
 
In addition, I love this analysis (Jonathan Ratner, available on Haggadot.com):

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.
haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu

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