One of the highlights of the Passover seder is the popular song Daiyenu. Daiyenu is a 15-stanza song listing the key miracles and gifts that God did for or gave to the Jewish people from taking them out of slavery in Egypt to bringing them to the land of Israel.
Each miracle or gift is punctuated with the word Daiyenu, which roughly translates to “it would have been enough for us” or “it would have been sufficient.”
Daiyenu is a fun, feel-good song to sing at the seder, whose catchy tune masks three puzzling things. Once we look at these challenges together, we can discern a powerful lesson that applies to our current circumstances.
Challenge 1: It’s a Weird Way to Express Gratitude
Daiyenu is essentially a list of things we’re grateful for, but it’s written in a weird way for an offering of gratitude.
Instead of speaking to God directly in gratitude, as in, “thank you for bringing us out of Egypt,” we say,
If [God] had only brought us out of Egypt, it would have been enough for us.
And so on.
Why not just express our gratitude straight up?
Challenge 2: A Reverse Spin on “If Only…”
This is an interesting take on the “if only…” construct.
Usually, when we use the construct of “if only…” is to lament something that we wish were different — often stemming from a feeling of lack or regret or what could have been done differently. Everyone has some if onlys floating around in their book of stories, both personally and collectively. They often sound something like this:
If only I had a better job, I could afford a bigger house.
If only I had more time, I could fit in a daily yoga practice.
If only the government had started testing earlier, we wouldn’t be in the middle of a pandemic.
In Daiyenu we take the opposite approach to this. If only is about sufficiency, not about lack.
Challenge 3: Is It Even True?
Some people have asked whether Daiyenu is true.
Their question is: wouldn’t anything less than taking us to the Promised Land of Israel have fallen short of the goal? And if that’s the case, how can we sincerely say that anything before that moment would have been enough?
What We Can Learn From Daiyenu
Let’s start with the last challenge. The fact that we would even need to ask this is in itself validation for why we say Daiyenu every year at the seder.
The question is reflective of a culture where we are always seeking bigger, better, faster, and more. We set a goal and, before we even get there, we move the finish line. As a result, we are often not satisfied with what we have or what we have done. We constantly seek the next level.
This culture of insufficiency conditions us to believe that we are not doing enough, we don’t have enough, and we are not enough.
And that leads us to if only thinking. If only we had better or more resources, we would be able to have the life we dream about.
This is a false narrative, of course. But as long as we believe that we lack something or that we are deficient, we will never fill the well of enoughness, and we will never feel fulfilled.
This is where Daiyenu comes in. Daiyenu is not so much about expressing our gratitude to God — we have an entire section for praise in the Haggadah. Rather, Daiyenu is about reminding ourselves where we started and what was most important when we started and at each step of the journey.
It takes the usual if only script — the one focused on lack and insufficiency — and flips it around. Instead of lamenting what we lack to live our dreams, it reminds us of our sufficiency.
What we have is enough. Each miracle along the way is enough. Remember what’s most important.
Two Lessons For Our Times
(1) Sufficiency
Right now we’re facing a major challenge to our sense of sufficiency. We are losing friends and loved ones to a pandemic. Many people have lost jobs. Lines at food banks stretch for miles. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Ventilators, face masks, and other equipment are seemingly in short supply.
There’s a lot of if only thinking happening right now. If only the country was better prepared, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If only we had more ventilators. If only we had more testing early on, we wouldn’t see so many people dying.
These thoughts trigger fear and a feeling of scarcity, leading to hoarding of toilet paper and other supplies. It’s a normal reaction for the nervous system when it fears for its safety.
Instead of falling victim to these thoughts, we can remember the lessons of Daiyenu: Sufficiency. Focus on one step at a time. What do you need now? We don’t know what we’ll need down the road.
Here’s a personal example: Today I went outside to take a walk in the fresh air. Almost instinctively, I found myself heading toward the supermarket, because I hadn’t been there in a few days. Before I got there, I stopped myself and asked, what do I really need?
The answer was nothing. What I had on hand was enough for the next few days. I don’t need to stock up on more. Daiyenu. What I had was enough for now.
(2) What’s Most Important
Another lesson from Daiyenu is that it can help us remember what’s truly important and what brings meaning and joy to our lives.
Perhaps we will remember that our health is our number one priority, because without it we have nothing.
Maybe we will remember the value of in-person connections, the ability to sit with someone and feel their presence without needing to say anything.
Or the feeling of being able to walk outside without a face mask, to breathe fresh air.
What about being in close proximity to others without fearing for our health?
Eating in a restaurant. Going to a movie or a Broadway show. Or the gym.
There are so many things we take for granted in our “normal” lives, when we’re caught in our neverending quest for more.
This is our opportunity to pause, look at what we’ve had and what we have now and to say, Daiyenu.
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