For Pesach: A New Read of Dayenu

Dayenu. It would have been enough for us. It would have been enough for us if You had only taken us out of Egypt but not also punished the Egyptians. It would have been enough for us if You had taken us out, but not also split the Sea for us. Dayenu. It would have been enough.

Dayenu. The word comes from dahy, meaning “enough” and anu or lanu, meaning “us” or “for us.”

What if we translate it differently this year? What if, instead of reading it as “It would have been enough for us,” we read it as -- “we are enough”?

We are enough. Dayenu.

We sit here looking at all the amazing things that God has done for us and what we conclude from all this love and attention, from all the gifts bestowed upon us for no apparent reason, is this simple idea -- that we are enough for God just as we are. We are enough. Yes, of course, we should improve and do better, and we will strive to.

But at the very basic level, the story of leaving Egypt is not about our deserving it. We most certainly did not deserve it. Tradition has it that we were on the very lowest of spiritual rungs at the time, the 49th step of impurity. We had sunk low, hit bottom, as it were, and the only way out was divine grace and compassion.

Why do it this way? Why didn’t God redeem us when we were worthy? Why didn’t He wait for us to earn it?

Why? So that we can sit at our seders right now and know that dayenu -- we are enough as we are. We don’t have to deserve redemption or God’s love or care. We can look at how He took us out of Egypt and also punished the Egyptians, and also their gods, and also split the sea and also gave us the gift of Shabbat -- we can look at all of that and we can know that we are still worthy of that, just as we are, sitting here right now in all our imperfections and wishing we were otherwise, we are enough just like this to deserve all those gifts. We can know that now because we can look back and see that back then they were enough, too, enough even at their lowest point. God looked at them, His precious people, and even in their dirtiest moment, in all the muck of Egypt, even then, He loved them and wanted them and took care of them.

We are enough. What does it feel like to say that to yourself? I am enough just as I am, right here, right now, in God’s eyes. Even now, however I am, midstream, midwork on myself, I am already enough to be redeemed. I do not have to wait.

This is an essential part of the process of the night. If we expect to have some kind of transformation in the course of one night, we cannot expect it to happen through our own efforts, or through some real work and change that we can make happen inside us. The only way it can happen is if we are already enough, just as we are, right now, to be redeemed, to be loved, to be set free. There is no journey to make other than a simple switch in our minds from unworthy to worthy, from needing work to enough, enough right now to be free and loved and redeemed by God. Dayenu. We are enough.