“Dayeinu! But is it enough for us?”
Parashat Vayakhel-Pekuday— March 20, 2004

There are certain words that folks who’ve attended even one Pesach seder tend to learn quickly. One of them is very familiar. I am sure that if I hum a few bars, you’ll know which one I mean. It is the word that comes at the end of this line: (Sing: Ilu hotzi-, hotzianu, hotzianu mimitzraim, hotzianu mimitzraim, dayeinu!)

Dayeinu is a great song. Many of us sing it at the seder. But we don’t often reflect on what it says, and what it means.

Had He brought us out of Egypt, but not executed judgment against them,
it would have been enough for us!
Had He executed judgment against them, but not done justice to their idols,
it would have been enough for us!

Step by step, the song takes us through the Exodus story, inviting us at each stage, to say “it would have been enough for us!” had we gotten this far, and no further.

But singing that song, especially the way we do, with such gusto and energy, raises a question:

Do we mean what we say? Do we really mean to say, “Dayeinu!” “It would be enough for us!” after each and every one of those stanzas? Would it really be "enough for us" if the story hadn’t made its way to the final ending?

Let me explain.

Let’s look at the Book of Exodus, the book that we concluded this morning. Are we satisfied with the way it ends? Is this book, as a book, enough for us?

What’s the story of the Book of Exodus? It’s the story of the Israelites. We’re introduced to them in the very first verse of the book, and they’re there at the end as well. The book takes us from their enslavement in Egypt, having gone down there during the famine in the Land of Canaan during the lifetime of Joseph. The first rather tense and suspenseful chapters are devoted to the story of their liberation from that enslavement. Will they ever break free?

Sure enough, they do, and it’s God Who makes that happen. There are, of course, many obstacles along the way: the ten plagues, necessitated by Pharoah’s obstinate refusal to let the people go; the near-disaster at the shores of the Red Sea, followed by the miraculous crossing; the ambush by the Amalekites; but by the nineteenth chapter of the book, the Israelites have made it into the wilderness.

The wilderness is not an easy place for them: there isn’t enough food—at first; there isn’t enough water—at first; there is disorientation and fear. The people are not entirely happy. Just when we’re wondering whether they’re ever going to be satisfied, they find themselves at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up the mountain to receive laws and instructions. The people wait patiently for him—until they stop doing so, and, in desperate fear of the unknown, commission Aaron to build them a golden calf, which they then worship. Moses storms down the mountain and destroys the calf (along with a sizable number of rebellious Israelites), and then, after seeking and receiving God’s promise to give the people a second chance, goes up the mountain again to get another set of laws and instructions.

Among the many laws that Moses receives and teaches to the people are those that describe how to build and decorate the Mishkan, the Tabernacle that was to be the Israelites’ portable sanctuary in the Wilderness. The text tells us exactly how they were supposed to build it, and then it tells us, in the words of today’s parashah, that they did it just the way they were supposed to. "K’chol asher tsivah otam Mosheh, ken asu." Again and again, we’re told, in a striking refrain, that the tabernacle was made exactly the way that Moses had told them to make it. And the people made the priestly garments—the ephod and the headdress, the sashes and the breeches—and the furniture in the tabernacle—the sink and the stand and the tables—exactly as Moses had commanded them. Then we’re told that the spirit of God filled the tabernacle to such an extent that it was impossible to see within it. There was a cloud on top of the tabernacle, signifying God’s presence, that the people could see every day. When the cloud would arise, the people would break camp and head off. When it remained on the tabernacle, they’d stay put. The cloud was always visible throughout their journeys.

And then, this book, this famous book about the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, comes to an end.

What a strange, vaguely unsatisfying way to end! At the beginning of the book, the children of Israel are in Egypt. That makes sense. But at the end, they’re not where we might have thought they would be. They’re not where we thought they had been heading, namely the Promised Land, the land described as flowing with milk and honey. Instead, they are in the desert. It’s true, they have a nice, pretty tabernacle to haul around with them. But they’re not settled. The book concludes with them in a seemingly permanent nomadic state.

It’s really quite odd. We might have thought, from the way the book was developing in its early chapters, that they would get to their destination: after all, isn’t the opposite of slavery in a foreign land freedom in one’s own? Isn’t that what we’re led to believe that the people desire and deserve?

And yet they don’t get there, and the book doesn’t seem at all wistful about that. None of the characters seems to be thinking about it as the book comes to an end. They don’t seem to have a clue that they might never get to live anywhere else, and don’t seem at all upset about that.

Now it is true: we know that the book of Exodus just covers the first year or so of the Israelites’ freedom. After all, at the beginning of chapter 12, the portion we read as our maftir today, the Israelites are told to start measuring time from the month of Nissan, the month in which they will be liberated, and in the very last chapter we’re told that the tabernacle was erected on the first day of the first month in the second year of freedom. Those of us who have read the other books of the Tanakh know that the descendants of the Israelites will eventually, under Joshua, enter the Land.

But that’s not in the Book of Exodus. The Book of Exodus itself doesn’t seem concerned about that at all. Its conclusion doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.

On the one hand, that is comforting. On the other hand, it’s disturbing.

It’s comforting because the people do have God’s presence within the camp. They have a way to access God, to communicate with God. They have a center.

It’s disturbing because they don’t have a permanent home. And that doesn’t feel very comforting.

The question is this: Had we never read and internalized the later books of the Bible, the ones which tell us that the Jews did, eventually, make it into the Land of Israel; had we never come to learn about the subsequent history of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel—the period of the Judges, the Book of Kings—would it have been enough for us? To quote that song Dayeinu yet again, “If He had given us the Torah, but had not brought us into the Land of Israel,” could we nonetheless honestly say, “Dayeinu?”

And that raises a question for us today: Can we today say, “As long as God’s presence is among us, the Jewish people, wherever we happen to live, that is enough for us?” In other words, “We don’t really need to maintain a connection with the Land of Israel to be fulfilled Jewishly. So long as our personal spiritual needs are being addressed, we’re satisfied.” Can we say “Dayeinu!” to that?

I asked this question at a class I taught a few days ago, and I received some troubling answers. Most of the participants had spent time in Israel, but there was a strong sense of disconnection, of alienation. There was a sense that, in terms of the kind of Jewish life we crave, we may even be better off pursuing it here. I can relate to that. For many years I would tell people that, among all the places in the world I’ve been, I felt least religious in Israel. The religious coercion, the toxic mix of religion and politics in Israel, combined to turn me off every time I went there. But there’s a much greater variety of religious expression in Israel then there used to be. There are Conservative shuls in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, in Haifa, in Kiryat Bialek. There are Jews in Israel with whom we share a common spiritual vocabulary. And so, given this reality, it’s particularly disturbing when American Jews simply turn off to our Israeli brothers and sisters. I know that, as individuals we may feel at home here in America, but as Jews, as heirs to this incredible legacy, don’t we crave a home, a national home, and don’t we feel that our fulfillment depends on supporting that home and those who live there?

Though it’s difficult sometimes to believe, we’re living in a miraculous age.

My late father-in-law was a devoted Zionist thinker and leader. I love reading the sermons he wrote during the first twenty years or so of Israel’s existence. Yes, they accurately described the struggles that the new state was experiencing, but they were so full of hope! They expressed such gratitude that, after two thousand years of homelessness, the Jews had finally secured a home for themselves in the Land of Israel. The fact that, until 1967, it didn’t include Judea and Samaria, the fact that it didn’t include the Old City of Jerusalem—these were secondary to the enormous sense of relief that, finally, the missing piece of Jewish security and well-being had been put in place.

I describe Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel as a “missing piece,” and yet, throughout most of our history, we made peace with the absence of that piece.

Traditional Judaism, as focused as it always was on the eventual restoration of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, is also remarkably consistent with the theology of the Book of Exodus.

After all, our Torah, our customs, ceremonies, and practices are entirely portable. One can live an entirely halachic Jewish life outside of the Land of Israel. Some would say that the theology of the Book of Exodus kept us alive for two thousand years. How else could we have survived? If we felt that we had to have a country of our own, we could never have lasted. It was the genius of rabbis to reconstruct Judaism after the destruction of the Temple and, especially, after the ill-fated Bar Kochba rebellion in 135, in a manner that rendered it entirely portable. And the Book of Exodus reflects and speaks to that independence.

For two thousand years, we said, “If God had redeemed us from slavery but failed to bring us to the Promised Land, dayeinu!”—and we meant it!

Can we say those words, can we sing that song, with full kavannah, in this day and age? That’s a serious question that all of us have to ask ourselves. Another way of putting it is this: “Had we managed, as a people, to survive the Holocaust in 1945, but failed to create the State of Israel, in 1948, would that have been enough for us?” Had Israel lasted until June 1967, but fallen that month, would that have been enough for us? Can we ever say that we would be willing to roll back the clock?

What then is our responsibility to the State of Israel and to our fellow Jews who live there?

These are not theoretical questions. These are real questions.

We are joined today by representatives of the Boston-Haifa connection. Our guests include Eitan Adres, one of the founders of the Boston-Haifa connection, from whom we’ll be hearing at the end of services today. To ask these questions in the presence of Israelis makes them quite real.

Can we say that, as long as we are personally and spiritually fulfilled, as long as we hold fast to Jewish law and tradition, as long as we remain committed Jews, nothing else matters? (By the way, we should add, “Halevai!”—Would that we would be so pious! But let’s assume that.) Can we say that that’s enough? Or must we say, we live in a world in which the theology of the Book of Exodus is no longer enough, for it doesn’t fully explain what our responsibilities are. To focus only on our mishkan—as the Book of Exodus does—is to turn our backs on our Jewish brothers and sisters who have gone ahead and built a Jewish state, and to those who live there and are defending it.

There is no question that Israel is in deep trouble; perhaps the most trouble it’s been in since the creation of the State. And it’s certainly had its share of trouble. Seeing our guests from Haifa reminds me of the former mayor of Haifa, Amram Mitzna, and that marvelous memoir from the Six Day War, The Tanks of Tammuz, by Shabtai Teveth. I urge everyone to read that book. It captures brilliantly the enormous vulnerability Israel experienced on the eve of the Six Day War—even as late as June 4th or June 5th, just days before the war broke out. I’m reminded of an incredible scene described in the book in which Mitzna, at the time an officer in the armored corps, suddenly realizes that he’s the senior officer in a battle, since his commanding officer, who’s in the tank with him, has just been killed. But he also realizes that he can’t tell anyone, for if he does, demoralization could set in and the battle could be lost. And so he rallies the troops by shouting out commands in the name of his senior officer, as if he were still alive. The Israelis won that battle and, as we know, the war, but the outcome could have been quite different.

The battle today is at least as challenging, if not more so. Israel is as isolated as it’s ever been, and although militarily strong, is diplomatically weak, and its enemies are willing to do anything, even self-destruct, in pursuit of Israel’s destruction. It also suffers from tremendous disunity; there is a lack of clarity, a lack of coherence, within the nation concerning the proper course it should follow.

The Jewish people are not in one camp any more. The images from the Book of Exodus don’t capture the complexity of Jewish life in the 21st Christian Century. Some of us are here; some are in France, or Germany or Belgium. Nikha! That distinction is one thing. But some of us are in the Land of Israel. And that represents a different reality, one not contemplated by the Book of Exodus, but vital for us to consider as we contemplate our responsibilities as Jews today.

To be a Jew has never meant only to believe certain things, or even to act in certain ways. It has meant to live up to what it means to belong, to belong to a people—a people with a unique history and unique destiny.

During the generations when Jews were wandering in the Wilderness, with no place to call home, that meant one thing. Today, it means something else. Exodus remains a key text in our Torah, but there are other books in the Tanakh as well, books in which our devotion to Mt. Sinai and what it represents is matched by our devotion to and our affection for Mt. Zion and what it represents.

As we approach Pesach, as we approach that wonderful occasion when so many of us will be gathered around our seder tables, let’s ask ourselves: Are we being honest when we sing “Dayeinu!”? If not, if on some level we feel that it would not have been enough for us were Israel not to have been created, were Israel not to exist, then what is our contribution? What are we doing to keep it strong? What are we doing to keep it healthy? Let’s be honest with ourselves and let’s act accordingly.

Shabbat Shalom.