15 April 2022
Question
Our favourite song of the Seder is Dayenu. Everyone joins in and it wakes people up. But I have always wondered what the point of it is. We are saying that had G-d only taken us out of Egypt, without judging the Egyptians, it would have been enough for us. And so on and so on, each thing G-d did for us would have been enough. What are we trying
to say? It sounds like one of those annoying people who after you give them a gift they say, “You shouldn't have, I really don’t need anything special.” Why would we tell G-d we don't need His miracles?
Answer
The Seder is not just about celebrating the exodus from slavery three thousand years ago.
The Seder is about going out of your own personal slavery today.
Back then, Egypt was the blockage to freedom. Today other things prevent us from being truly free.
You have an amazing soul with incredible gifts to bring to the world. Whatever good you have done, you have more to do.
But something is tying you down, holding you back, blocking your path to fulfilment. Seder night is the time to contemplate what that blockage might be, and try to beat it. That is the Egypt that you need to leave on Pesach.
The obstacles to freedom can come in many forms. But there is one blockage to growth, one barrier to self-expression, one roadblock to success that is bigger than them all:
Thinking small.
We have so much power in our soul. We have so much we could be achieving. But a little voice inside us gets in the way. It is the naysayer, the killer of ambition, that lulls us into settling for what is, rather than striving for what could be. Stuck in old thought patterns and self-imposed definitions of ourselves, we say, “I am who I am and I shouldn't expect more from myself.”
But G-d thinks bigger of us. There is so much more to our story, so many miracles waiting to happen for us, so much further we can go in our journey. It just depends who is setting the agenda - us with our limited view of ourselves, or G-d with His infinite belief in us.
This is the deeper meaning of Dayenu. On Seder night, after recounting all the amazing wonders that G-d did for us when we left Egypt, we say Dayenu - if it would have been up to us, none of this would have happened. We would have been happy with leaving Egypt and that’s it. We never would have made it to Mount Sinai, to the Promised Land.
Had we been writing the script, the exodus would have been little more than a population shift, a boring little non-event. We had a problem. We were slaves, and we just wanted out. Leaving Egypt would have been enough for us.
But G-d had a bigger vision for us. We were not just destined to be free, we were destined to be great. The exodus was just one step in a grand plan, to receive the Torah, reach the Holy Land and build the Temple. The Jewish people went from a forgotten slave nation to a formidable people that changed history. That wasn't our ambition, it was G-d's.
This is the message of Pesach. Don’t listen to your Dayenu voice. Don’t suffice with mediocrity. Don’t be bound by your own limited imagination. Open yourself to the vision G-d has for you. Take another step in your soul’s journey, and don’t stop until you have built the Holy Temple.
Live Free or Dayenu.
Source
The Rebbe, 2nd Night Pesach 1956, Toras Menachem Volume 16 p.207