My Pesach Message

We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it. 

―Boris Yeltsin

The exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year, and in every day.

―Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

In between baking mandelbroit, and trying to calculate that delicate balance between how much matzah we will need without rationing but without having any left over, I tried to find something to say at our Pesach seder this year. 

Last year's seder was a small, modest affair due to Corona. We were only four people, and how much matzah to buy wasn't such an issue.

But this year, with God's grace and a show of His miracles through the scientists of Pfizer, we have all been vaccinated, and while our seder wasn't as big and noisy as it could have been, we were 12 people in a range of ages and sizes. It was just the right amount of noisy. 

However, after two days of being 'nishte heer und nishte hein' (not here and not here) - not chametz and not Pesach - I was too exhausted to say much more than 'how much matzah do we have to eat?' when the big night finally arrived. 

This left me wondering what I should have said. 

It took me almost a week and a kilo and a half of matzah and five kg of hotdogs to realize what it is that I wanted to say.

It's this: appreciate what you have.

If this past year has taught us anything at all, it's that we can lose the things we never think about in a blink of an eye - freedom of movement, security, income, health, our very lives and the lives of our loved ones. Ultimately, we really control nothing. 

The Pesach story illustrates this lack of control. 

We could not control our standing in Egypt and we became slaves. When God decided the time was right, He orchestrated our exodus. We did not control the plagues. Pharoah could not even control his own heart - God hardened it. We did not control the parting of the sea. We did not control the destruction of the Egyptian army. We did not control our food or water supply in the desert. We did not control our movement - relying on a pillar of fire to lead the way. 

Smack in the middle of the seder, in the middle of the 'Maggid' (the part where we tell the story), comes the poem 'Dayenu' (It would have been enough). It is a poem of gratitude to God for taking us out of Egypt and bringing us to the Holy Land. Essentially, we're saying, like very polite people,  'oh, you didn't have to do that'. 

Divided into fifteen lines, each line of the song is based on 'if He had only done this, and not done that, it would have been enough.' 

For some of the lines, this is true - it would have been enough.

If He had killed their (the Egyptian) firstborn and had not given us their (the Egyptians') money; Dayenu! it would have been enough for us.

It's true. The children of Israel were headed into the desert; they didn't really need, at that moment, any wealth. They were escaping servitude—that would have been enough. 

But the very next line of the poem really doesn't make any sense. 

If He had split the sea for us, and had not taken us through it on dry land; Dayenu, it would have been enough for us!

How is it enough to split the sea, but not make it to the other side? How is it enough if everyone drowns?

It's the equivalent of saying:

If He had given us masks and they were too porous to work and everyone became sick; Dayenu! it would have been enough for us.

Obviously, it would not have been enough for us. 

So why are we saying it is?

It's known that humans better appreciate both their possessions and their circumstances the harder they are to come by. Kids who are given everything before they even ask are far less appreciative of material items than kids who have to work to buy their toys or clothes. 

And while everyone appreciates a gift or a homecooked meal made for them, a person appreciates it more knowing the giver stayed overtime at work to make the money to buy the gift/ingredients, went to three different stores to get the right color material/shape of pasta, and walked five miles in the snow to get home because s/he missed the last bus. 

The more steps in a process, the more the process is appreciated. 

The more steps we acknowledge (i.e., the 15 steps of the Dayenu poem), the more we appreciate the work involved, the more we appreciate all that God gives us. 

Each step of an arduous journey is an opportunity to thank God and to recognize and acknowledge His miracles. 

This is, of course, meant to spill out into our every day lives. When we eat an apple, if we think of all the steps that occurred, from the planting of the apple tree, through watering the tree, picking the fruit, shipping it to the store, putting it out to sell, to working a cash register - we will be far more appreciative of that simple apple than we normally are, and far less critical of its possible flaws. 

The more we appreciate the circumstances of our lives, the more beautiful our lives are and the easier it is to love. 

The more we appreciate, the better we can spread happiness and love and gratitude. 

In this way, we can save the world.