As I contemplate making a Seder-Masochism Haggadah, I chose some stills to illustrate the Passover song “Dayenu”. Song does not reflect my own opinions, etc.
If He had brought us out from Egypt,
and not carried out judgements against them,
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had carried out judgements against them,
and not against their idols
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had destroyed their idols,
and not killed their first-born
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had killed their first-born,
and had not given us their wealth
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had given us their wealth,
and had not split the sea for us
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had split the sea for us,
and had not taken us through it on dry land
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had taken us through the sea on dry land,
and had not drowned our oppressors in it
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had drowned our oppressors in it,
and had not supplied our needs in the desert for forty years
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had supplied our needs in the desert for forty years,
and had not fed us the manna
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had fed us the manna,
and had not given us the Shabbat,
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had given us the Shabbat,
and had not led us before Mount Sinai
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had brought us before Mount Sinai,
and had not given us the Torah
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had given us the Torah,
and had not brought us into the land of Israel
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If He had brought us into the land of Israel,
and not built for us the Holy Temple
– Dayenu, it would have been enough!
These are byoooooootiful!
(When the images go by as part of a moving picture, I don’t fully appreciate them as stills, I think.)
I’ve always hesitated to celebrate a god who would order the wholesale genocidal slaughter of the native/indigenous peoples — whether Canaanite or “Americans†as a pre-requisite to then bestowing that (now “blessedâ€) land on those who obeyed his genocide orders… And thousands of years (or a few days) later use it again & still. Odd how Manifest Destiny seems to always include slaughter, exiling or enslaving any who stayed alive, then stealing the land &/or resources and calling it divine deliverance.