They were remembering, and they were feeling grateful. That helps sum up what some anonymous Jewish people were doing and how they felt about themselves and the monotheistic God their ancestors had taught them to honor. At the center of this remembrance was something they began to sing to say ‘thank you’, something called the “Dayenu” – “It Would Have Been Enough”. (See here the musical score of the song that has been sung by Jews for over 1,500 years.) They’d been rescued from slavery, and so every Passover meal was an opportunity to reconnect with their own history and renew the faith their people had been practicing for centuries. Re-dig the well, so to speak. How would a people feel about God if others took this song and adapted it for another, so that they added another layer to the story of human-to-God relations? Some believe that’s what the origin of the story is all about – that this Dayenu is a response to another song. What if the cycle repeats again, so that a third song is then generated? That this has occurred over such a long stretch of time says something about the God who is the object of this phenomenon – He doesn’t grow weary; and, neither should those who follow Him.
The words of the Dayenu are recited in some episodes of the series The Chosen, including by the 12 Apostles in season five’s fourth episode (The Same Coin); and, it is then modified in the same episode by the first female disciples of Jesus, so that they expressed how they felt about Him. The evolution of this song may include something called the Improperia, which one Hebrew scholar (Israel Yuval) believes inspired Jews by the Middle Ages (and probably even before then) to compose the Dayenu in response. The Improperia (also known as Reproaches or Solemn Reproaches) has been used in Catholic liturgy on Good Friday (Jesus’ crucifixion day) to vocalize how Jesus remonstrated the Jews who had brought Him to that ignominious moment. How ungrateful they were, in other words, to crucify the God who’d rescued them from Egypt! Feeling this censure spurred some Jews to compose Dayenu, apparently; its 15 stanzas/verses recount how these rescued Jews were indeed grateful for His redemption from Pharaoh and guidance to Canaan. The first 10 verses/stanzas in particular recount each of the acts of Yahweh in their escape and guardianship, and each verse begins with ‘If’ and ends with the phrase ‘it would have been enough’. The last five of the stanzas/verses recount the other profound gifts He’d bestowed on them – the Shabbat (Sabbath); leading them to Mount Sinai; the Torah that He gave them, beginning at Mount Sinai with the 10 Commandments Moses communicated to them; the journey’s end in the Promised Land; and the Temple, the center of their worship life. Movingly, the makers of The Chosen series have the women who follow Jesus compose and recite their own version to say how they feel about Him, in the manner of the Dayenu. There’s seven ways they express, which I won’t try to describe – but here’s a link so you can watch the women’s Dayenu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZp9k_ZFgwg
What would you say in your own Dayenu to God? If He had chosen to do just one thing that you could not discount, would that be enough for you to worship and follow Him? How about giving you life, beginning in mom’s womb? Or, how about the blessings of a family and home in which you were raised? Maybe it was that first big job after college? (That one’s on my list!) How about having Christian friends to share your ups and downs? Or, living in a land where you and I have so many blessings that they cannot be enumerated? Here’s one we all share: no matter what happens to me physically from this point on, I will be raised anew someday. Yeah! You see, He could have given you and me far less, but just look at how vast are His gifts. Each one of these is worth an Amen, in fact even more than the seven-fold Amens that we sometimes sing, and even 70 times seven wouldn’t come close to covering it either. Just try saying one every day you live. Perhaps that’s what He’s after.
See information on the song here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayenu
See information on a song that might have helped inspire the Dayenu: Improperia - Wikipedia
See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dayeinuscore.PNG The following statement is associated with the public domain status of the image: I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. The image can be found inside this document: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayenu
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