דיינו

Dayeinu

- Jonny Teller and Paula Garshowitz

               

We read in the Haggadah the portion of Dayeinu, which means, “it would have been enough.”  This implies that whatever HaShem would have given us would have been enough. 

In one of the verses it states, "If He would have brought us to Har Sinai, and would not have given us the Torah, it would have been enough".   This brings us to the following question:  What does the prayer mean by saying that just getting CLOSE to Har Sinai would be enough?  Wasn't the whole point of going to Har Sinai to receive the Torah?  What would it have accomplished if we had come close to Har Sinai but never received the Torah?

            Some say that the point of Har Sinai was not necessarily to receive the Torah, but the goal was to have a spiritual experience by just being present at Har Sinai.  Just being at this holy mountain would have elevated us to a higher spiritual level. 

There is another simple answer to this question.  Truthfully, at Har Sinai, we did not receive  the entirety of the Torah because it was completed only at the end of forty years of travel in the desert; rather, we accepted the Ten Commandments.  Even without having received the entire Torah, with all six hundred and thirteen mitzvot, it is still a huge accomplishment to get to Har Sinai and to accept the Ten Commandments.  Thus had we only received the Ten Commandments, it certainly would have been Dayeinu.

 

1. The Anah Dodi Haggadah by Rabbi David Feinstein
            2. A Passover Haggadah by Rabbi Shmuel Rutenenberger