{"id":53712,"date":"2016-04-19T10:38:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T15:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=53712"},"modified":"2016-04-19T10:38:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T15:38:30","slug":"thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanking Those Who Packed Our Parachutes, The Essence of Dayeinu"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is almost impossible to imagine the Seder night without the singing of dayeinu<\/em>.\u00a0 Young children to octogenarians can be found humming the addictive melody to dayeinu<\/em>.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Rambam does not have dayeinu<\/em> in his Hagaddah and even Rav Saadia Gaon whose Hagaddah serves essentially as the basis for ours, only has dayeinu<\/em> as an addendum at the end of the Haggadah among those songs that only those who can hold their wine sing.<\/p>\n

Yet for us, dayeinu<\/em> is central, a centerpiece of the hagaddah and a highlight of Seder experience.\u00a0 The tune is catchy, but the words and theme are frankly bizarre.\u00a0 Had you taken us from Egypt but not split the sea, dayenu.\u00a0 Really, would it have been enough?\u00a0 If you had taken us to Har Sinai but not given us the Torah, dayenu, it would have been enough.\u00a0 Really, don\u2019t we talk about how the Torah is the air that we breathe, indispensable to our lives and to our very existence?\u00a0\u00a0 Had He given us the Torah but not brought us into Israel it would have been enough.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t Israel created before the world because it, the Jewish people and Torah and the three pillars upon which the world is built?<\/p>\n

Every commentator and every Hagadda asks the same question:\u00a0 What do you mean dayenu, it would have been enough?\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the discussions of dayeinu<\/em>, center around an analysis of individual and particular stanzas.\u00a0 However, I want to share with you an insight that will give you an entirely new way to understand dayeinu<\/em>. Understanding what dayeinu<\/em> is really all about and why it is a centerpiece of our Seder requires us to zoom out the lens and instead of investigating specific lines, to look at the poem as a whole.\u00a0\u00a0 What do the 15 stanzas have in common?\u00a0 Why were these events or experiences chosen?<\/p>\n

Rabbi Nachman Cohen in his Historical Haggada offers a fantastic insight.\u00a0\u00a0 If you look at the Chumash and in Tehillim, chapter 106 in particular you will notice that every stanza of dayeinu<\/em>corresponds with an incredibly gracious act God did for us and our absolute ungrateful response.<\/p>\n

Here are a few examples: We say \u201chad God just taken us out of Egypt it would have been enough.\u201d However, if you look in Deuteronomy 1:27 it wasn\u2019t enough. \u201cBecause God hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another example: we say, \u201cIf you just fed us the manna it would have been enough.\u201d But it wasn\u2019t enough. We said, \u201cour soul loathes this bread.\u201d We say, \u201c<\/i>If You just brought us into Israel dayeinu<\/i>, it would have been enough,\u201d but it wasn\u2019t. It says in Numbers, \u201c[Israel is ] the land that eats up its inhabitants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explains Rabbi Nachman Cohen, dayeinu<\/i> is our reflecting on our history and repairing the lack of gratitude we exhibited in the past. Seder night we look back on our national history, we review our story and we identify those moments, those gifts from God that we failed to say thank you for. We rectify and repair our ingratitude and thanklessness through the years by saying dayeinu<\/i> now. In truth, dayeinu<\/i>, each of these things was enough to be exceedingly grateful for.<\/p>\n

Freedom demands gratitude.\u00a0\u00a0 If you have are set free, but fail to acknowledge how you attained that freedom, you in fact remain enslaved to your ego and you selfishness.\u00a0\u00a0 If you can\u2019t recognize what has been done for you and that you could not have done it yourself, you are not freed from your narrow, self absorbed way of life.\u00a0 Gratitude is a byproduct of true freedom.<\/p>\n

The Midrash describes \u2013 He who has no gratitude is like one who negates the existence of God.\u00a0 If you are so insensitive to those who benefit and sustain you, certainly you will never recognize the blessings which God provides.<\/p>\n

Ingratitude is a fatal character flaw individually and nationally.\u00a0 On the night of Pesach, when we relive the experience of becoming a people and celebrate our national birth we repair the ingratitude of our past with the recognition that we are unworthy and dayeinu<\/em>, all that God did for us was beyond what we deserved.<\/p>\n

Instilling Gratitude in the Home<\/b><\/p>\n

A couple of years ago the Wall Street Journal had an article entitled, Raising Children With an Attitude of Gratitude, Research Finds Real Benefits for Kids Who Say \u2018Thank You\u2019<\/a>.\u00a0 The author, Dianna Kapp writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cA field of research on gratitude in kids is emerging, and early findings indicate parents\u2019 instincts to elevate the topic are spot-on. Concrete benefits come to kids who literally count their blessings.\u00a0 Gratitude works like a muscle. Take time to recognize good fortune, and feelings of appreciation can increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mere act of giving thanks has tangible benefits, research suggests. A 2008 study of 221 kids published in the Journal of School Psychology analyzed sixth- and seventh-graders assigned to list five things they were grateful for every day for two weeks. It found they had a better outlook on school and greater life satisfaction three weeks later, compared with kids assigned to list five hassles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old adage that virtues are caught, not taught, applies here,\u201d says University of California, Davis psychology professor Robert Emmons.\u00a0 Parents need to model this behavior to build their children\u2019s gratitude muscle. \u201cIt\u2019s not what parents want to hear, but you cannot give your kids something that you yourselves do not have,\u201d Dr. Emmons says.<\/p>\n

Everyday actions may be even more important than big efforts, researchers say. \u201cExpress gratitude to your spouse. Thank your kids,\u201d Hofstra\u2019s Dr. Froh says. \u201cParents say, \u2018Why should I thank them for doing something they should do, like clean their room?\u2019 By reinforcing this, kids will internalize the idea, and do it on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seder night is an incredible opportunity to model gratitude for our children, grandchildren and all gathered.\u00a0 During dayeinu<\/em>, pause to be appreciative, not only to Hashem for what He has done for our people and for each of us.\u00a0 Be thankful to those who worked so hard to make Pesach happen.\u00a0 Someone or someones had to work hard to earn the money to pay for pesach.\u00a0 Someone had to shop, cook, clean, prepare, set up, clean up, etc.\u00a0 Don\u2019t just thank your spouse or your parents, but as the article says, thank your children for what they did to pitch in.<\/p>\n

Dayeinu<\/em> teaches that Pesach is not just a time to learn the attitude of gratitude and how to say thank you for the present.\u00a0 Pesach reminds us that to set ourselves free we need to look back at our lives and identify those who made all the difference and whom we neglected to thank.\u00a0 Pesach pushes us to make a tikkun, to repair the ingratitude and reach out to say thank you.<\/p>\n

Who Packed Your Parachute?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charles Plum<\/a>, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a jet fighter pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands.\u00a0\u00a0 He was captured and spent six years in a Communist prison.\u00a0 He survived that ordeal and one day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, \u201cYou\u2019re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam and you were shot down!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow in the world did you know that?\u201d asked Plumb.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI packed your parachute,\u201d the man replied,\u00a0 \u201cI guess it worked!\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, Plumb couldn\u2019t sleep while thinking about that man.\u00a0 He kept wondering what this man might have looked like in a sailor uniform.\u00a0 He wondered how many times he might have passed him on the ship and never acknowledged him.\u00a0 How many times he never said hello, good morning or how are you.\u00a0 \u00a0You see, Plumb was a fighter pilot, respected and revered, while this man was just a ordinary, lowly sailor.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now it grated on his conscious.\u00a0 Plumb thought of the many lonely hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship carefully weaving the fabric together, making sure the parachute was just right and going to great lengths to make it as precise as can be, knowing that somebody\u2019s life depended on it.\u00a0 Only now, does Plumb have a full appreciation for what this anonymous man did and he now goes around the world as a motivational speaker asking people to recognize, who\u2019s packing your parachute.<\/p>\n

I have a friend who set up a couple 20 years ago.\u00a0 He told me something incredible.\u00a0 Every single year on their anniversary, this couple not only get one another gifts but they get my friend, their shadchan, matchmaker, a gift as well.\u00a0 For their big anniversary they got him a big gift recognizing that the happiness they have together would never have happened without his bothering to set them up.<\/p>\n

I know someone who received scholarships from the schools he attended growing up from elementary school through graduate school.\u00a0 When he became financially successful, the first thing he did was write a beautiful thank you note and make donations to each of the schools that helped give him a chance.<\/p>\n

Have we thanked those who contributed to the lives we are blessed to live?\u00a0 Imagine if our kindergarten teacher got a note from us thanking her for nurturing us with love.\u00a0 Imagine if our high school principal, our childhood pediatrician, our housekeeper growing up who cleaned our room, out of the blue got a gesture of gratitude showing that we cared enough to track them down and say thank you after all of these years.\u00a0\u00a0 Did we ever properly thank the teacher who was patient with us, the orthodontist who straightened out our teeth, the bus driver who drove us?\u00a0 Did we express enough appreciation to the person who set us up with our spouse, gave us our first job, safely delivered our children?<\/p>\n

We all have family, friends, mentors and neighbors, whose efforts are responsible for who we are today.\u00a0 Freedom means knowing that we didn\u2019t get here on our own.\u00a0 This Pesach, let\u2019s sing our own personal dayeinu<\/em> and repair our ingratitude by saying thank you to those who packed our parachutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is almost impossible to imagine the Seder night without the singing of dayeinu.\u00a0 Young children to octogenarians can be found humming the addictive melody to dayeinu.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Rambam does not have dayeinu in his Hagaddah and even Rav Saadia Gaon whose Hagaddah serves essentially as the basis for ours, only has dayeinu as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":733,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nThanking Those Who Packed Our Parachutes, The Essence of Dayeinu - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thanking Those Who Packed Our Parachutes, The Essence of Dayeinu - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is almost impossible to imagine the Seder night without the singing of dayeinu.\u00a0 Young children to octogenarians can be found humming the addictive melody to dayeinu.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Rambam does not have dayeinu in his Hagaddah and even Rav Saadia Gaon whose Hagaddah serves essentially as the basis for ours, only has dayeinu as\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-19T15:38:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Efrem Goldberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rabbi Efrem Goldberg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu\/\",\"name\":\"Thanking Those Who Packed Our Parachutes, The Essence of Dayeinu - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-19T15:38:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/b3f7905021c0f2a6e200f7cce16e4710\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/thanking-packed-parachutes-essence-dayeinu\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/\",\"name\":\"OU Life\",\"description\":\"Everyday Jewish Living\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/b3f7905021c0f2a6e200f7cce16e4710\",\"name\":\"Rabbi Efrem Goldberg\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Efrem-Goldberg_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Efrem-Goldberg_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Rabbi Efrem Goldberg\"},\"description\":\"Rabbi Efrem Goldberg is the Senior Rabbi of the Boca Raton Synagogue (BRS), a rapidly-growing congregation of over 650 families and over 1,000 children in Boca Raton, Florida. 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