The two most important lines of Dayenu are; “If God would have taken us out of Egypt, that would have been enough.” and “If God had only given us the Torah, it would have been enough” The song talks about how our lives are made up of many blessings. I want to challenge the core idea of the song which is that it would have been enough if God had only given us the Torah or taken us out of Egypt. If we look at the two phrases independently and literally, we can come up with answers. In the first phrase if, we as the Jewish people, were brought out of the Egypt but not given the Torah, we would be an entirely different people. So would it have been enough to get out of Egypt without the Torah? The second phrase described receiving the Torah but not escaping Egypt. If we remained in Egypt as slaves with the Torah then, similar to the first phrase, we would be unrecognizable different people today. Was it really possible to only receive one of these things and still be the same people? I do not dare say so, I believe that receiving both was required to become the Jewish people that we are today.


haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu