Pesach: Not Enough
For years, Chevron’s Park Hotel had hosted members of the Jordanian aristocracy to enjoy the cool dry air. The miraculous victory of the Six Day War forced the regular vacationers to change their travel plans, and the hotel’s Arab owners were thrilled to accept reservations for the entire hotel for an extended stay of undisclosed “tourists.”
On Erev Pesach 1968, schlepping a refrigerator, stovetops, and yom tov provisions, close to ninety people arrived for check-in. Led by the heroic Rav Moshe and Rabbanit Miriam Levinger, the group included Rav Eliezer Waldman, Rav Chaim Druckman, and a young beret-wearing French oleh at the beginning of his teshuvah journey: the future Rav Shlomo Aviner. Dozens of passionate, ideologically driven pioneers, some fervent in their observance, others not at all, gathered. Rabbanit Levinger recalls, “Less than a year after Chevron was recaptured in the Six Day War, white flags of surrender still hung from many of the windows in the city. It was all very thrilling. We all had the feeling that we were taking part in a great moment of Jewish history… Everyone that Pesach shone an inner light that I had never seen before.”
When one of the participants, Moshe Shamir, an author affiliated with the leftist HaShomer HaTzair, rose to share a “vort,” everyone braced themselves.
“We are sitting here singing ‘Dayeinu, Dayeinu.’ How can we imply that we would be willing to forgo even one of the gifts given to us by G‑d? Is not every one of these fourteen steps, values, and experiences essential to who we are?
“The truth is that this part of the Haggadah has only one aim: to teach us how each and every generation of Jews tends to settle for the achievements of the past, to rest on its laurels, satisfied with what has already been accomplished, without aspirations for anything more. Even we, gathered here tonight, can become complacent and say Dayenu—‘It is enough for us.’ The State of Israel? Dayeinu. A unified Jerusalem and liberated Chevron? Dayeinu. Friends! This is just the beginning.
“It is our obligation to know that there will be many more ‘dayeinus’ ahead of us until we reach geulah.”
Rav Druckman embraced Shamir, kissing him on the forehead. Indeed, it was just the beginning.
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“Had He brought us to Eretz Yisrael without building for us the Beis HaBechirah, Dayeinu.”
We are living in extraordinary times, an era of great historical importance. In the two and a half years since that tragic day of hester panim of October 7, we have experienced the intensity of war in Gaza as well as awe-inspiring, miraculous military achievements in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, which were unthinkable even a generation ago. Along with awesome accomplishments on the battlefield, we are a part of an awakening of authentic Jewish heroism, gevurah, and sacrifice, an expression of deep and renewed faith, identity, and holiness, of expanded consciousness and holy pride.
The open hashgacha pratis and national progress has accelerated a sense of urgency and focus on our relationship with and kesher to Eretz Yisrael.
The tefillah entitled “Ribon Kol haOlamim” is a deeply moving one, appearing in some siddurimbetween Shalom Aleichem and Eishes Chayil. This traditional Leil Shabbos prayer expresses an array of uplifting bakashos, capturing the faith, hope, and yearning that a Yid uncovers in the sacred moments preceding Kiddush. On one line, we ask in a unique way for Hashem’s compassion: “May You further show me mercy and deliver me in my exile, to redeem me.” Here it seems that instead of asking to be saved from our galus, we are asking to be delivered “in” it—within the exile. The great Reb Shalom Rockeach, the first Belzer Rebbe, known as the Sar Shalom, zy’a, explained that there are three expressions of galus, each one harsher than the preceding. One is a physical exile among non-Jews, the second is a form of exile among fellow Jews, and the third is an experience of being in an internal galus, exiled within oneself.
The needle is moving forward on Jewish history; there is a unique opportunity right now for us to break out of our passive acceptance of galus, and say, “Ad masai! How long will we cower in the ‘safety’ of our self-induced exile? How long do we need to push off becoming who we really are as a people?” Can we muster the strength and faith to believe that Hashem is waiting for us to be ready for the Beis HaMikdash?
When we beseech the Ribono Shel Olam “that He have more compassion on me in my exile,” we are referring to exile consciousness which is self-induced. We are asking to be saved from ourselves. Indeed, it is easier to take a Jew out of galus, than to take galus out of a Jew.
Now we are here, this coming year we will (all) be in the Land of Israel; this year we are slaves, this coming year we will be free people!
“Friends! This is just the beginning. It is our obligation to know that there will be many more dayeinus,” many occasions to thank Hashem for what we have, before we reach geulah. May the great, redemptive days of Pesach free us from all of our self-limiting conseptziot, so that we may celebrate as a free, independent holy nation in our Land! Let us raise high the flag of freedom and envision the complete and true—internal and external—Final Redemption bim’heirah: “l’shanah ha’zos b’nei chorin, this year we will be free people!”
Rav Judah Mischel is executive director of Camp HASC, the Hebrew Academy for Special Children, and the author of the “Baderech” series. Rav Judah lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh with his wife, Ora, and their family.
