The host of the Seder we are attending on the first night of Passover has a custom of assigning a challenging, creative, base-10 activity to each guest. My assignment was rather general: Create 10 new verses for Dayenu, the famous Hebrew poem of gratitude for each of God’s acts of kindness to the Israelite people.

So, I set myself up some criteria:

(1) As the Dayenu poem in the Haggadah takes us through Biblical history from the Exodus to the building of the Temple, I would explore Biblical history from the building of the Temple to the return from Exile.

(2) As the Dayenu in the Haggadah follows some conventions of the classical piyyut (liturgical poem), I would follow some too. Specifically, I would base every Hebrew verse on an actual biblical quotation, and write all the Hebrew verses with a consistent number of  syllables, so they could be sung to the famous “Dye-dayenu” tune.  (This turned out to be 8-9 syllables per line.)

(3) As the Tanakh offers a lot of material, I would choose a focus. I chose to focus on the prophets, for three reasons. Many Jews familiar with Torah stories are not familiar with the prophets; if they sang about them once a year, they might be. Our Biblical tradition honours both male and female prophets, so I could choose to showcase some of each. The cumulative message of the prophets is inspiration, redemption and hope — exactly the message of Passover.

(4) I would bookend the poem with verses about Eliyahu. (The first says he was taken up to heaven, and the last quotes Malachi’s prediction of Eliyahu’s return.) Beyond that, I would see what emerged as a progressive revelation if we placed favourite ideas from prophets in historical order.

Enjoy: Hebrew, transliteration, and translation with Biblical citations.

אלו

העלה את אליהו

חפץ בחסד ובמשפט

שלח כהן לדרוש את חלדה

פתח את מראותו ליחזקאל

קים את מאמר אסתר

השכל את דניאל בזרעונים

שלח מבשר שלום וטוב

גלה את חלום יחוד שמו

הכין לב עזרה לדרש תורה

השיב לב אבות על בנים

דינו

Eelu…

Haaleh et Eliyahu

Hafatz bachesed u’vamishpat

Shalach cohen lidrosh et Chuldah

Patach et mar’oto l’yechezkel

Kayam et ma’amar Esther

Haskel et Daniel ba-zeronim

Shalach mivaser shalom tov

Gilah et chalom yichud shmo

Heichin lev Ezra lidrosh Torah

Heishiv lev avot al banim

…Dayeinu

If God had only…

Lifted Eliyahu up to heaven (2 Kings 2:1)

Taught us to desire love and justice (Hosea 12:7)

Sent a cohen to learn from Chuldah (II Kings 24:12-20)

Opened heavenly vision to Yechezkel (Ezekiel 1)

Established Esther’s word in Persia (Esther 9:32)

Made Daniel wise through vegetarian eating (Daniel 1:11-20)

Sent a messenger of peace and goodness (Isaiah 52:7)

Shared a dream of world spiritual unity (Zechariah 14:9)

Prepared Ezra’s heart to study Torah (Ezra 7:10)

Turned the hearts of parents towards their children (Malachi 3:24)

It would have been enough for us!

Image: Prophet #2, johnjudepalencar.com