Dayenu – It Would Have Been Enough

Dayenu – It Would Have Been Enough
by Jerome Grossman - 1998

If rich Virginia planter George Washington had merely made common cause
with the shopkeepers and rabble of Boston,
It would have been enough.

If he had only rallied the revolutionary colonists and suffered with them,
It would have been enough.

If he had only refused the temptations of an imperial presidency,
It would have been enough. Dayenu.



If impoverished Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln, born in Kentucky,
had merely made common cause with the slave blacks of the South,
It would have been enough.

If he had only fought to preserve the federal Union as a guarantor
of national cohesion and social justice,
It would have been enough.

If he had only inspired the American language with dignity and grace
and wit and brevity,
It would have been enough. Dayenu.



If New York aristocrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt had merely made
common cause with the ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clothed,
It would have been enough.

If he had only protected the old, the widows, the orphans
with Social Security,
It would have been enough.

If he had only rescued the nation from the despair of the Depression,
It would have been enough.

If he had only resisted and defeated the nihilism of Fascism,
It would have been enough. Dayenu.