Dayenu: The legendary story of the Jewish tribe of the “Mispuacha.”

Facebook asks me once more; “What's on my mind?”  The legendary story of the Jewish tribe of the “Mispuacha.”

Last night, the Passover Seder night the wife and I and three of our children were invited to the Seder meal in the home of our third son Natanel married to a wonderful young woman –Soli bat Marzianu of Jewish Sephardic Spanish Moroccan heritage, with their children, my grandchildren.

As I was sitting in the home of my son and his wife with my grandchildren, who were all born in the land of our ancestors, I contemplated the story from the Haggada of our journey to become;” emancipation from slavery,”  to wander for 40 years in the Sinai to be cleansed and reborn as proud Jews in our God given and “Promised Land”. I realized that our own family “tribal” history mirrors the story of our peoples exile and rebirth in our homeland, which is the true theme of Zionism.

As I sat waiting for the Seder meal to begin in their plain stark “no frills” apartment of the strict Orthodox Jews I could not miss noticing a painting of three Rabbis on the wall.

I looked at my son Natanel, the host of the Seder and I could not help seeing the image of my paternal grandfather Elisha ben Natanel and his father Natanel Ben Moshe HaLevi – known as Sanna also sitting as in the painting alongside him.

In my mind, I was thinking that this painting of the three Rabbis had inspired the thought of the story our people, our “Mispuacha” if you will “Our Tribe”.

As my family took turns reading from the Haggada I realized that my wife and I were the ones who were born in our long exile from these lands forced out by powers stronger then us. Just as in the lines of the famous poem “The Jewish Cemetery” at Newport by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.:

” What persecution, merciless and blind, Drove o'er the sea - that desert desolate-

    These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?”

My wife and I are the generation of those whose parents had arrived in America had wandered in the “Diaspora,’ our “Expulsion” from the time of the Roman destruction of the last Jewish Kingdom in Eretz Yisrael until its recent rebirth, just as the generation that wandered in the desert.

In our long journey in exile from our “Homeland” we as a people have experienced all the measures that evil can manifest: enslavement, immense torture, abuse, isolation, imprisonment and death by all the cruelest means. Yet somehow our ancestors have managed to stubbornly cling and hold onto their faith in the one God of Israel as even in their dying breaths they called out “Shemah Yisrael”.

As Ryan Bellerose had so astutely stated we Jews – Israelis are; “a tribal indigenous people who have ancient beliefs that predate any other extant “religion”.”

So just as in the retelling of the three millennium old story of the exile and enslavement of our “Mispucha” in Egypt. People of today who viciously attack and condemn Israel should take heed and note that it took the terrible, horrifying and immense cruelty of the Holocaust, like that of the “Ten Plagues” described in our Passover Haggada, to pry open the empathy of the world to allow the remnants of our shattered people to return home.

And just like in the story of the Exodus told in the Haggada, the Arabs like Pharaoh “Hardened” their hearts against the people of Israel. They forced the British to renege on their promise and issue the cruel “White Paper” of 1939 that slammed shut the door of the Jewish promised Homeland so there would be no place of refugee for the Jews of Europe.

That their leader, the Grand Mufti, even wrote letters to the Nazis begging them to murder more Jews and to not make any deal that would allow the Jews a route to escape death by.

The world has forgotten that when World War II ended, the Arabs hardened their hearts even more. That those displaced Jews who did survive and wished to leave the European graveyards could not do so. They, the Arabs, did not heed the lesson of those who oppress and deny he who sits in Judgment and loves our people.

So when the Partition Plan was passed and Ben Gurion read out the Declaration of Independence, the Arab League, like the Armies of Pharaoh, massed against us and attacked us threatening to annihilate us and to throw the remnants to the sea.

Exodus 15:9 

“The enemy said: 'I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.'”

Exodus Chapter 14:

“ 23  And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.

26 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Stretch out thy hand over the sea that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.

'27 And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. 

28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, even all the host of Pharaoh that went in after them into the sea; there remained not so much as one of them.”

Therefore “The Lord” did favor once more upon “Israel” and sent the plague of the  “Nacba” on the modern “sons of Pharaoh” the Arabs of the “Mandated Areas” the “Pleshtim,” for they did not heed up unto the Lord God of Israel

Exodus 32: 13

He said, “… all of this land which I have spoken of will I give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever.”

In the story of the Exodus we are also told just as I read now on Facebook, hear on TV and echoed in the quotations of Bernie Sanders and his minions. There are Jews in America who deny our land our home and wish to appease their neighbors over their people. Just like those who jeered and question the LORD and Moses.
Exodus Chapter 14:

“10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were sore afraid; and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
11 And they said unto Moses: 'Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to bring us forth out of Egypt?
12 Is not this the word that we spoke unto thee in Egypt, saying: Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.'

Exodus 16:3 

"and the children of Israel said unto them: 'Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.'

When I awoke this morning and as I read through the postings I saw once more the beautiful and inspiring words of a Native “American” Facebook Friend Ryan Bellerose upon his visit with Jewish friends for a Seder.

Once more Ryan’s words of wisdom, encouragement and enlightenment to his Jewish and Israeli friends are truly beyond the title of a “Righteous Gentile.” He truly is much more than that. His words have spoken to me like the “Great Spirit” of his people truly speaks out to him.

Ryan is correct when he states that through the ages the Jewish people have known dark times, periods of intense hatred persecution, brutality and death.

To paraphrase Ryan; “Our indigenous Jewish tradition of the Passover Seder demonstrates clearly all of the things that indigenous people hold dear, our ties to our ancestors, our pull to our ancestral homelands and our history.”

So I would like to quote here his latest wisdom and comment regarding our “Festival of Freedom”;

“You notice I am saying our, because all indigenous people hold these things in common. I think every indigenous person who cares about indigenous things should try to attend a Passover Seder. Honestly I think everyone should.
My people do not have a Seder, we are still in our "Diaspora" but I always find it strengthening to be around my Jewish family during holidays, seeing them being Jews, doing Jewish things is heartening to me, after all if they still do this stuff for three thousand years later, how hard is it for me to stay traditional when we are barely into year 150?
I watched as they didn’t even remotely follow the script, as they laughed and argued over minutiae, I saw them living up to their name as we argued about random passages. I told my friends that if I was actually gonna be Jewish I would probably be a Karaite lol (for those of you who get the joke, for those who don’t meh) I said I am the kind of person who will read something myself and figure it out.
I love this holiday, basically, they remember one of the most horrific times for their people but more importantly they celebrate their escape and they thank the creator profusely.
They have a prayer they say that I find incredibly strengthening its called the Dayenu, they say several things and then say " it would have been enough after each thing, it shows a humility and a gratitude that is rarely seen today in the modern world.....
Dayenu. it would have been enough.
I think I have a few things to add to it
If you had only ever shown me that there is hope
Dayenu
If you had only given me friends when I felt like nobody cared
Dayenu
If you had only put people in my life who keep me going
Dayenu
If you had only ever shown me that there is strength in being proud of my self and my people
Dayenu
If you had only given me strength of will to fight and the wisdom to listen
Dayenu
So when someone asks me why I do this stuff even when its a pain in my ass, even when I get death threats from people who hate Jews or stern emails from Jews that are upset with me about whatever they get upset about, I think from now on I am just gonna answer
Dayenu."

I would like to add:

It would be enough if Mark would not be such a Schmuck and not block the Jews,

Dayenu!

To not see such death and anti-Jewish hate as on the mass media of late,

Dayenu!

So to one and all of my friends on Facebook and especially Ryan I say, Hag Samach