Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Dayyenu? No. Not now.

<em>Dayyenu?

No. Not now.

Dayyenu. “It would have been enough.”

Actually, not.

Now is not the time for dayyenu, and not just because it’s not Passover.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, we cannot say dayyenu, “it would have been enough.

Right now, there many critical things we cannot get enough of.

We cannot get enough of healing.

We cannot get enough of regret over the insults, the negative campaigning that had both Democrat and Republican candidates’ visages imprinted on mailers as if taken from fun house mirrors.

We cannot get enough of representatives who ask themselves, how can I change the way I do political business, rather than exclusively expect their opponents to change the way they do political business.

We cannot get enough change in exaggerated rhetoric, pompous rhetoric, self-righteous rhetoric, condescending rhetoric.

We cannot get enough self-critique by politicians whose sense of right is exceeded only by their assuredness in their opponents’ embrace of the wrong.

We cannot get enough abandonment of point-scoring and posturing and denouncing and threatening.

We cannot get enough of healing!

Even if this were not a close election.

Even though election day was free of violence, even if protests never turned violent.

Even if voter turnout was the largest in over a century (see nearby).

We cannot get enough healing, such as a kind word about an opponent, whether victorious or defeated; though the healing we need is going to take a lot more than a few kind words.

Election 2020 cannot signal “business as usual” as defined and practiced in recent years if we hope to survive as a nation. Healing. It is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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