Gratitude as the Practice of Freedom – Paul Konigstein’s D’var Torah (Second Day of Passover 04/03/26)

Gratitude as the Practice of Freedom

One of the most striking features of the Seder is how much of it is designed around a single spiritual idea: gratitude.

But gratitude in Judaism is not the same as saying “thank you” we are not slaves. Gratitude is a way of seeing the world. It’s the refusal to treat life as owed to us. It’s the ability to notice gifts—especially when we’re busy, anxious, or convinced we have nothing to sing about. And on Pesach, gratitude is not a side theme. It’s central to what it means to go from slavery to freedom.

I want to explore gratitude through three moments in the Haggadah: remembering that we were slaves, Dayenu, and the custom of spilling wine for the plagues. Each one teaches a different dimension of gratitude: gratitude as memory, gratitude as language, and gratitude as moral maturity. And then I’ll end with a few practical ways to bring that gratitude into the rest of the year.

1) Gratitude as Memory

Early in the Seder we say: “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Holy One took us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.”

Why do we start there? Why open our celebration with the painful memory of slavery? One answer is that gratitude begins with memory. It begins with the honest awareness that the world could have been otherwise, that my life could have been otherwise. When we forget that, we don’t become neutral—we become entitled. Comfort turns into expectation. Blessings turn invisible.

Slavery is not only backbreaking labor. At its core, slavery is the collapse of agency: your time is not yours; your body is not yours; your future is not yours. So, when we say, “we were slaves,” we are training ourselves to notice the countless ways we now live with agency—choices we make so often that we stop experiencing them as gifts. The ability to rest. The ability to say “no.” The ability to learn Torah openly. The ability to sit around a table and tell a story without fear.

This is why the Haggadah instructs: in every generation a person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally went out of Egypt. Gratitude can’t survive as theory. It needs to be felt in first person. Pesach is a yearly reminder: “Don’t get used to your miracles.”

So, the first lesson is gratitude as memory: remember what was, so you can appreciate what is. The second lesson moves from memory into something even more practical: language.

2) Gratitude as Language: Dayenu and the Art of Naming

Dayenu is one of the most beloved parts of the Seder. We sing: “If God had taken us out of Egypt but not executed judgments—Dayenu – It would have been enough. If God had executed judgments but not against their gods—Dayenu…” And so on. On the surface, it’s puzzling. Would it really have been “enough” to leave Egypt and then… not cross the sea? Would it really have been “enough” to get the Torah and not enter the Holy Land?

But Dayenu is not meant to be taken literally—it’s a spiritual exercise. It trains us out of all-or-nothing thinking. Out of the belief that unless everything is perfect, nothing counts. Dayenu says: learn to recognize each step as a gift, even as you continue the journey.

Notice what Dayenu does: it names. It puts blessings into words and refuses to let them blur together. Because unnamed gifts evaporate. We live in a culture that is very good at noticing what’s missing. Dayenu re-trains our attention: “Say it out loud. Count it. Don’t rush past it.”

Imagine doing “Dayenu” in your own life. “If I had my family (or my friends), Dayenu. If I had health today, Dayenu. If I had a paycheck, Dayenu. If I had one person who checks in on me, Dayenu. If I had the ability to begin again after a hard year, Dayenu.”

Dayenu is not the enemy of ambition. It doesn’t say, “Stop growing.” It says, “Don’t postpone gratitude until the finish line.” Freedom is the ability to live in the present without being owned by the next thing. Dayenu gives us a language of presence: “This, too, is a gift.”

So far, we’ve seen gratitude as memory and gratitude as language. The third lesson is: gratitude doesn’t erase the suffering of others.

3) Gratitude and Suffering: Spilling Wine for the Plagues

When we recite the ten plagues, many of us have the custom to spill a drop of wine for each plague. Wine symbolizes joy. And as we list the suffering that struck Egypt, we deliberately diminish our cup.

The Haggadah could have presented the plagues as pure victory: they hurt us, we hurt them back more, end of story. Instead, Jewish tradition insists on a harder truth: our liberation came through someone else’s pain, and we are not allowed to turn that into entertainment. We cannot be grateful for our freedom without acknowledging human suffering.

This is gratitude with a conscience. It’s the opposite of “I got mine.” On Pesach we don’t only say “thank God for what I have.” We also ask: who is still symbolically stuck in Egypt —still trapped, still afraid, still hungry? That’s why the Seder opens with: “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” Gratitude, in Judaism, naturally turns outward.

So, Pesach offers a three-part model: gratitude that remembers where we came from, gratitude that learns to name each step, and gratitude that includes empathy for the less fortunate.

There are three ways you can practice Pesach Gratitude throughout the year:

1: Start the day with “Modeh or Modah Ani,” and mean it. The first traditional Jewish words of the day are a thank you, modeh ani, for the simple fact of being alive. Even if you don’t say this morning prayer, try this: before you pick up your phone, name one gift you didn’t “earn”—one morning, breath, another morning, someone who loves you. That is “we were slaves” in daily life: remembering that life is not guaranteed.

2: Write your own Dayenu—weekly. Once a week, take two minutes and complete the sentence five times: “If I had ___, Dayenu.” The goal is not to deny what’s hard. The goal is to stop letting what’s hard erase what’s good. Over time, Dayenu becomes a counterweight to constant comparison and constant dissatisfaction.

3: Turn gratitude into responsibility. Choose one concrete act that translates your blessings into blessing for someone else: invite a person who might otherwise be alone, increase tzedakah even a little, volunteer once this month, advocate for those whose agency is limited. If gratitude stays only inside, it can curdle into self-satisfaction. When gratitude moves outward, it becomes holiness.

Closing

One of the deepest teachings of Pesach is that freedom is not only physical. It’s spiritual. A free person can notice goodness without being embarrassed by it. A free person can receive without feeling entitled. A free person can celebrate their own rescue without losing compassion for others.

On this Pesach, as we retell the story, may we also train ourselves to see what we usually rush past. May we have the courage to say “Dayenu” about one step on our path. And may the gratitude we feel at the Seder table become a force that makes us kinder, more generous, and more awake.

Because the opposite of slavery is not only freedom—it’s the ability to say, “thank you” and truly know what you mean.

Chag Sameach,

Paul K.

P.S. Paul prefaced his speech with these words: Yesterday morning Jackie began her D’var by thanking the people who helped her with it. I would also like to begin my D’var by expressing gratitude for the help I received, but I won’t be thanking people. I was helped by Microsoft CoPilot, which is an artificial intelligence, or AI, program that wrote the first draft. I checked what the AI wrote to make sure it was accurate and made sense. I also edited the AI’s work to make it sound more like something I would say. AI and I would like to explore how Pesach is a holiday about gratitude.