D ayeinu. Sufficient. Enough. How likely is the average person living in the 21st century to describe his financial situation using these words? How often does he feel satisfied and content with what he has?
But no matter how much he feels he’s currently lacking every human being has had at least one specific blissful interlude in this world.
“If only I were as in my early months as in the days when Hashem watched over me” (Iyov 29:2). What idyllic experience does Iyov recall so longingly? The gemara (Niddah 30b) comments “There are no better days than the days a person spends in his mother’s womb.” Iyov is referring to the prenatal months when both sustenance and Torah study came easily for he ate of what his mother ate and drank of what his mother drank and was taught Torah by a malach.
Those days are reminiscent of the original state of man in Gan Eden when all his material needs were provided. It was only after Adam’s sin that he was cursed with a dramatic change in his lifestyle: “B’zayas apecha tochal lechem — You shall eat bread by the sweat of your brow” (Bereishis 3:19).
