Gratitude Takes Practice

Gratitude doesn’t always come naturally.   If we tally up the ratio of gratitude to complaint that we feel and articulate in the course of a day, we may not be proud of the results. 

And yet every religious tradition I’m aware of encourages gratitude – for reasons that are psychological as well as theological.

On this Shabbat following the American holiday of Thanksgiving I want to offer three insights about gratitude from three different portions in the Torah, insights that can help us cultivate gratitude against the natural grain.

In Hayei Sarah, Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac.  Where is Isaac as the servant prays to God and heads back to the old country with numerous camels and copious jewels and goods?

He’s hanging out at home, it seems.  Abraham’s servant finds Rebecca and she agrees to accompany him to become Isaac’s wife.

And we read, ויצא יעקב לשוח בשדה vayetze Yitzhak lasuah basadeh – Isaac went out la’suach – to meditate, to reflect, in the field.

And then Rebecca comes, descends from her camel, and Isaac loves her and they become husband and wife.

Lasuah basadeh – meditating in the field.  I don’t think we read about the other patriarchs doing this – it’s something attributed to Isaac alone.

Did he take a walk every night?  Was this, as we might call it today, a standard mindfulness practice?

It appears that this quiet moment gives Isaac a kind of receptivity to the world around him – to the possibility of love, and yes – to the possibility of feeling grateful.

The lesson I would draw regarding gratitude from Isaac is that we have to make space for it by removing ourselves, from time to time, from the hustle and bustle of our lives.

When you’re on top of things you don’t always notice them.  When our children were growing up I was the one who took out the garbage.  OK – this is not the most romantic picture of self-reflective meditation, but I would take out the garbage and then stand next to the house for awhile and that’s when I was able to appreciate the blessings inside the house – often more than when I was actually in the house.

And there’s always prayer.  The rabbis associated the minha prayer with Isaac.  Prayer can give us a space for gratitude – and not just when we are reciting the prayers that explicitly call for thanksgiving.

I urge us, following in Isaac’s tradition as expressed in this morning’s reading, to make a space – through an occasional walk, through prayer, through chores that we perform in solitude – to feel the gratitude that we don’t always have the space or the time to feel.

In the next generation of our founding family, our matriarch, Leah, will give birth to most of Jacob’s children.  She offers another lesson in gratitude.

She has several children and then gives birth to Judah – Yehudah – which relates to the word Todah, thank you.  Judah is born and Leah says, הפעם אודה את ה׳ ha’pa’am odeh et adonai.  This time I will thank God.

This time.  Why not before?  We don’t know -  maybe she wasn’t ready, maybe her mindset wasn’t one of thanksgiving – there were competing emotions, there was rivalry with her sister. 

Hap’am – this time – suggests that gratitude requires intentionality.  We choose to look at a situation and express our gratitude.  There’s nothing to suggest that Leah wasn’t grateful for the children who were born previously – but she wasn’t ready.

I think the insight this moment can offer us is that we have more control over our feelings of gratitude than we think.  Leave aside for a moment the expression of it.  We can actually choose to acknowledge gratitude for something internally. 

We can say – hapa’am – this time, I’m going to recognize and express my gratitude.

Has that ever happened to you – that you say to yourself, instead of complaining, instead of ignoring, I’m going to look at x, y or z and say – wow.  This is amazing.  Odeh et adonai – I give thanks to God.

There’s a very well-known expression – you’re only as happy as your least happy child.  On the one hand, it suggests that a parent is being sensitive to the needs of his or her children, wanting to help the child who needs the greatest amount of help in any particular moment.

But there’s a less positive aspect of this, a suggestion that we can be pulled down by the discontent of a particular child to the point where it impacts our own contentment.

It’s noble to want to help a child who is suffering – but why should we allow ourselves to be taken to that child’s level of misery?  What good is that for us, or for our child?

We can say ha’pa’am – this time I will help without being pulled downward; this time I will not allow the unhappiness of another, even a child, to transcend the gratitude I have for my life, and for theirs.  This time I will help from a place of stability and gratitude, rather than resonating unhealthily with the angst of another.

From our matriarch, Leah, we derive the inspiration to make conscious choices to feel grateful and to express our gratitude.

And finally – moving ahead a few books of the Torah, away from the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs, we read about the korban todah, the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

I owe the following insights to Rabbi Shai Held of Hadar in NYC.

Unlike the olah, the burnt offering, which was completely consumed on the altar, the todah, the thanksgiving offering, was consumed by the worshipper, the kohanim and others.

Other offerings could be consumed over several days – but the korban todah  needed to be consumed the day it was brought – no leftovers could remain.

The commentator Abarbanel wondered why and suggested the following explanation.  God ordered the thanksgiving offering to be consumed in one day to ensure that the worshipper who brought the offering would share it with others, thereby having an opportunity to discuss his joy and gratitude with others.

Rabbi Held took it a step further.  The requirement that the offering be consumed in a single day didn’t just give the worshipper a setting in which to share his joy; it gave the worshipper a setting in which to share his bounty.

When we receive, Rabbi Held offers, we also want to give.  

Or, as he put it even more poetically, God’s gifts are meant to flow through us and not just to us.

The laws of the thanksgiving offering concretize the notion that our gifts are meant to be shared.

There is - by the way - a strong sense that people want to mentor others in order to express their gratitude for the gifts of mentorship that they were given.

  

The pleasure that teachers, attorneys, doctors, rabbis, and others – derive from helping junior colleagues achieve professional success through advice and council – is evidence of the truth of our understanding that gifts – divine or human - are meant to flow through us and not just to us.

Gratitude doesn’t tend to come naturally but it’s worth cultivating.  I recommend looking to Isaac to inspire the practice of reflection; looking to Leah to inspire the practice of intentional gratitude; and looking to the korban todah, the thanksgiving offering, to inspire the practice of sharing our bounty with others.

מודים אנחנו Modim anahnu– with the inspiration of our ancestors to guide us, despite the fact that it’s not always natural, we give thanks.

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on November 26, 2016