The Gratitude Attitude

Yom Kippur 5766

by Rabbi Sim Glaser

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A candidate for conversion recently informed your rabbis and cantor in the course of her Beit Din, or appointed court, that while she had felt Jewish her whole life, her suspicions were confirmed when she visited the website Belief-O-Matic. There she took a 20 question quiz on her basic religious beliefs and received an instant computerized assessment that she was most in line with – guess what? – Reform Judaism!

Of course, we, your clergy team, all became instantly inquisitive about Belief-O-Matic and rushed to our PC’s to take the test.

The good news is, it’s really neat, and they tell you the religion you are most in line with right away. The bad news is that I came out a neo-Pagan, Rabbi Zimmerman a Universalist Unitarian, and Rabbi Saks a liberal Quaker.

I know. You want to know how about the Cantor, don’t you?

Wiccan. Yes, it surprised us all.

But you should be comforted to know that Reform Judaism had a solid place in all our lists, #4 on mine! But also I was pleased to note that at least one important theme was present in almost every religious tradition : Gratitude – thankfulness – appreciation. A consistently high value on everyone’s list.

The Catholics teach us: this is the day the Lord hath made.

Buddha says: With every breath I take today, I vow to be awake.

Native Americans pray: We thank You oh Great Spirit for the resources that made this food possible.

Even the pagans daven: Generous One, eternally giving gifts, I pray to you, I praise you, I remember you throughout my day.

Of course the Jews are right up there with instructions about being grateful for stuff. In the Birkat Hamazon – the extensive after-the-meal bracha recited – we see that expressing gratitude is no less than commanded in the Torah. Kakatuv v’achalta v’savata u’verachta et Adonai Elohecha. As it is written, when you have eaten your fill you will thank God. We have instituted the Birkat Hamazon at meals eaten here at Temple because it is such a central value.

At the same time, our Torah presents us with what has got to be one of the most pathetic ancient histories of ingratitude of any people.

God creates Adam a bride, by all accounts a fine looking young woman, brand new, in fact. But instead of thanking God for the gift of no more lonely Saturday nights, he gripes about his Havalah, saying to God: the woman You created turned me onto the baaaad fruit. And it was downhill from there.

The crew who erected the Tower of Babel, essentially to do battle with God, were survivors of the flood. Can you imagine a group of people who should have been more appreciative than them?? The Midrash calls them “sons of Adam” to make it clear they were descendants of Adam, the first fabulous ingrate.

The Israelites in the wilderness are legendary for their in-your-face attitude. Just a few weeks out of Egyptian slavery, with splitting seas, manna appearing out of nowhere, instant three-walled fruit-furnished condominiums popping up, and they’re kvetching to Moses: We’re thirsty… We were better off as slaves! Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?

It turns out that gratitude, according to Judaism, does not come natural to anyone but must be taught. We are not born being thankful human beings. Think about it, when is the last time you heard of the baby emerging from the womb and thanking its mother for all that work. You haven’t, have you?

I’m going to reveal something strange to you about the way the medieval Jewish philosophers looked at gratitude, and you are probably not going to like it. Bachya Ibn Pakuda, of the 11th century, believed that people do not perform acts of kindness and generosity unless there was something in it for them. Only one spirit in the universe blesses us with stuff without any ego or selfishness attached, only One Being gives lovingly only for the sake of loving, and that is, well, guess Who.

If you guessed God you are correct. And so, said Bachya, all expressions of gratitude are due exclusively to God. Anyone who does something nice for you is really only doing God’s work, so your thanks should still be to God.

When I read this, I found it a very depressing statement about human nature. We’re taught to say please and thank you, but how can you feel gratitude to a person if you think they’re doing it for themselves? Don’t we run into the danger of becoming a cynical society if we look at the goodness people perform as self-serving? And if we stop showing appreciation to others don’t we run the risk of losing any gratefulness for anything that is done for us?

Bachya’s challenge is interesting – he says go on and be grateful anyway to people whether their motives be pure or not, because doing it with humanity strengthens your ability to be grateful to God, and, for that matter, being grateful to God strengthens your ability to be grateful to human beings. It’s just a really good exercise.

The first four of the Ten Commandments are about gratitude to God, but the 5th one, beginning the human to human instructions is an unqualified admonition to honor your parents! Somehow there is a serious connection between honoring people and honoring God.

Jews understand pain, and thus the central the consolidation of the entire Torah into one pithy statement: “what is hateful to you do not do to another”. Similarly, we understand the pleasure of the feeling of positive self-worth, how good, how empowering, how encouraging it feels to be thanked, to be appreciated, should we not then do this for others?

My colleague and teacher, Rabbi Joseph Edelheit, reminded me how the Hebrew letters reish and dalet are so easily confused for one another, and I said "yes, so what?" And he said "well, see how easy it is to confuse the name Torah with todah." “Thank you” I said. “That is correct” he said. No, I mean thank you for showing me that…

Simply stated, perform random acts of gratitude, and you will become a more grateful person. Become a more grateful person and your relationship with everyone, God included, will flourish.

But on this Yom Kippur, as we venture out into a new year, this begs the question: Exactly how do I become a more grateful person?

Gratitude begins with counting one’s blessings. Jews are supposed to thank God 100 times daily for things, first thing in the morning, upon awakening thanking God for awakening with the same soul you had yesterday. Then, in your bathroom, for the fact that the pipes are working – not the toilet, your pipes, that is, that our bodies are functioning properly.

Then for the food we eat, the rainbows we see, and on and on.

Whew, a hundred blessings a day. Can you imagine taking the time to show that kind of gratitude? I thought it might prove interesting to try it right here today, publicly to see if it were humanly possible. I have here 100 poker chips to “count my blessings.” Let’s give it a try, shall we?

Okay, a wife, whom I love and who puts up with me, three talented children, one who helped me lead the TIPTY choir (that’s three)
Employment- Living in a democracy - Clothing that others labored greatly to manufacture so that I could wear - A mother in good health - Wonderful siblings (3) - Enough to eat each day
Hmmmm - ah! 40 super kids who agreed to lead their congregation in worship with very little in it for themselves other than the occasional piece of pizza (that’s 40 right there!) The gift of music. Ten fingers to operate my guitar. My wonderful in-laws, Jim and Helen, who have helped us make Minneapolis feel like home. My dog, Sophie! Trees that turn magnificent colors. American soldiers who are risking their very lives for freedom and democracy - At least 20 close personal friends I have made in the Twin Cities since coming here.

Hmmm, this is tough… oh, yeah, That Cake.

Clearly, thankfulness can only come from mindfulness. It’s hard to be thankful when we walk through life unnoticing, unaware, disconnected. If you feel you have it all coming, no, you won’t be grateful. If you awaken on a beautiful sunny day like we had this week and think only of how cold it’s going to be soon, no you won’t develop the gratitude attitude. Somehow we need to be able to see our blessings when they are in front of us, and to overtly name them, and then acknowledge them.

I heard it once said that the majority of the unhappiness in the world comes from people who have 90% of what they need desperately trying to find the missing 10%.

Which reminds me of a guy who came to see me some years ago at my last congregation. He was a healthy, wealthy, prominent businessman who came to me deeply troubled and I couldn’t imagine why, until he began to tell me he had been “plagued” (his word) by a less than successful income year he had had in his multi-million dollar business. The new year was almost upon us and he asked, with tears in his eyes, Rabbi can we say a blessing for my business? I thought he was kidding. I asked him: Larry, is everyone healthy in your family? Yes. Your marriage? Glorious. Your home? Thank you Rabbi, all three homes are quite beautiful.

I understand it took him two launderings to get my bootprint out of the seat of his suit-pants. But after he left I had to ask myself, am I any different from Larry? Gazing daily at the splendor that is my life, and letting days go by without expressing an iota of thanks?

You know, I mentioned earlier the Birkat hamazon, the prayer after meals. It contains a line that as a teenager I used to refuse to sing – na’ar hayiti v’gam zakanti v’lo raiti tzaddik ne’ezav… which means basically, in all my life I have never seen a righteous man abandoned by God. We used to hate that line at camp, would refuse to sing it, because of course we had seen or heard of many good and decent really righteous people who had suffered regardless. One day it was explained to me that the verse means a righteous person, because of the very nature of his gratitude for the goodness bestowed upon him by God never be deserted by God. One who has learned gratefulness will never be alone. Seeing the goodness of the world will keep them in touch with God and with their fellow human beings always. They will never be abandoned. They will never tire of the world’s beauty, never die a death of the soul, and never, ever will they feel alone.

Between our tsurus and our skepticism about people’s motives, it is hard sometimes to see that for which we should be grateful.

It has been documented that Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter who died several weeks ago, survived internment in some 12 different Nazi camps. He recalled his liberation from Matthausen where a rabbi who had come to comfort the survivors invited the prisoners to come say prayers of gratitude. Wiesenthal refused. He told the rabbi that what he had seen in the camp had forever soured him on prayer. There is nothing left over with which to say the hoda’ah, the prayer of thanks. There had been a starving prisoner who had smuggled a siddur – a prayer book. To Wiesenthal’s horror, the man was actually renting the siddur out to Jews for a piece of bread. He was so angry with the man for taking the last piece of bread out of the hands of his starving comrades he decided he would never again pray. The rabbi responded, young man, why do you look at the Jew who rented out his siddur to take away people’s last meals? Why don’t you look at the dozens of Jews who gave up their last piece of bread in order to be able to use a prayer book? Now that’s true faith. That is gratitude. And Wiesenthal and the rabbi walked off to pray.

Here is the problem with Bachya’s cyncism about human beings. We must be grateful to people not because we want to be more like God, but because we need to praise the Godliness that is in them. Think of what you are doing when you express appreciation for something holy that someone has done for you. You are helping them see God working inside them. Look how powerful a tool your gratitude is. Never mind whether you feel like expressing gratitude, it is not always about our feelings.

A marriage counselor I know says that our society concentrates too heavily on our feelings. How do you feel? Do you feel like doing that, honey? How does that make you feel? So when we’ve lost the feeling for doing something we throw it out like a disposable camera. We build our relationships like this: If I feel love for you, I will act in a loving way. If I feel like forgiving you, I will. If I feel grateful to you, I’ll let you know.

Well try this on for size – If I act in a loving way toward you I will feel love for you. If I forgive you I will feel forgiving. If I show gratitude to you, I will become a grateful and gracious person.

You know, you run through the park, you do sit ups, you study, you improve your sports abilities. Yom Kippur is a great day to practice gratitude. When someone apologizes to you today, what will you say to them?: “Oh that’s ok, it wasn’t such a big deal anyway…” or “yes, you oughtta apologize, you really are a jerk.” Or one of my favorites: “that’s it? That’s all you think you’ve done??”

No, you are going to say "Thank you. I am grateful for your apology." Because you know what? Apologizing is a big deal – it is Godlike, and you know what is even more Godlike? Accepting an apology. Yom Kippur is a big gratitude day.

The famous violinist Itzhak Perlman was in New York one evening to perform a violin concerto. Being stricken with polio as a child, getting on stage was no small deal. He wears braces on both legs and walks with two crutches. Just as he started into the beginning of the first movement, one of the strings on his violin snapped. At that point Perlman was close enough to the beginning of the piece that it would have been reasonable to stop, replace the string and start over. But that's not what he did. He signaled the conductor to pick up just where they had left off.

Perlman now had only three strings with which to play his solo part. He was able to find some of the missing notes on adjoining strings, but where that wasn't possible, he had to rearrange the music on the spot in his head so that it all still held together. He played with passion and artistry, spontaneously rearranging the fingering as he went. When he finally rested his bow, the audience sat for a moment in stunned silence. And then they rose to their feet and cheered wildly. They knew they had been witness to an extraordinary display of human skill and ingenuity.

Perlman raised his bow to signal for quiet. "You know," he said, "sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much beautiful music you can still make with what you have left."

We are all lacking something, and we’ll always have at least some degree of suspicion about what motivates others to do what they do for us or to us. But we need the Gratitude Attitude to craft something of beauty out of what we do have, incomplete as it may be. Maybe you busted a string on the violin of your life this year, but you still have three more, and that’s something to be grateful for.

On this most important day of the Jewish year, we think a lot of those busted strings, and admitting to ourselves and to God those imperfections. We can let them discourage or define us in the coming year, or we can be grateful for the thousands of daily opportunities to celebrate ourselves and others. Grateful for love, grateful for the memory of those no longer with us, grateful for health, or in the absence of health grateful for a fighting spirit to stand strong in its wake, and grateful for those in our corner helping us fight. And every moment of contact with each other offers us a choice to be critical and cynical, or to be grateful.

This morning we have prayed three types of prayers, the brachot, praising; the bakasha, asking for things; and the hoda’ah, the thank you prayers. The Talmud teaches that in the end of days, when the messiah has arrived, and every single thing will be perfect, and we will all be together, and one with God and not a thing wrong, the only prayers left to say in our little siddurim will be those prayers of gratitude. The hoda’ah. Even when all hopes and dreams are answered in a perfect universe, we will be required to sing songs of gratitude. It’s for keeps.

Okay, so if someone asks you, what did the rabbi talk about in his sermon just say: well he said we should say please and thank you more often. Even if we don’t feel like it.

Or just remember that grateful people make better human beings and better Jews, and they make the world a better place. That’s pretty much it.

Oh, and thank you for listening. I am indeed grateful to serve such a wonderful congregation.

L’shana tova