Home Home / Gratitude (1969)

Note

January 27, 1969

Gratitude (1969)

Vayetze Prayer Character Development
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Article

Gratitude, Part 1: A Rational Principle (1962)

A thousand years ago, the great Rabbi Saadia Gaon thought that our Torah is reasonable and that the human intellect, by itself, can ultimately discover the great truths taught in Scripture. As an example of how reason can provide us with these principles, he offers: gratitude. The very first thing our reason tells us is that one ought to be grateful. Hence, from this principle of gratitude, we learn that a man ought to pray. It is reasonable that we pray to G-d out of gratitude to Him.Intelligent people should not be ingrates. That is why Jews recite the Modeh Ani immedi-ately upon arising, why they say the Modim as part of their prayer, why they recite the Birkhat ha-Mazon after eating. It is the first dictate of human reason.It is all the more amazing, therefore, to learn of a remarkable comment of our Rabbis on the Bible’s narrative concerning the birth of Leah’s fourth son. She called him Yehudah (Judah) because “this time I shall thank the Lord” (Gen. 29:35). Our Sages say, “from the day G-d created the world no one had thanked Him until Leah came and thanked Him upon giving birth to Judah, as it is said, ‘this time I shall thank the Lord’” (Berakhot 7). Noah, Shem, Eber, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—the founders of the true religion—were they so callous and indifferent that they never acknowledged G-d’s gifts to them ? Were they, then, unfeeling, unthinking ingrates ?Indeed not. For a deeper understanding of gratitude reveals that there are two levels of gratitude. Gratefulness can be understood as courtesy—or as conscience; as a social gesture —or as sacred grace; as a way of talking—or as a state of the soul; as an aspect of personality —or as a part of character.
Vayetze Prayer Character Development India

Article

Gratitude, Part 2: Leah's Dream (1962)

The most illustrious example of this nobler kind of gratitude, “thankfulness", is our Mother Leah. Her life’s greatest ambition was to marry Jacob and to be sincerely loved by him. When our Torah tells us that “the eyes of Leah were rakkot," dull or weak (Gen. 29:17), the Rabbis ask: what does rakkot mean? Rav says, literally dull; and this is not meant to discredit Leah but is said in praise of her. For she had heard people saying that Rebecca has two sons and Laban has two daughters, the older will marry the older (that is, Esau will marry Leah) and the younger will marry the younger (Jacob will marry Rachel). She went about inquiring: what are the characters of these men ? She was told that Esau is a wild and evil man. Jacob is a decent, respectable, scholarly young man. And she, therefore, was slated to marry the despicable but successful thief! As a result, she wept so much and so bitterly and so loudly that her eyes dulled, until her eyelashes fell off because of her many tears ! Her red, dull, uncomely eyes were beautiful indeed, for they had become so out of protest against being mated to Esau IHow pathetic is Leah’s story! Her love of Jacob is so great that she even submits to her father’s nefarious plan to substitute her for her sister Rachel, whom Jacob dearly loves, deceiving Jacob thereby. She is even willing to go to the huppah, and throughout life, playing second fiddle to a more vivacious, dazzling, beautiful sister, married to the same husband. And when she finally is married to him—how tragic her frustration, the blow to her selfesteem !Pathetic indeed—yet Leah does not give up hope. Her desire for Jacob’s love and respect is too precious to yield so quickly. She has a son and feels that now he will love her, so she calls the child Reuven, adding: “now my husband will surely love me." But he does not. A second child comes, and she calls him Simeon, “for G-d has seen how despised I am" and will make Jacob love me. And then a third child, Levi—“Now …
Vayetze Prayer Character Development India

Article

Gratitude, Part 5: Thankfulness as Confession (1962)

Ultimately, the ability to achieve this higher form of gratitude is an integral aspect of character – it requires a humility based upon deep insight. That insight is – our own weakness and inadequacy in the presence of Almighty God. When we are grateful to Him, we are cognizant of the infinite distance between our moral failings and His exalted spirituality. Basically, gratitude to God means acknowledging our dependence upon Him. We confess our need of Him – our inability to get along without Him. No wonder that in Hebrew, the words for “I thank” – Modeh ani – also mean: “I confess.” I confess my need of You; I thank You for coming to my assistance! The Modeh prayer we recite upon arising each morning means not only “Thank You, God, for returning my soul to me” – it means also, “I confess, O God, that without You, I would never wake up alive!”This gratitude, the kind we have called thankfulness rather than mere thanksgiving, is what we Jews have not only been taught by our Tradition, but what we bear as a message to the world by our very names. The concept and the practice are deeply ingrained in the very texture of the Jewish soul, and this is reflected in the name “Jew.” For the word “Jew” comes from “Judah,” which is the English for Yehudah—meaning “thank G-d.” This is the name of Leah’s fourth son, at whose birth Mother Leah reached the heights of sublimity in fashioning, for the first time, an expression of thankfulness issuing from a profoundly religious personality. “Jew” is a name that we ought, therefore, bear with great pride and a sense of responsibility.We conclude with the words of David : Hodu la-Shem ki tov, ki le’olam hasdo. Usually this is translated, “Give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His love lasts forever.” I would paraphrase that, in a manner that is consistent with the syntax of the Hebrew verse : “Give thanks to the Lord, for it is good,” i.e. it is good for the heart and soul of the thankful person to be grateful, “for His love i…
Vayetze Prayer Character Development India