I want to thank you all for being here. I’m truly grateful that we can gather like this, and I don’t know that I tell you that often enough. Or that I think about that fact enough. It’s something we take for granted, it’s just Friday night, it’s what we do. But this is a blessing—to be here together like this.
Speaking of gratitude—go with me here—how many of you know “The Simpsons”? Okay, silly question. How many of you have watched it before? Every now and then, the show hits on a profound, universal truth. In one episode, the family sits down to dinner, and—in the Christian tradition—Bart Simpson is asked to say grace beforehand. And being Bart, he offers the following prayer: “Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.”
Bart’s right in the most shallow sense—they earned the money, bought the food, and cooked it—and too many would agree with him, but people who truly cultivate gratitude understand that good things—the food on the table, shelter, a loving family—these often happen despite themselves or, as is always the case, thanks to the grace of God.
But don’t take my word for it. These days, gratitude is hot. I mean, popular. There are over 20,000 hits on Amazon for gratitude journals alone. Have you heard about these? The idea is that every day, you write down things for which you are grateful. There are journals designed for moms, dads, kids, every possible niche. It may be just marketing, but it’s not a bad idea.
I must have purchased twenty gratitude journals over the years—at least—because it seemed like something i *should* be doing, right? No matter what was happening in my life, I should center that and remember that. Gratitude. Grace under pressure. All that. Except that’s the thing about pressure and, well, things happening in your life, you don’t always have the time or the inclination. Or the energy. Or the things aren’t things you want to dwell on. It’s hard to feel gratitude every day. I left about, oh, I don’t know, twenty gratitude journals blank over the years—at least! Heck, I purged most of them in the last move. Life is too short, you know?
In this week’s parsha, Ekev, we read the key line that led the rabbis to create what may be our most important and immediate expression of gratitude, recited as many times a day as one eats a sufficient amount, size of an olive, the Bircat Hamazon, Blessing after meals.
In Deuteronomy 8 verses 7-10 we read, “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of grape vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and [date] honey; a land where you may eat food without danger, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the LORD your God for the good land which God has given you.“
There are three parts to this. First, the physical act of eating. Then, being satiated. Feeling full, complete, secure. Finally, after that wonderful feeling of having eaten enough, then and only then do you give thanks.
This third part is the hardest of all—wouldn’t it make more sense to thank God BEFORE we eat? This is what Christians do. I’ve heard another irreverent version, “Good friends, good food, good God, let’s eat.” Which yes, it’s meant to be funny but the sentiment is still there. We are hungry, we are in need. Let’s give thanks for the bounty before us. Is that not the right time to turn to God?
Judaism says no—the time to cultivate gratitude is not in the hunger, because that’s when it’s easy to turn to God. That isn’t gratitude but anticipation. The time for gratitude is when you’re satisfied, when you are thankful for what you have received.
One of the greatest enemies to happiness is called hedonic adaptation, when we grow accustomed to pleasurable things and therefore appreciate them less. When we’re used to something, we lose that pleasure, we take it for granted. The rabbis of the Talmud knew that when we are happy and comfortable—when we expect what we think we’re due—that’s when we become Bart Simpson, “I did it! Thanks for nothing!” This is called a self-serving bias. When good things happen to us, we say it’s because of something we did, but when bad things happen, we blame others. We turn inward and self-congratulatory instead of looking outward beyond ourselves.
The Bircat Hamazon is founded upon the world being inherently good—we see this all through the creation story, “God saw that it was good.” In the Bircat we read that not only is the world good, but our God IS Goodness. “He has done good for us, is doing good for us, will do good for us in the future.” His goodness in the world is yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We don’t just see “people” or “things,” as the sources of goodness, those are transitory and, for Jews, all come from One Source, God. Good things or bad, our thanks belong to God.
Are we supposed to be grateful for bad things? Yes. Judaism even has blessings for death. Gratitude doesn’t make problems disappear or make life easier. Helen Keller once said, “I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I found myself, my work, and my God.”
As Jews, we turn at our worst moments, moments of pain and suffering and say, “Blessed are You, the the True Judge.” How can we be possibly be grateful at such times? How can we offer a blessing in the face of sorrow and loss? Judaism says that we must. We cannot only thank God for the good—that would be a transactional love, opportunistic even.
There is a science behind this as well: the “scarcity heuristic,” where we value things more when they are rare or scarce. For example, faced with death, the value we place on life rises. There was a study of 350 adults who had suffered the loss of a parent to examine their post-traumatic psychological growth. Those who rated themselves higher in gratitude reported lower levels of depression and higher levels of psychological well-being. The participants who faced this with grace and gratitude—with understanding—fared better than those who did not.
The rabbis knew what they were doing by expressing a blessing at a moment of crisis and loss. The awareness of gratitude—of grace—despite suffering can help us to move forward and grow.
Study after study shows that gratitude is a key to happiness in life but the rabbis didn’t need a experiments or journals. By giving us the Bircat Hamazon to recite after each meal, we cultivate gratitude for what we have in this world—we understand what we have been given instead of anticipating what we think is owed to us—and in so doing find joy, ward off feelings of entitlement or grievance, and partner with God in making His already good world even better. We cultivate gratitude for what we have in this life because, well, life is too short, right?
And so, I say again here at the end, thank you for being here with me, with us, with all of us.