מוֹדִים אֲנַחְנוּ לָךְ שָׁאַתָּה הוּא ה’ אֱלֹקינוּ וֵאלֹקי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד צוּר חַיֵּינוּ מָגֵן יִשְׁעֵנוּ אַתָּה הוּא לְדוֹר וָדוֹר נוֹדֶה לְּךָ וּנְסַפֵּר תְּהִלָּתֶךָ עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ וְעַל־נִשְׁמוֹתֵינוּ הַפְּקוּדוֹת לָךְ וְעַל־נִסֶּיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל־יוֹם עִמָּנוּ וְעַל־נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ וְטוֹבוֹתֶיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל־עֵת, עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם, הַטּוֹב כִּי לֹא־כָלוּ רַחֲמֶיךָ וְהַמְרַחֵם כִּי לֹא־תַמּוּ חֲסָדֶיךָ, כִּי מֵעוֹלָם קִוִּינוּ לָךְ – We are thankful to You that You Hashem are our God and the God of our fathers forever; Rock of our lives, the Shield of our deliverance, You are in every generation. We will give thanks to You and recount Your praise, for our lives which are committed into Your hand, and for our souls which are entrusted to You, and for Your miracles of every day with us, and for Your wonders and benefactions at all times— evening, morning and noon. (You are) The Beneficent One— for Your compassion is never withheld; And (You are) the Merciful One— for Your kindliness never ceases; for we have always placed our hope in You.
Bowing
A full bow accompanies the opening of the thanksgiving blessing; the technically perfect form is to bend the entire spine forward so the torso is aligned with the ground.
Bowing is a form of body language and communication with significant cultural, social, and religious implications. While precise meanings and nuances vary depending on the cultural context, bowing, in general, is a non-verbal gesture that conveys respect, humility, gratitude, acknowledgment, and submission.
It is the physical embodiment of the act of lowering oneself.
This is one of the four blessings in the Amida that is accompanied by a bow; bowing is the exception, not the rule, and it isn’t even permissible to bow outside these specific blessings.
The laws of prayer specify that if a person cannot concentrate on the entire Amida, then the first blessing is the most important, and to at least focus everything on that one – Avos, Patriarchs, Fathers, Ancestors. The law then stipulates that if one cannot do that, the next best one to concentrate on is Hoda’a: Thanksgiving.
The notion that these two blessings are the ones that require proper intent and are also the ones that you would bow for suggests that these are most important; it also indicates that there is a common denominator between these two blessings that cuts to the heart of prayer.
There are more profound and more superficial expressions when it comes to praying with intent. It’s relatively straightforward to think about the words you’re saying; it’s another thing entirely to mean what you’re saying with passion and enthusiasm.
Not Bowing
Our sages teach that if a person doesn’t bow at this blessing, their spine turns into a snake, a deeply cryptic teaching with layered imagery.
The spine is significant; it links the entire body – a spinal injury cripples the whole body. The spinal cord is the bridge between thoughts and feelings and implementing them with actions in the real world. The mitzvah of tefillin prominently utilizes this model; the head tefillin sits on the forehead over the brain, with the rear knot on the top vertebra of the spine, with straps tracking down the body as though mirroring the spine and nervous system. That arm tefillin is bound to the upper arm opposite the heart, with straps bound down the arm to the hands and fingers. The Tefilin symbolizes binding action, emotion, and thought: hand, heart, and head.
The opening blessings of the Amida were praise; the middle section consists of requests, and this blessing is the beginning of thanksgiving – bow is an action that manifests the knowledge and intellect of the Source of all things.
When the sages say that when a person doesn’t bow, their spine turns into a snake, that doesn’t mean it turns into a scary reptile; it means the snake, the archetypal snake from Eden, the cunning and dangerous deceiver and manipulator.
In the Torah’s telling, the archetypal snake is powerful; it can walk upright, talk, and is far more intelligent than Adam and Eve. It uses these skills and abilities to tempt Eve to defy the Creator, which she initially declines to do. But the snake is clever and persuasive; it suggests that the Creator is not so good, and the rules are merely the Creator acting out of self-interest.
Our sages suggest that when Eve sinned, it was almost as if she had been intimate with the snake, that she had allowed herself to be infected with the snake’s poison by believing that God and God’s rules were self-serving.
When a person doesn’t bow at the blessing of thanksgiving, the acknowledgment and affirmation of God’s goodness, their spine has become the snake, denying God’s good. Our sages also teach the inverse: every time we bow, we heal a bit of the damage of Adam’s original sin.
When a person bows, lowering themselves and demonstrating respect, humility, gratitude, acknowledgment, and submission due to the Creator, it reverses the snake-ification of humanity.
So why not the whole time?
If the case for bowing is so compelling, it naturally follows that perhaps we ought to bow from beginning to end and say the entire prayer prostrate.
But that question misunderstands a fundamental orientation of humans to God.
Bowing physically lowers the human body, evoking the body shape of animals that walk on all fours. Moreover, it conceptually lowers the human body too; humans stand upright, with a physical hierarchy in the way our organs stack – with the conscious mind on top, then the emotional heart, the hungry digestive system, and at the base, the base reproductive system. When a human bows, this hierarchy collapses, with everything at a horizontal level.
Bowing nullifies impurity, but standing reinforces holiness. God doesn’t want us to stay bent; God wants us to stand straight, and the only way to stand is by rising from a bow.
Bowing and standing are functions of the acknowledgment that I am no more than an animal without God, and we say this played out across world history. When people think they are gods, they behave like animals; when they think humans are just animals, they act like animals. But with morality and goodness, we can stand up as humans.
Through thanksgiving and acknowledging our weaknesses and shortcomings, we can do what no animal can – we can consciously recognize God.
Thank you, Hashem, for creating us upright.
Debt of thanks
The Maharal notes that when someone does something good for you, it incurs a debt, not just for the value of the benefit but because they have done anything for you at all. The debt is not cheap; the laws of misleading people and incurring such a debt are serious. A classic example is buying a beautiful birthday cake for someone, and upon realizing it’s not actually their birthday, recycling it for someone else and saying you did it, especially for them.
When you do something nice for someone, they owe you, but if you didn’t do what they think you did, you have stolen their gratitude.
Part of the thanksgiving blessing is paying that debt, giving ourselves over to God; if you owe everything you have to God, you owe everything you are to God. More than mere thanksgiving, it suggests a corresponding obligation and responsibility; it follows that this is why the Jewish People are called Yehudim – YEHUDIM CITE.
Observing the Torah scrupulously is hard. There are so many obligations and restrictions; how could somebody want that? By taking stock of how much we owe the Creator – everything.
Sometimes, some moments make us feel like we don’t owe God that much; some moments feel more like, if anything, God owes us.
But that thought is only coherent if we take everything for granted; it makes no sense to be so selective. You have woken up; you are alive and breathing. The sun has risen once again, and it’s another day in the universe’s vibrant existence; that’s why we start the day with a short thank you prayer – MODEH ANI CITE. That’s not to say things can’t be bad, but those bad things cannot exist in isolation, that is, without an enormous amount of ingratitude. The ability to think and feel sorry for yourself is also a gift – kol haneshama tehalel YA – al kol neshima.
The word we use for thanksgiving suggests a giving over of ourselves, in the plural – MODIM CITE. Almost all prayers are pluralized because they’re for the greater Jewish People, not just ourselves. Bless me and them, too; bless us. Heal me and that person, too; heal us.
It may seem counterintuitive, but we can offer thanks on someone else’s behalf. While there is a personal Modim at the repetition, we can offer thanks for all the people who don’t know to direct their thanks to the Creator; perhaps there isn’t even such a thing as a purely personal blessing, and we can be thankful for all the communal blessings.
I am thankful for that person’s wealth, with which they support the community. I am grateful for that person’s intelligence, which they use to teach so many.
Many people sway during their prayers, rocking to and fro, back and forth, fast or slow. It’s a way of the body articulating its prayer, actively participating – kol atzmosai tomarna.
But there are things I’m not thankful for
I hate school, I hate my job, I hate this personal crisis, I hate my failure. There are things we are not thankful for; does that make you ungrateful?
It’s not fair or honest to suggest that; to do so would be to negate the entire subjective human experience; if you didn’t have thoughts or feelings, then you wouldn’t think or feel that way, obviously.
But instead, a perspective shift is in order; not the universal view that negates your existence, but a longer time horizon.
Some things are uncomfortable but ultimately for the good.
Dieting isn’t as fun as eating, but good health is essential. Saving isn’t as fun as spending; financial well-being is important; homework is boring, but education is everything; your job might be rubbish, but taking care of your family is critical.
While every moment of the process is uncomfortable, it’s directed towards a positive outcome, an end goal that is good; we can be thankful for that. You can be thankful without feeling so happy or excited; you can be grateful and still be hurting or upset.
There are times when people go through great difficulty and say years later that they would choose it again.
A girl’s mother was terminally ill; she was a fantastic mother and woman, and the girl was distraught. But given the choice of an average mother with long life or her incredible mother for the time she was allotted, she would choose her mother for as long as possible every time. Not to detract in any way from the profound loss and pain of that family, but if that’s what she could choose, that was what she already had, a blessing in a certain sense.
שָׁאַתָּה הוּא יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ
The first phrase of the Torah introduces the idea of a Creator. We express thanks that the Creator is our God.
Our prayers alternately refer to God in the second and third person – you / Him – ATA / HU ELOKEIN. You speak to someone in the second person when directly interacting with them in their presence; you are speaking directly to them. Speaking in the third person means talking about someone who isn’t there; speaking to someone who is there and about someone who is not doesn’t make much sense usually, but it does about the Creator – there is a part that is revealed and a part that is not, and we are thankful for both.
We are thankful for the mercy we see and the judgment we don’t. There are times we want to see God; on Rosh Hashana, we pray for a happy and sweet new year because not everything sweet is happy, and not everything happy is sweet. It’s a prayer to see God’s plan, for it to make sense and feel good.
But there are times we don’t want to see God’s plan; our sages teach that when Yakov wished to reveal the end of history on his deathbed, God clouded his prophecy clouded over because it would be devastating to learn how distant it would be, and the truth was too heavy – bikesh yakov lgalos es hakeitz CITE.
Life takes place amidst uncertainty, possibility, and probability; knowing everything kills what it is to be human. In the Purim story, Haman’s plot terrifies the Jews into repentance and a religious revival that launches a new era of Torah and rebuilds the Beis Hamikdash; if they had known all along that the plot would fail, the humans never made the changes and take the actions and steps they needed to, and the story could never happen. As R’ Jonathan Sacks said, if we could understand why bad things happen to good people, we would simply accept it.
It’s important that God be concealed at times.
When a child is learning to ride a bike, the father needs to hold the bike, but it’s also essential for the father to let go; that’s how you learn to ride a bike. After successfully learning how to ride a bike, the child is thankful to the father for teaching him, both for holding and also for letting go – the revealed and the hidden.
אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
We are thankful for eternity – לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד.
We’re thankful that God has always stuck with us and will never trade or upgrade us. There are moments we have fallen short, well short, as a nation and as individuals. Thank you Hashem for never leaving us, never abandoning us, for staying our God despite everything – אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
More profoundly, the nature of our relationship with the Creator is one of eternity; God takes a long-term view of things. The babysitter might indulge the screaming child with chocolate, but his mother might not. Hidden or revealed, the relationship is eternal; even when things aren’t super favorable in the short term, we are thankful that God looks out for the long term.
(god of eternity, giant complex wild universe)
צוּר חַיֵּינוּ – the one-man army
As one might navigate the challenging journey of a loved one’s illness, hospital visits might become a stage for encounters filled with escalating gratitude for each person, reflecting the significance of their role in the journey toward healing.
A simple yet sincere “thank you” might be offered to the lunch lady who cheerfully delivers. The medical tech who ensures the smooth operation of life-sustaining equipment is met with a grateful “Thank you, your work is crucial.” The nurse, whose care and compassion oversee the general quality of care, receives a heartfelt “I appreciate how much you’re doing.” To the anesthesiologist, whose efforts take the edge off any pain, “Your efforts really made a difference; thank you so much!” And finally, to the surgeon, whose skill, expertise, and decisions are critical from the top down, the deepest expression of profound gratitude must be offered; “Thank you doesn’t begin to cover it; you’ve given us hope and healing. We are eternally grateful.”
What if, three years later, the patient has a relapse and is readmitted, and the staff are all gone? There were budget cuts, and the surgeon was the only one left. He brought the food, managed the equipment, made the beds, kept watch night and day, administered pain management medication, and performed life-saving surgery as well.
A one-man army is a fictional trope, a caricature that could never truly exist; it takes a village. Words fail to acknowledge the extreme level of goodness shared adequately; you would be in awe of the presence of such a person. They would not just be owed the thanks that everyone else would get combined; they are due all the thanks amplified, squared, cubed, and compounded.
Your gratitude is contingent on what you have received; part of the proper way to show appreciation is to recognize the goodness done for you, directly influencing how you would relate to them.
All the goodness we have ever received comes from God – tova kfula umkupeles CITE
צוּר חַיֵּינוּ – the rock
The word we use to describe the relationship with God in our lives is multifaceted, with different related, overlapping meanings.
Firstly, it can mean rock. When someone is your rock, it means they are a reliable anchor of stability, an immovable object you can lean on – צוּר חַיֵּינוּ
It can also mean strength or power, our Source of strength and security.
It can also be a variant form of the word for painter – TZIUR CITE. Our sages teach that God is a painter – ein tzur elokeinu, ein tzayer kelokeinu
It can also be a variant form of the word for creator yotzer – CITE
Lastly, it can mean Source, the place from which we are drawn – mekor CITE
Firstly, it can mean rock. When someone is your rock, it means they are a reliable anchor of stability, an immovable object you can lean on – צוּר חַיֵּינוּ
There are times a person can relate to God as something to hold onto, that you can turn to God when you need to. If you understand you can count on God and that God is something solid to hold onto, you turn to God. If people don’t understand God or their prayer, they won’t count on it, and it won’t do much for them.
Imagine climbing an old, rickety staircase; you need a sturdy railing to hold onto. If there’s just an old, rickety railing, you won’t hold tight, and your steps will be uncertain; you will tread lightly, unwilling to commit, and when you can’t commit to something, it can’t support you. But when you have a support that you don’t commit to, it can’t work as a support, not because of its own deficiency, but because of you.
God is the rock of our lives; we can lean on God and God can support us – hasleich al hashem vhu yechalkelecha CITE. But support is useless when you don’t count on it.
In the middle of a war, a child, separated from his family, is caught in a dangerous crossfire. As bullets tear through the air, a figure reaches out and pulls him to the ground and safety. He whispers, “Shh—it’s Dad.” In an instant, surrounded by chaos and with danger close, the child experiences a sudden sense of safety.
In the moments you wish you had something to lean on when you can’t do it alone, remember that God is the rock; utilize it.
(harold kushner about people finding strenght when they had none)
צוּר חַיֵּינוּ – the strength of our life
It can also mean strength or power, our Source of strength and security.
Different from rock in the sense of security, God gives us strength. So many times, life can beat a person down with sickness, weakness, failure, loss, or a combination. Empty, with nothing left in the tank, a person can come to life again, energized and revitalized. We know people who find the ability to do something they did not believe they could or honestly could not. It happens all the time, and you can be sure it will continue to occur in the future as well.
If there is something you cannot do, you can pray to find the strength.
צוּר חַיֵּינוּ – the artist of our lives
It can also be a variant form of the word for artist or painter – TZIUR CITE. Our sages teach that God is a artist – ein tzur elokeinu, ein tzayer kelokeinu
Wise men have consistently recognized the universe as a masterful artwork, from Maimonides to Einstein.
The brushstrokes of existence that span the cosmos testify to the beauty that resides across the range of infinity. The Galaxies spiral in dances across the void, stars are born in explosive nebulas, and supernovas scatter the seeds of creation. Planets orbit in serene silence, each world a jewel in the celestial crown, their surfaces and atmospheres weaving stories of mystery and possibility. In our world, the mountains reach out to the earth, their peaks brushing the sky, while mighty oceans cover the earth, their depths harboring secrets in the dark embrace of water. The forests breathe life, a symphony of flora and fauna, each leaf and creature a note in the song of the Earth, a melody of interconnected survival and symbiosis. Beyond what the eye can see, cells divide with extreme precision, with the brilliant power of DNA encoding the blueprints of life underpinning the diversity of existence. Beyond that, the atoms and particles dance in the quantum realm, their interactions governed by forces that bind the universe in a delicate balance, crafting matter and energy from the void, a microcosm of creation that mirrors the grandeur of the cosmos.
A masterpiece of complexity, simplicity, chaos, and order, each layer reveals further layers of beauty and sophistication that captivate the mind and stir the soul. On this grand canvas, the design of the fabric of our reality is special, every brush stroke singing to the Creator.
Beyond the beauty of the external world, we are also blessed with subjective beauty, the beauty we can experience. A child’s warm embrace, a picturesque landscape, the miracle of childbirth, a person’s smile.
As much as the universe exists for the Torah and morality, the canvas is too big if that is the only goal. We could exist as flat stick figures in a two-dimensional geometric world, but we don’t because God’s kindness is multi-dimensional, with the rich depth of fall leaves and rainbow sunsets.
The analogy runs deeper still; there’s a big difference between a painting and a drawing. A drawing is relatively easy to identify from the outset; there are outlines, shapes, and shading. A painting is very different because there are coats and layers; you can often only see the outcome when it’s finished or nearly finished.
God paints reality and our lives in shades and layers with deep complexity. Part of living on God’s canvas is that we cannot know what comes next; we live, move, and act within different phases of uncertainty.
It’s not a bug; that’s a feature of the whole assignment. The entire exercise and point of our lives is to put together the pieces and create something worthwhile out of our lives; there is no wrong thing. Work with what you have been given; your best guess must be correct because you cannot know otherwise; you cannot be wrong. Of course, with more information later, you need to adapt, but everything is obvious in hindsight; you must do the best you can with the information you have at the moment.
A judge can rule with smoking gun evidence that a person is guilty, and that would be the correct ruling. If evidence emerges later that the person is innocent, they must be ruled innocent, but the first trial was not wrong; the judge must follow the process with the information available. We are all judges, and we cannot know what new information tomorrow will bring; our sages teach that judges can only be responsible for the information they have and not the information they do not – ein ldaya ela ma sheino roois – CITE
Each new element of information and life adds richness, depth, and complexity to the rest. A stroke of white might be light, and a little red might be anger.
God is a painter; we cannot see the canvas we live within, but we can be sure it is a work of art.
צוּר חַיֵּינוּ – creator of our lives
This can also be a variant form of the word for creator yotzer – CITE
While we may speak about artists as creative, an enormous difference exists between artists and creators. What we call creativity isn’t creative; all creative work is derivative, building on something that existed before.
Carl Sagan once quipped that to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. To do anything from scratch, from nothing at all, you need constituent atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and the rest, and atoms cannot exist without the creative processes of the Big Bang.
Artists can combine and recombine materials but cannot create; a unicorn merges a horse with a horn, a pegasus is a horse with a bird, and a centaur is a horse with a man. The building blocks of creativity are recycled, not original. It can’t be otherwise; we cannot imagine something we have never seen.
To be clear, combinations can be creative and original. The Mona Lisa or the perfect chicken sandwich are works of art and what we call creative, but the only actual act of creation is Creation itself, ex nihilio, something from nothing – yesh meaiyin – CITE.
God’s creativity is different and unimaginable.
(this anecdote doesn’t illustrate God’s creativity to me; it illustrates human derivative creativity)
In some of our darkest days, the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 had already seen hundreds of thousands of innocent people transported to the gas chambers. Hundreds of lightly armed Jewish fighters led a resistance effort that was partially successful and spurred an uprising, demonstrating audacity and bravery amid unimaginable horrors. Although ultimately doomed, as they knew they were, they fought for the honor of the Jewish people, a protest against the world’s silence in the face of the Nazi’s unspeakable evils, and they fought harder and held out longer than the Polish army.
For half a century, the Cold War marked decades of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, with an open struggle for dominance and influence that was felt across the globe, sparking an arms race and nuclear testing that threatened human civilization. World leaders openly and repeatedly threatened each other with nuclear annihilation, which people believed was inevitable. And yet, the Cold War never became a hot war; a generation that had grown up in the shadow of the constant threat of nuclear war turned on the news and saw the Soviet Union collapse without a single shot fired.
You can book a ticket and be in Spain by tomorrow lunchtime for a lovely holiday. You’d never know that the Spanish Inquisition spanned a few centuries and terrorized one of the seats of Jewish culture in exile in the Middle Ages, brutally and publicly executing thousands of Jews, abducting and converting tens of thousands more, and terrorizing all rest. But today, Jews are welcome with open arms!
God’s creativity is not like ours. God’s creativity exceeds our imagination, unlocking vistas of tremendous hope; it means there is no hopeless scenario where a person cannot hope and pray. It means you can never create something you can’t return from; there can be something new.
(but some things are hopeless – warsaw ghetto uprising fighters all died)
God doesn’t just sustain us; God creates us.
There is newness – mechadesh bchol yom btuvo
living with newness torahredux
https://torahredux.com/living-with-newness/
צוּר חַיֵּינוּ – the source of life
https://torahredux.com/soul-sparkles/
A more profound interpretation is that this isn’t a description of what God does for us but that we are a fragment of godliness drawn from God, the Source of all life.
When we speak about the fundamental essence of Jewish identity, the pintele Yid, the incorruptible soul, these are different ways of saying that what animates us is the living force of God, drawn from God – חלק אלוק ממעל
chatzuvim (I don’t know this word)
Taking this imagery to its conclusion, if there is a piece of God in us, then we are a piece of God, the part that animates, motivates, and inspires our consciousness.
God is transcendent, above space and time, and yet deeply imminent, profoundly present,
The piece of immortal eternity and infinity that lives within us here and now. More than just an animating energy or force, this gift bestows consciousness, the ability to perceive the immortal soul within.
The existence of a soul necessarily means that a human is so much more than a physical body; our consciousness loudly proclaims that there is much more than the material world we can see and feel.
Knowing there resides a piece of God within you means you won’t live with the limitations that people who don’t know live with; we believe that death is not the end; there exists a great beyond, a hereafter that goes endlessly on. Knowing there is a beyond, we can beyond our limitations; boundaries and distinctions are artificial, and there is only One, there is only God, the eternal and eternity, of which I am a part – shema yisrael CITE.
This is the sentiment that our ancestors have expressed, with self-sacrifice, dying al kiddush Hashem with mesiras nefesh
(needs work)
מָגֵן יִשְׁעֵנוּ
God guards our salvation; we can ruin it, God will protect it.
Our autonomy and choice grant us enormous power and capability to shape our world and our lives for better and worse, including the ability to self-sabotage and ruin the things we love. Despite our capacity to make mistakes, God’s protective embrace remains a testament to the enduring promise of divine oversight.
In this delicate balance between divine protection and human agency, our spiritual journey unfolds, guided by the omnipotent hand that both shields and allows us the freedom to navigate our path, affirming that even in moments of misstep, the divine intention to protect our salvation endures.
God is the vigilant guardian of our salvation, a steadfast protector against the tumults of life. Yet, within this divine safeguarding lies a profound truth: our actions hold the power to undermine this protection. It’s a delicate balance where divine providence and human agency intersect, reminding us that while God will unfailingly protect our salvation, the responsibility to honor and preserve this gift through our choices and actions rests squarely upon our shoulders. This dynamic interplay underscores the significance of our role in the divine scheme, where our free will determines the course of our spiritual journey, even as we remain under the watchful eye of a benevolent Creator.
וּנְסַפֵּר תְּהִלָּתֶךָ
We will tell God’s praises.
This phrase is a little unusual because it is a more complex form of something more straightforward. Editing the sentence for brevity and clarity, you wouldn’t tell God’s praise; you would praise God – NEHALEL CITE.
But there is more to it than just praising God with a thank you; this blessing tells us to praise God using one of the most powerful pieces of human culture and technology – stories. Storytelling is one of the fundamental building blocks of human civilization, bringing people together and inspiring belief and behavior on a large scale, ultimately shaping society and history.
When expressing gratitude, don’t just say thank you; tell the story in rich detail. The better the story, the greater the payoff and praise. Don’t just say thank you, talk about it. Beyond prayer, tell your friends the good news, even if it sounds silly sometimes. Live with an orientation of gratitude.
Story
In a Central London train station, a young rabbi, Shlomo Farhi, had a train to catch. He was going to teach a well-attended class in Birmingham, but he was running late characteristically. Scheduled for departure at 3:01, Farhi found himself at the mercy of a ticket machine with seconds to spare. He inserted his debit card to print the ticket he’d reserved, but the machine glitched and spat out a forest’s worth of tickets and receipts. Shlomo snatched them all in a desperate attempt to catch his train, but fate had other plans, and by the time he arrived at the platform, he had missed the 3:01 train.
The next train wasn’t much later but was during peak hours, requiring a different ticket. Without the right ticket, the cash-strapped young rabbi with an empty wallet and matching bank account wouldn’t make it.
In a twist of desperation, Shlomo boarded the peak train, offering the wad of tickets to the conductor at the beginning of the platform. The conductor flicked through the pile, stamped a ticket, and waved Shlomo aboard. Shlomo looked through the pile for the stamped ticket to Birmingham, not for the 301 train he had booked with his name on it, but the ticket he needed at that moment – a first-class ticket peak ticket to Birmingham, not in his name but for a Miss Erica Jones.
It was as if the universe had conspired to place him exactly where he needed to be without him even realizing it, and this was the golden ticket, a stroke of luck that felt like a whisper of divine intervention.
The journey to Birmingham was smooth, filled with the anticipation of teaching the Torah, a purpose that filled Shlomo with warmth and fulfillment. The class was a smash hit and cemented lifelong spiritual gains for the students who attended, who brought all their friends to the next class. Shlomo was on a high.
One of the students drove Shlomo back from Birmingham to London, and the return journey was a stark contrast. Driving back in the dead of night, the car made a tremendous thump, and Shlomo’s hit bounced off the roof. The car lifted into the air, violently swerving off the highway at 80mph. Off the side of the cold, deserted road at 3 am, Shlomo climbed out of the car, disoriented and freezing, and began walking backward.
From the darkness, a truck’s headlights illuminated a wheel on the road – the culprit of the accident. What followed was a domino effect of swerving cars and trucks, one hitting the loose wheel, dragging it with sparks that lit the night and almost caught fire.
This story, a journey from Birmingham and back, encapsulates the duality of life’s experiences – the joy of fulfilling one’s purpose contrasted with the chaos of unforeseen trials. It’s a narrative that teaches the importance of recognizing the moments of ease and grace we are given and the resilience required to face the challenges. For Farhi, the journey wasn’t just about reaching a destination but understanding the more profound lessons embedded in each moment of his trip, the bits of divine intervention we recognize, and the many we don’t, all woven into the fabric of our lives.
There are parts of life we see and make sense of and parts we don’t, hidden and revealed. The journey to Birmingham was incredible, impossible, miraculous; it felt amazing, a thumbs up from Heaven about Shlomo’s importance. The journey back corrects any notions of the importance of the teacher, an exercise in humility that reveals what the less was: the value of teaching Torah classes to students on campus, not the teacher.
Your life story matters, how you tell it, and details matter. Narrate the hand of God in your life, and tell it well – וּנְסַפֵּר תְּהִלָּתֶךָ.
עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ
God alone decides life and death and everything in between. There are much greater forces at play in the universe that I am not the arbiter of; our lives are in God’s hands; – עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ.
Beyond that, this phrase suggests that our lives are given over to God, that our lives exist to serve God – עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ.
When we talk about God’s hand or voice, we must remember that God has no form; God does not have arms or a mouth. These are words we use when we talk about people; they are anthropomorphic metaphors. Although not strictly accurate, they are helpful because they are familiar; when we talk about being in someone’s hands, it’s also a metaphor, and we understand that it is in someone’s control.
When we talk about the hand of God specifically, it means the hand that writes history, as the Torah speaks about God’s outstretched mighty arm as the tool that drove the Exodus story. The sweeping flourishes of the Divine paintbrush drive history to people with a discerning eye.
The way our sages talk about the human relationship with Heaven, every nation and race has a guardian angel, a kind of angelic representation of the idealized form. At the Red Sea, the Torah describes how the Jewish People saw Egypt coming after them and were terrified; noting the Torah’s description of Egypt, not Egyptians, our sages suggest they saw nothing less than the angelic form of Egypt itself in pursuit, and their terror was at the thought that Heaven might have sent some kind of spiritual power after them – mitzrim / mitrayim CITE.
However, in this spiritual hierarchy, while Edom may have an angel who does battle, Yakov has no such representative and must do battle himself. The Jewish People do not have a guardian angel and are guided directly by God’s hand – ani vlo malach CITE.
Quite literally then, we are in God’s hands – עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ.
(I don’t recognize this word; more research required)
In the harrowing confines of the Warsaw Ghetto, where Jews faced unimaginable hardship, a group of Chassidim defiantly established underground shuls and shtiebels, carving out sanctuaries of faith amidst the desolation. As the ghetto met its tragic end, the Nazis, armed with flamethrowers, sought to extinguish the last vestiges of Jewish resistance.
Amidst the inferno, the last man standing, surrounded by flames, recalled a story shared by the Chafetz Chaim about a man who, having fled Spain, lost everything—his family, community, home, and wealth. Stripped of all but his spirit, the man declared to God that while everything had been taken from him, his love for the Divine remained untouchable, a treasure beyond the reach of his persecutors.
Facing the abyss, in the valley of the shadow of death, the last man standing closed his eyes and spoke to creation. He had lost everything; all he had left was his love for God. He would not give that up; he would not let God take that from him.
Our lives are God’s; our lives are in God’s hands, deeply committed even to death – עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ.
Generation after generation of our ancestors lived and willingly died because they valued being God’s people and doing what is right and good in this world. And not just righteous scholars, saints, and sages; ordinary folks, regular people died at the stake and the gas chambers and every other horrible way because they understood that our lives are dedicated to the service of something much bigger than ourselves, that this is not the end, that our immortal souls connect to and interface with something far more significant, – עַל חַיֵּינוּ הַמְּסוּרִים בְּיָדֶךָ.
וְעַל־נִשְׁמוֹתֵינוּ הַפְּקוּדוֹת לָךְ
It’s funny to think about our souls as ours in any real way, as though they belong to us, but that’s how we talk. When we go to sleep, we lose consciousness; consciousness is poorly understood, but our sages teach that when we sleep, our souls depart our bodies and return to Heaven, and they come back every morning, almost like a revival of the dead, one of the sources of the practice to wash hands in the morning.
Our sages teach that every night; the angels question whether we deserve our soul back; are we using it for its highest and best use? Is this the most efficient use of spirituality? Is there a better way to allocate? And every night so far, the angels have lost that debate.
Our sages give an analogy of a hundred-dollar debt someone owes you. You keep asking for it back, and they never pay you back. One day, they come to you and ask you to hold on to a hundred dollars for them for a few days. You might think, jackpot! You can deduct what you are owed from what you have just received, and you are all square, entirely whole. But God never treats our soul that way; it is entrusted to God – pikadon CITE.
God will not violate that trust even if we have other debts, even if we have squandered our gifts – וְעַל־נִשְׁמוֹתֵינוּ הַפְּקוּדוֹת לָךְ.
וְעַל־נִשְׁמוֹתֵינוּ הַפְּקוּדוֹת לָךְ
While laypeople may speak of a head injury, a medical professional may talk about a laceration with irregular edges and debris present. Both are correct, but professionals communicate with greater precision.
Jewish mysticism teaches that just like the body, the soul also has an anatomy, a spiritual structure with different parts and functions. Deeply complex and nuanced, the familiar ones are Nefesh, Ruach, and Neshama, which we mostly use interchangeably; there are also more esoteric parts called Chaya and Yechida.
The Nefesh Hachaim uses glassblowing as the guiding metaphor. This technique involves blowing air through a tube or pipe to inflate molten glass into a bubble, which is then crafted into a utensil. The Neshama is the breath of the Glassblower, the animating force; the Ruach is the airflow through the connective tube; and the Nefesh is the molten glass that becomes a utensil or vessel through this process.
Our bodies contain the Nefesh, but the Neshama, the breath of the Glassblower that animates us, never truly becomes our own. That remains God’s as an entrusted object; not just overnight, but always – וְעַל־נִשְׁמוֹתֵינוּ הַפְּקוּדוֹת לָךְ.
In the morning prayers, one of the first blessings is about the soul God places in me – elokai neshama shenasata bi. This language is sharp and precise; you are not your body. Your body is a container – levush; you are not just your body, you are a soul, and you are more than this lifetime.
If an older gentleman gave his son a million dollars to invest and the investments go back, the son might be devastated he let his father down. But if the gentleman understands good risk management strategies, he can tell the son he didn’t give the son everything and that he actually held back far more – it’s not the end of the world.
When a person experiences a setback, they can feel ruined. God can open the drawer and say your soul is still in perfect condition, and through that piece God holds back, a person can find new light and holiness, a new vitality that revives his whole spirit.
Precisely for this reason, a person can always do teshuva until the day they die, because that is the part of the soul you could never dirty or destroy; that’s the part God never let go of – וְעַל־נִשְׁמוֹתֵינוּ הַפְּקוּדוֹת לָךְ
וְעַל־נִסֶּיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל־יוֹם עִמָּנוּ וְעַל־נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ וְטוֹבוֹתֶיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל־עֵת
נִסֶּיךָ
Miracles and wonders are similar, but they’re not the same. The word for miracles is the same as the word for banner in the blessing for the Gathering of Exiles – נִסֶּיךָ/ נס. That suggests that a miracle is something you recognize God through; we are thankful for the times we see God.
There is an uncomfortable meaning embedded in the words as well, the word for test or challenge – נִסֶּיךָ / NISAYON CITE. It is a form of miracle when people can rise to the challenge; when they rise to the challenge, it is a miracle, and they merit miracles as well and become standard bearers who raise the flag for God to all. This association suggests that the ultimate purpose of every challenge is to raise the flag; it might not be visible in the moment, but it often is after the fact, and we are thankful.
נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ
There are wondrous, breathtaking things in our world—landscapes, flowers, life, from big to small. If God is an artist and creates beauty for us, then when we notice and admire, it flatters the Creator. Every component of Creation has elements that can be enjoyed and appreciated; miracles are rare, but wonders surround us every moment of every day, the perfect balance of creation.
– שֶׁבְּכָל־עֵת
In every moment, there is so much to be thankful for, including things you wouldn’t think of.
EOLKM has the same numerological value as the natural world – HATEVA. The natural world has a beautiful consistency that is inherent to the scientific principles and laws of physics the universe is governed by, the expression of truth, the signature and will of the Creator that drives the universe – אֱמֶת מֵאֶרֶץ תִּצְמָח וְצֶדֶק מִשָּׁמַיִם נִשְׁקָף.
The forces that make the natural world go round happen every moment of every day, we can’t imagine suspending them for even a moment – שֶׁבְּכָל־עֵת.
Before King David was king, he was in the garden and watched a wasp paralyzing a spider. Amazed by the scene, David wondered what the point of useless creatures was. Wasps don’t produce honey; they even kill bees sometimes. And what about spiders? What do spiders or wasps do for people?
After a while, King Saul began to envy David’s military success, and David had to escape and hide in a cave. Shortly after, a spider spun its web around the entrance. Saul arrived at the cave, noticed the cobwebs, and moved on; if someone was inside the cave they’d have broken the webs.
In a later episode, David snuck into Saul’s camp to show him his defenses could be cracked. David crept forward to take Shaul’s water bottle, but one of Saul’s retainers unwittingly stood on David’s cloak, trapping him from leaving. A wasp appeared and stung the guard, who jumped, releasing David.
Later in life, King David had to flee from Absalem, his son, who had launched a revolt. David escaped to enemy territory and was recognized. Fearing for his safety, he pretended to act insane, pounding his head on the city gate and foaming at the mouth, spit dripping from his beard. The foreign king Achish looked at him and said to his servants, “Can’t you see he’s crazy? Why did you let him in here? Don’t you think I have enough crazy people to put up with as it is without adding another? Get him out of here!”
bshanoso taamo lifnei avimelech CITE
In the local context, some things aren’t so great; in the greater tapestry of the big wide world, we can be thankful for everything, even spiders, wasps, and insanity – avarcha es hashem tamid tehilaso befi CITE.
עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם
Conventionally, the classical structure of the Hebrew day is that the day ends at the end of the day, that is, the evening. So a day consists of evening first, then morning and afternoon – עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם.
The Mabit suggests that this is a reference to the seasons of human life; when a person lives with the end in mind, evening first, they will live doing the right thing, and what follows will be mornings full of light – baerev al tanach yadecha CITE
One of the exhibits at the Auschwitz Birkenau memorial is a pile of talleisim, prayer shawls from communities all over Europe. Each one has tears and patches from a lifetime of use. A typical gift at weddings, you could imagine one being worn at the wedding, their son’s bris, bar mitzvah, wedding, and on. These talleisim are silent witnesses to the cycles of life that were extinguished.
In the seasons of our lives, we want completely different things, so our prayers change. Children pray for toys, treats, good grades, friends, and popularity; young adults seek to find their soulmates; newlyweds yearn for fertility and happiness; and parents hope their children enjoy what they had prayed for once: good grades, friendships, and popularity.
The prayers of an child, adult, and the sage – עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם.
These prayers come full circle and are reborn each season of life and in each generation – עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם.
Beyond that, there are morning people, and there are night owls. Some people are early birds, rising quickly and easily active and energetic in the morning. Other people can stay up all night without missing a beat, but their mornings will be miserable even after a good night’s sleep and a coffee.
We are thankful that whichever way we are, there are different times in the day to do the things we need to – עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם.
Beyond that, there is more to a gift than the gift itself. A critical part of the gift is the timing of the gift; you need to be capable of receiving it. Even the right thing at the wrong time is no good and can backfire spectacularly.
What good is it to meet the perfect person before you’re ready? What good is it to land the perfect opportunity before you know what to do with it?
We ask God to send us the things we need in the moments we need them, in a way we can receive them, that can look different at different times – עֶרֶב וָבֹקֶר וְצָהֳרָיִם.
You don’t really want the blessing you’re asking for to be answered in a way that you can’t do anything with; that can hurt and make you bitter.
הַטּוֹב כִּי לֹא־כָלוּ רַחֲמֶיךָ
וְהַמְרַחֵם כִּי לֹא־תַמּוּ חֲסָדֶיךָ, כִּי מֵעוֹלָם קִוִּינוּ לָךְ:
We are thankful for God’s goodness with unending compassion and God’s compassion with unending kindness. This seems transposed, but it’s not; we might have expected to speak about God’s goodness with endless kindness, but that’s not what the blessing is for.
For God to be completely good, it cannot be that God’s kindness never ends because unending kindness isn’t good at all. Unending good means a lack of compassion; there are times when hard things can be good things.
We are thankful that God is God unendingly compassion good.
(needs work)
כִּי מֵעוֹלָם קִוִּינוּ לָךְ
Straightforwardly, the Jewish People have always counted on God. Who else is there to turn to?
More than that, the word for always also means hidden – מֵעוֹלָם / HEELAM CITE.
The Yaavetz suggests that greater than the wonders of nature or even the Exodus is the miracle of history that the Jewish People exist right now. Against all odds, we are thankful, and we have learned to trust in God – כִּי מֵעוֹלָם קִוִּינוּ לָךְ
In the early days of World War Two, a ship was carrying refugees from Germany to the United Kingdom, guarded by Irish soldiers. In a bitter twist of irony, the people seeking refuge from persecution found themselves victimized once more, and the Irish soldiers robbed them, one by one, out of the fire and into the frying pan.
In a moment of exhausted frustration, some refugees threw their luggage overboard; better to lose it in the ocean than to some thugs.
Years later, historians unearthed a diary belonging to a Nazi U-boat captain. They found the revelation within its pages that his U-boat had once encountered a refugee ship. They had their torpedoes locked, but upon closer inspection, they identified German paraphernalia and decided to call off an impending attack to avoid killing German civilians.
In every moment, good things are happening.
biggest nisayon is time – nachshon ben aminadav torah
כִּי מֵעוֹלָם קִוִּינוּ לָךְ – Threads
The Israeli national anthem is called HaTikva, the hope. But the root of the word also means thread or rope – אֲנַחְנוּ בָאִים בָּאָרֶץ אֶת־תִּקְוַת חוּט הַשָּׁנִי הַזֶּה תִּקְשְׁרִי בַּחַלּוֹן / חָרַשׁ עֵצִים נָטָה קָו.
In other words, hope is our unbroken attachment to the Creator, the thing we hold onto, even if it’s hanging by a thread; it is at this point on Purim and Chanuka that we say a short blessing over the holiday miracles, that the thing we hoped for came through for us against all odds.
(Need more about hope)
Random
Thanksgiving and service go hand in hand; you cannot be appreciative without affirming the corresponding obligation it creates – retzei and modim
For the Alter of Slabodka, thanksgiving was a daily practice; every sight, smell, taste, and sound, brought a fresh perspective on gratitude, another gift, something new to be thankful for today.
R’ Alexander Ziskind instructed his family to make a habit of voicing their thanks for even the smallest most trivial things; finding a pen, having exact change. Getting a good parking spot, having a full battery, a good cup of coffee. There is deep wisdom here; one thinker said that if you can’t be happy with a coffee, you won’t be happy with a yacht.