וְעַל כֻּלָּם יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִתְרומַם שִׁמְךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ תָּמִיד לְעולָם וָעֶד: וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה. וִיהַלְלוּ אֶת שִׁמְךָ בֶּאֱמֶת. הָאֵל יְשׁוּעָתֵנוּ וְעֶזְרָתֵנוּ סֶלָה. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’, הַטּוב שִׁמְךָ וּלְךָ נָאֶה לְהודות – And for everything may Your Name, our King, constantly be blessed and extolled, always and forever. And all the living shall thank You forever and praise and bless Your great Name with sincerity forever; for You are goodness— the Almighty, Who is our deliverance and our help forever— the benevolent Almighty. Blessed are You, Hashem, The Good is Your Name and to You it is fitting to praise.

וְעַל כֻּלָּם – and for everything

Which “everything”?

If you’re allergic to grammar, shut your eyes now.

It is not especially clear what “everything” is a reference to. It is a dangling modifier, an ambiguous grammatical construct that can be interpreted as being associated with more than one word. It is a participle intended to modify a noun that is not actually present in the text.

A simple answer is that it is understood that the conjunctive “and” attach two things, in this case, this blessing to the preceding blessing; so in this reading, it means that everything that we just said we are thankful for elevate God’s name – וְעַל כֻּלָּם יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִתְרומַם שִׁמְךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ.

וְעַל כֻּלָּם – and for everything everything

Beyond that, everything could be a simple reference to literally everything.

We are concluding the Amida prayers; we have done our best. We have thought about many things, learned many interpretations and meditations, and done our best. But however comprehensive the prayer text is, and however genuinely excellent your efforts may be, you will fall well short of the great big everything the Creator is responsible for. It’s just not possible to keep up – וְעַל כֻּלָּם יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִתְרומַם שִׁמְךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ

There is a fascinating and provocative long-standing display in New York City, an electronic billboard showing the national debt, illustrating the economic legacy passed on between generations. The numbers rise by thousands of dollars per second. If someone showed up with a bag of coins at the Federal Reserve central bank, it wouldn’t even register. When people pay their taxes, it barely registers!

As the beautiful Shabbos prayer puts it, if we had all the powers of the universe, it would never be close to enough to adequately thank the Creator – וְאִלּוּ פִינוּ מָלֵא שִׁירָה כַּיָּם. וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה כַּהֲמוֹן גַּלָּיו. וְשִׂפְתוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבַח כְּמֶרְחֲבֵי רָקִיעַ. וְעֵינֵינוּ מְאִירוֹת כַּשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְכַיָּרֵחַ. וְיָדֵינוּ פְרוּשׂוֹת כְּנִשְׁרֵי שָׁמָיִם. וְרַגְלֵינוּ קַלּוֹת כָּאַיָּלוֹת. אֵין אֲנַחְנוּ מַסְפִּיקִים לְהוֹדוֹת לְךָ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ. וּלְבָרֵךְ אֶת שִׁמְךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ. עַל אַחַת מֵאָלֶף אֶלֶף אַלְפֵי אֲלָפִים וְרִבֵּי רְבָבוֹת פְּעָמִים. הַטּוֹבוֹת נִסִּים וְנִפְלָאוֹת שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ עִם אֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְעִמָּנוּ

Sometimes, we get to see the excellent and beautiful things in our world that fill us with gratitude, like seeing your loved one at their wedding or when they recover and bounce back. But sometimes, we never even know we were in danger, all the plots and schemes that fail before they get off the ground. On Pesach, we read in the Hagadda how every generation faces mortal danger, even if they never become a clear and present threat – שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ. As we later say in Hallel, the nation of the world will praise God because they know even better what God did for us – הַלְלוּ אֶת ה’ כָּל גּוֹיִם, שַׁבְּחוּהוּ כָּל הָאֻמִּים. כִּי גָבַר עָלֵינוּ חַסְדּוֹ.

For everything we don’t even know about – וְעַל כֻּלָּם יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִתְרומַם שִׁמְךָ מַלְכֵּנוּ

To be sure, everything is a lot and includes many things you might not feel so thankful for. But praise isn’t the same as thanks; in competitive sports, when the other teams score an outrageously skillful goal, you applaud them and say well done. You’re not thankful; your team is down! But you offer your honest praise just the same.

Sometimes everything is everything

R’ Yisrael Salanter was traveling through a major European city and stopped at a high-end restaurant to buy a bottle of water. When the waiter brought him the bill, he was shocked at how expensive it was. How could a little bottle of water cost so much?

“Well you see, it’s not just the cost of the water itself, but in the experience the establishment provides. There’s the bottle, the meticulously curated ambience, the attentive service, the carefully chosen furniture, the elegant tableware, the plush carpeting, the sparkling chandelier, and the breathtaking view. Each of these elements contributes to an overall atmosphere that transforms a simple purchase into an extraordinary experience.”

R’ Yisrael Salanter was thrilled at this everyday lesson, and, with gusto, recited the blessing on his refreshing glass of water, that the Creator speak everything into existence, with a newfound appreciation of what the experience of everything means – Shehakol nihya bidvaro.

The simple act of ordering water became a moment of reflection and gratitude, connecting us to a broader, more profound understanding of existence, a reminder that every detail, every experience, is part of a greater whole deserving of our recognition and appreciation. It is not about the water, or this or that, but everything that surrounds and enhances the experience – וְעַל כֻּלָּם

תָּמִיד לְעולָם וָעֶד – always and forever

Every day isn’t the same as forever. If a person drinks coffee every day, that doesn’t mean they drink coffee constantly or forever. It means that they intermittently but daily drink coffee.

God is due continuous praise without pause, not intermittent – תָּמִיד לְעולָם וָעֶד.

Beyond that, we believe God is the Source of everything that happens, good and bad, always and forever, without pause. Whereas other religions might be dualistic, thinking that bad things come from Satan or the devil or demiurge, Judaism rejects any such notion. Everything is from the One God, including the bad things that happen to good people. And in the grand scheme of things, when you zoom out enough, and sometimes you have to zoom out really far, we believe that God’s name is elevated by all things, even the bad things.

We see ugly things in the world; some things are horrid. Part of free will means that there cannot be a forced positive response; God generates a stimulus, and only we choose our response.

The Ramchal has a beautiful teaching that in the age of Mashiach, the Jewish People will be able to look back at every fragment of trauma on a personal and national level in our history. God will show us piece by piece, person by person, tear by tear, what it meant and why it mattered, how every puzzle fit together and always did – תָּמִיד לְעולָם וָעֶד.

We don’t have that perspective now. But one day, we will look back in hindsight and say יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִתְרומַם.

God’s actions cannot have a coercive effect on free will; this is prominently highlighted in the Exodus story, where God repeatedly hardens Pharoah’s heart. Where the commentators ask, is Pharoah’s free will? The answer there is that God is sending wave after wave of plague upon Egypt, sending a message to Pharoah, Egypt, and the Jewish People. If Pharoah concedes, it will have been because he was forced to, not out of choice. God hardens his heart to give him the strength to exercise his free will.

It happens in our lives, too.

וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה

All living things thank God; it’s simple, it’s true enough. The dead are no use to the Creator – ba’she’ol mi yodeh lach. / כִּי לֹא שְׁאוֹל תּוֹדֶךָּ מָוֶת יְהַלְלֶךָּ לֹא־יְשַׂבְּרוּ יוֹרְדֵי־בוֹר אֶל־אֲמִתֶּךָ חַי חַי הוּא יוֹדֶךָ כָּמוֹנִי הַיּוֹם אָב לְבָנִים יוֹדִיעַ אֶל־אֲמִתֶּךָ.

Beyond that, King David wrote that he refused to die; he would choose to live and praise God; that he would live to praise God – lo amus ki echyeh, vasaper masei ka / אֲהַלְלָה ה בְּחַיָּי.

The word for man is the name for the first human being – Adam – ADAM CITE. Breaking up the word and spelling each letter in its inner form is the word for prayer; the essence of being a human is to pray – aleph lamed pey daled lamed kaf mem mem mitpalel CITE.

The challenge of being a human is that prayer isn’t found in words on our lips; it exists in the heart and mind, the inner world of the soul – Rachana liba bai. Prayer is found in the inner letters, not the outer letters – guf bli neshama.

It is the animating spirit that recognizes God – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

Not even that life may recognize God, but that life itself is a praise of God.

Our sages teach that if someone answers a prayer with all they’ve got, it erases all the sins from their record.

Most of the time, life doesn’t go the way you hope.

Shlomo was on a deluxe Pesach program. Someone at a private seder was unhappy that the service was slow and complained. Shlomo said this man was in luxury, surrounded by healthy loved ones. Is waiting five minutes something to be upset about?

We want so much; we have asked for so much. But even if all we had were the fact we’re alive, that would be worthy, suggesting a universal imperative for all living beings to express gratitude merely for the gift of life itself, regardless of their circumstances. This teaching emphasizes an intrinsic value in life, urging an acknowledgment of existence as a sufficient cause for gratitude, highlighting a broad and encompassing perspective on thankfulness. – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

I might be poor, hungry, tired, sick, and hurting, but I am alive – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

Even if you’re just alive, say thank you for that – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

There is a particular blessing, HaGomel, traditionally recited by people who safely pass through significant perils, prison, illness, and the ocean or desert in particular. The Etz Yosef observes that the initial letters of “chavush,” “yissurim,” “yam,” and “midbar” spell the acronym CHAIM CITE.

Each term underscores situations where deliverance is recognized and celebrated, reinforcing the importance of acknowledging one’s vulnerabilities and the miracles of survival, thus compelling all who emerge from such trials to “give thanks.”

Yet, on the other hand, a man once came to Rav Bick with a question. Late at night and approaching a major intersection, the traffic light turned, and he slammed the brakes, but the car didn’t stop, losing traction and skidding across the intersection. There were no cars present, so he was unarmed, but the man was shaken and asked Rav Bick if he had to say the blessing of HaGomel.

Rav Bick answered that he also found himself whimsically contemplating the nature of danger and deliverance. He removes his socks every night, and his wife would wash and dry them. But what if, one day, she washed them and put them in the dryer before he took them off? He would drown in the washing machine and burn in the dryer!

Rav Bick’s story is a symbolic reflection on the necessity of actual peril and genuine risk to life or well-being to meet the technical threshold for the recitation of Birkat HaGomel.

These teachings seem at odds; are you supposed to be thankful even for having nothing or for great salvation?

But the answer is both: everyone should be thankful just to be alive, even when life goes wrong, and actually, you should be extra grateful if you think about things some more.

Many prayers are presented in the negative, like opening the eyes of the blind. Blindness is the lack of sight; until you know what blindness is, you can never truly appreciate the sight and will only take it for granted, like the water the fish swim in. From the contrast, we can better value and appreciate the qualities of what we have.

There are so many things we are missing, that’s true. But some people have been through terrible things; you cannot be thankful until you consider the people who have been most grateful.

When you visit a concentration camp, standing where our ancestors stood, breathing where they took their last breaths, it puts your problems into perspective a little. They still exist, they are still accurate, they matter. But taking that trip teaches you that lesson, and remembering that lesson from time to time stops you from feeling too sorry for yourself.

When we say everyone has to say thank you, it contains a deeper reference to the genuinely thankful people, even those who have experienced incredible difficulty.

Compared to what some people have had to go through, I am thankful for my life.

When a patient is terminally ill and receiving palliative care only, their prayers are different from most people. At that point, the plan of care is about mitigating suffering; their prayers are for their loved ones, and the only person’s prayers are to die in as little pain as possible.

Most humans alive or who have ever lived do not have the abundance, plenty, and privilege we have today. When we say casually thank you for dinner, we never imagine the starving children of the world who haven’t had a meal in days.

We cannot thank God enough; we take speech, sight, and hearing for granted and everything for granted. It’s almost impossible not to!

But subtract any of the things we take for granted, and the contrast reveals that despite whatever we lack, our lives are pretty fantastic. Don’t look at anything you lack in isolation; everyone is born with a lack.

Imagine being attractive, famous, funny, clever, rich, and talented, but there’s someone you know who’s the same except two inches taller, and you’re annoyed about that. Everyone is missing something! For the overwhelming majority of people, the things they lack do not stop them from recognizing the beauty and brilliance of life and that we have been blessed.

(consider Nachum ish gamzu)

(Joey Rosenfeld Poznanski Intro and addiction shiur, enoughness)

Bring your hands as close to your eyes as possible so you can see the contours of your fingerprints without losing focus. Look at your fingerprints, and then between your fingers; you go from seeing the lines in your fingers to seeing nothing at all, just by refocussing your eyes a fraction of a millimeter. What we focus on matters, and focusing on one thing eradicates another: the good or bad things in our lives.

R’ Yehuda Ben Yakar suggests that the living ones imply the ones that were once dead; in the Messianic Age, after the Revival of the Dead, all who ever lived will sing God’s praise – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

Moreover, there could be no more lavish praise of God than bringing the final victory of life over death – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

Sometimes humans praise God with our mouths; sometimes with our actions; but occasionally, with our very existence, with life itself – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

Our sages teach that all living things, animals, plants, and mountains, sing God’s praise – Perek Shira CITE.

They’re not conscious, so perhaps their guardian angel sings it,  or maybe when humans perceive the thing, the thought it inspires generates the praise, but it’s perhaps the thing itself.

When you eat a burger, you scarf it down with a drink, and it sits in your stomach. Without conscious thought, your body processes, digests, separates, and breaks down nutrients and waste.

It just works – asher yatzar es hadam bchochma.

Your lungs move air in and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange, inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. Your brain processes and controls all the information and activities in the body. Your heart is a power plant that steadily goes, beat after beat. Your body also has a self-healing and repair factor, heating, and cooling. These are just a few of the profoundly complex systems of our body, each of which is integrated into the others.

Life itself praise the creator – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

וִיהַלְלוּ אֶת שִׁמְךָ בֶּאֱמֶת – and they will praise Your Name with truth

We praise God because it’s correct, not just because we want something. On the merits, taking an objective view of things, and even with no self-interest or personal gain, it is true and correct.

This is the sentiment expressed in the song in the Haggada that goes line by line through all the beautiful things God did in the Exodus story; if God had only done this one thing for us, it would have been enough to say thank you. If only He’d taken us out of Egypt, If only He’d split the Red Sea, If only He’d taken us to Mount Sinai and the rest.

The apparent issue with the song is that none of those things are enough! Without all of the elements taken together, the Jewish People would have died! But the song isn’t about what would have been enough to survive; it’s about what would have been enough to be thankful. You don’t say thank you at the finish line or to generate the next thing; that would be a please!

All living things, all people who come to life will say thank you – וְכל הַחַיִּים יודוּךָ סֶּלָה.

The Messianic Age will be a post-scarcity society; there will be no lack, and we will still say thank you – truthfully – be’emes

הָאֵל יְשׁוּעָתֵנוּ וְעֶזְרָתֵנוּ סֶלָה –

In the opening blessings, we understood that help is when you do something and receive assistance, and saving is when you do nothing and get rescued. Shielding is preemptively stopping a problem before it ever becomes a problem.

Saving preempts helping, and in a given scenario this sentence doesn’t seem to make much sense on it’s face – הָאֵל יְשׁוּעָתֵנוּ וְעֶזְרָתֵנוּ סֶלָה. But over time, we can experience both; we all have moments of salvation and closeness where everything fits and makes sense – יְשׁוּעָתֵנוּ. But inevitably, every moment like that fades and is followed by long moments of distance and alienation, where God lets go and is concealed.

From those moments, we learn that God is present there, too, much like the Purim story. Our job is to remember the flashes of borrowed inspiration, earn it with perspiration, and make it our own.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה – Blessed are You, Hashem

As we say these words, we bow and stand.

We bow when we acknowledge God as the source of all blessing; I am not the source of blessing in my life, and everything I need comes from outside me.

I bend before God, but I stand in the name of God, Who straightens the bent, which allows me to stand up from my helplessness and vulnerability – like kefufim CITE.

הַטּוב שִׁמְךָ וּלְךָ נָאֶה לְהודות – The Good is Your Name and to You it is fitting to praise.

The initial letters of the phrase form the acronym for speech – hey shin vav nun lamed halashon. As we opened the Amida acknowledging, this is what our speech is for – Hashem sefasai tiftach ufi yagid tehilasecha CITE

Appreciation is due to more than just the Creator and not just to humans. In the Torah’s telling of the Exodus story, Moshe does not strike the water that saved his life as an infant or the sand that helped him conceal a crime. In these vignettes, it’s clear that appreciation is a personal sentiment that exists even with an inanimate benefactor.

It is important to be thankful and say thank you, but there can be a pitfall.

Imagine cooking an incredible gourmet Shabbos meal, and a guest goes to the kitchen to help. The food comes out, and everyone sits down to eat. It would be absurd and wildly out of place if someone thanked the guest for the delicious food. Sure, you helped, but what about the host, who did pretty much everything?

We must thank the messengers, especially when they deliberately choose to be kind and do good. But don’t miss the point, don’t thank the mailman more than the sender! Ultimately, all expressions of kindness and goodness are manifestations of God’s goodness and kindness, and that’s the ultimate address of thanks and appreciation – וּלְךָ נָאֶה לְהודו.

We don’t bow anywhere except the opening blessing of praise and the closing blessings of thanksgiving; we recognize the Creator and need the Creator. We are thankful without asking for anything in particular here; we might have asked for a whole lot just a few minutes ago, but God is not like a person, and thanking God is the ultimate recognition of our dependence, wholly inseparable from the definition of our relationship, the Creator. To recognize the Creator is to praise the Creator; to need the Creator is to thank the Creator.

We depend on the Creator, and it actually feels good to say thank you – וּלְךָ נָאֶה לְהודות. The archetypal snake is cursed to have food in abundance; or in other words, to never to turn to the Creator for anything – einei chol eilecha yesabeiru.

It’s impossible not to need more from the Source of all things, but our need is not why we are thankful. We dream of a day when there will be no lack; if we didn’t need anything, we would still say thank you – וּלְךָ נָאֶה לְהודות.