Dear Friends,
I offer here the remarks prepared for this evening's Shabbat service.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Jonathan Blake
With midterm election predictions already consuming our attention I am reminded of the American congressman who, upon soliciting a constituent’s vote, learns that the man is planning to vote for his opponent. “But how can you do that?” the congressman objects. “Don’t you remember that time ten years ago when your business burned down, and I arranged for you to get a low-interest loan? And what about five years ago, when your daughter got in trouble overseas, and I arranged for her to be released and sent back to the United States? And what about last summer, when your wife was sick, and I helped her get admitted under the care of the world’s leading expert?” The voter answers, “Yes, yes, but what have you done for me lately?”
It is this condition of “what have you done for me lately?” that prompts Moses to address the Israelites in this week’s Torah portion, Eikev. “The Eternal your God is bringing you into a good land,” Moses begins, “A land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and date honey [the celebrated ‘seven species’]; a land where you may eat food without stint, 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 Eternal your God for the good land given you” (Deut. 8:7-10). This last line, by the way--v’achalta v’savata u’veirachta et Adonai Elohecha al ha-aretz asher natan lach--is interpreted as instructing us to say Birkat Ha-Mazon, grace after meals.
“When you have eaten your fill,” Moses continues, “and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Eternal your God--who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage; who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its venomous serpents and scorpions, a parched land with no water in it, who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock; who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your ancestors had never known…. Remember that it is the Eternal your God who gives you the power to get wealth, in fulfillment of the covenant that God made on oath with your ancestors, as is still the case" (Deut. 8:12-18).
Scholars of the Bible have demonstrated that much of Deuteronomy was composed not contemporaneously with the lifetime of Moses but rather centuries after the Israelites had settled in the land of Israel. The difference of perspective is important. For even though the text would have us picture Moses addressing the tired and poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of the wilderness on the teeming shore of the Jordan--that is to say, the original Jewish immigrants--in fact we glean that the intended audience of this literature comprised a prosperous landowning class settled comfortably in fine houses, with manifold flocks and huge herds, coffers filled to overflowing--a Jewish people whose biggest problems do not resemble the problems of an immigrant generation, but rather whose biggest problems look more or less like our own. With this intended audience does the Torah warn against saying, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’”
The month of Elul approaches, and when Elul ends the New Year begins. In preparation for the Days of Awe many of us make a point to spend Elul in contemplation so that we can identify the spiritual work that is needed in order to make whole that which is broken. In the course of a year, our priorities, and the people we care about, and the Divine Presence itself, can become estranged from us. Such recognition may lead us to consider where we’ve gone wrong.
But this Elul I want us to start by counting our blessings. There will be time enough for the counting of sins.
We need to count our blessings. We work hard and we deserve what success we earn. But in congratulating ourselves we often perpetuate the myth of the self-made man, the self-made woman. We come to believe what has been written: “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.” We forget the teachers and mentors, the masters of our trade who taught us everything we know, the people with good connections who took an interest in us and cultivated our skills, maybe got us our first jobs. The parents, relatives, friends who made so much possible; the immigrant generation of our families whose foresight (or simple fortune) brought us to these shores that in turn brought unprecedented opportunity and acclaim to the Jewish people; an American government that permitted us to flourish in a land teeming with promise. And we forget the Holy One, in whose image we draw the power to think and build and procreate and tend a good earth; the Holy One in whose image we draw the inspiration to love and share and teach and learn.
I am asking us to cultivate an attitude of gratitude where too often there festers a culture of kvetch.
My faith does not blind me to hardship. In this sweltering summer of our discontent I see that much gives cause for despair. All too soon we move on from the environmental Holocaust in the Gulf while our government lazes about in its complacency on climate change. I am not preaching a blithe thankfulness that ignores reality. I am suggesting that cultivating an attitude of gratitude will not only attune us to what’s good and beautiful and holy in the world, but will also heighten our sensitivity to what’s wrong and broken and in need of repair. A person who wakes up each day offering a prayer of thanks for an air-conditioned bedroom and clean running water is less likely to stand idly while the Gulf bleeds and the atmosphere wheezes.
Cultivating gratitude may not make you feel better about the world, but it will certainly make you feel better about yourself. And “if you cannot be grateful for what you have received,” goes a Yiddish proverb, “be grateful for what you have been spared.” Rabbi Joseph Telushkin suggests that we post this proverb in a prominent place and make a list, accordingly. And he goes on to share a letter he once received from a person who responded to this challenge, and with its words I conclude my own. The gentleman’s list is seven items long and I think that is a perfect target range for your own.
1. I am in good health and the chronic disease I do have is treatable by medication. I know that had I lived a century ago, before this medication was discovered, I would be long dead. That thought alone spares me from naïvely romanticizing the ‘good old days’; they would not have been good for me.
2. My children have good characters and are intelligent. Some of them have problems in school and problems with self-discipline, but they are kind and lovable people.
3. My wife knows my faults and still loves me, and I know her faults and love and cherish her. We trust that the other truly cares about us, and strives to help when the other is in need.
4. In a world filled with poverty, I am able to support my family. My life would be easier and less tense if I earned more money or my expenses were lower, but our basic needs are met, and there is enough money to make donations to charity….
5. I love my work, and I thank God that I can earn my living doing something that interests and inspires me, and which I think makes the world better.
6. I have close friends whom I love and trust. Since my childhood, I have always had deep friendships, and those friendships have made me feel secure, and have helped make my life interesting.
7. And, perhaps most important, I believe that there is a God Who knows me. Who cares about me, and Who hears my prayers. If I lost my faith, my life would seem meaningless and goodness purposeless. Fortunately my faith in a God Who knows and cares about me has grown deeper over the years, and for this I am grateful (as cited in Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume I: You Shall Be Holy, pp. 110-111).
Shabbat Shalom!
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