Gratitude Continued

Judaism has a traditional gratitude practice. It involves the reciting of berakhot--blessings before eating. Its standard wording is: Barukh atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam.... “Praised are You Eternal our God source of the universe....” followed by a specific mention “who created the fruit of trees” or “who brought forth bread from the earth.” There are many specific berakhot but they all begin with this formula. A berakhah is to be said before partaking of food. There are berakhot for fruit, vegetables, bread, cake, wine and a catch all formulation for everything else. Saying a berakhah is meant to bring us to awareness. For the rabbis, the first level is awareness of God.

Our rabbis have taught: It is forbidden for a person to enjoy anything of this world without a berakhah... R.Levi contrasted two texts. It is written, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1) and it is also written, “The heavens are the heavens of God, but the earth God has given to human beings!” (Ps. 115:16). There is no contradiction: in the one case it is before a blessing has been said in the other case after. [Berakhot 35a]

The rabbis begin with a notion that God as creator has made this world and all that it contains. This notion conveys an important statement about God and about humans. Despite all our strivings, our sustenance is only partly the result of our own endeavor. Ultimately everything comes from God. For those of us less God focused then the rabbis of the Talmud, it is still important to acknowledge that what we have is not solely the work of our hands. It also has to do with the family we were born into, the educational opportunities we were given, etc. Ultimately, we are little more than tenant farmers on this planet either because it all belongs to God or because we are around only for a lifetime. Our spiritual awareness begins when we sense that we need to be grateful for the blessings of the universe we enjoy and understand that they are not simply what we bought with our money at the store.

Some reflections on the past week: This past Shabbat was the first music service of the year with Naomi Less and the band. The Torah portion that began with God telling Abraham to journey to an unknown land served as the theme for the service. After all, each of us is on such a life's journey. A creative weaving of poetry, music (mostly Jewish but including an especially appropriate secular song entitled Superman), and short kavanot (thematic interpretations of the liturgy) tied the service together into a spirited whole. A number of our Hebrew school students led parts of the service. The family service joined the sanctuary service for the last twenty minutes. All in all it was a model of what are Shabbat services are striving to be.

After a delicious kiddush sponsored by David and Jo Meer in honor of SAJ chair David's 60th birthday (the job does age you!), we returned to the sanctuary for John Ruskay's talk as part of our 90th anniversary series "Imagining our Future." After talking about his and his family's long standing connection to SAJ, he spoke about the challenges facing the Jewish community. He stressed the opportunities for the Jewish community in living in a truly open society. He spoke optimistically about the Jewish future if we can create inspiring, vibrant communities that people will want to be a part of.

For the Torah discussion I spoke about the issue of hunger both locally and globally. This past Tuesday was the launch of our Thousand Turkey challenge. I urge you to participate in helping to provide enough turkeys WSCAH can make sure all their clients have a turkey for Thanksgiving. Also sign up to participate in the AJWS global hunger campaign especially related to the Farm bill in Congress.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Michael Strassfeld