Shabbat Experiment - Final Week - Week 7

This Shabbat is the last of the series of seven experimental services. Our theme will be gratitude reflecting the holiday of Thanksgiving.

Brother David Steindl-Rast:

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.

Or in the words of the rabbis: Who is content, the person who appreciates what s/he has.

Feeling gratitude is an essential aspect of the spiritual life. Thanksgiving and Shabbat services provide a structure and an opportunity to be thankful. We are grateful for the common daily blessings such as breath, sunlight, good food or entertaining films. We also remember the deeper gifts of living in a free country, having the love of family and friends, and the opportunity of life itself.

A psalm for your Thanksgiving table:

ONE HUNDRED FORTY
Thanksgiving Day
How easy to praise You, Beloved One,
For abundance, for cups brim filled;
How can we not delight in Your majesty,
Your endless blessings to us.

How simple our thanks, Beloved One,
For laden tables, for gathered families,
Shoulders touching in the intimacy of the meal
You have spread before us.

Teach us to thank and bless Your name,
When cups are empty and thirst is great;
Put our hands together to replenish,
Finding blessing in tiny sips.

Beloved One, to thank you and blerss You,
We find hope in uncertainty
And trimph in shaky steps.
We recreate abundance for Your sake.

Debbie Perlman, Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing and Praise

Next week, I will report on reactions to the services as well as plans for the future.

Happy Thanksgiving
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld