AUGUST 18 • 2022 | 53
God had promised it to their ancestors,
and had taken them from slavery to free-
dom, sustaining them during the 40 years
in the wilderness. This was a revolutionary
idea: that the nation’s history be engraved
on people’s souls, that it was to be reen-
acted in the annual cycle of festivals, and
that the nation, as a nation, should never
attribute its achievements to itself — “my
power and the might of my own hand”
— but should always ascribe its victories,
indeed its very existence, to something
higher than itself: to God. This is a domi-
nant theme of Deuteronomy, and it echoes
throughout the book time and again.
AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
Since the publication of the Nun Study and
the flurry of further research it inspired, we
now know of the multiple effects of devel-
oping an attitude of gratitude. It improves
physical health and immunity against
disease. Grateful people are more likely
to take regular exercise and go for regular
medical checkups. Thankfulness reduces
toxic emotions such as resentment, frustra-
tion and regret and makes depression less
likely. It helps people avoid over-reacting to
negative experiences by seeking revenge. It
even tends to make people sleep better. It
enhances self-respect, making it less likely
that you will envy others for their achieve-
ments or success.
Grateful people tend to have better rela-
tionships. Saying “thank you” enhances
friendships and elicits better performance
from employees. It is also a major factor
in strengthening resilience. One study of
Vietnam War veterans found that those
with higher levels of gratitude suffered
lower incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder. Remembering the many things
we have to be thankful for helps us survive
painful experiences, from losing a job to
bereavement.
Jewish prayer is an ongoing seminar in
gratitude. Birkot ha-Shachar, “the Dawn
Blessings” said at the start of morning
prayers each day, form a litany of thanks-
giving for life itself: for the human body,
the physical world, land to stand on and
eyes to see with. The first words we say
each morning — Modeh/Modah ani, “I
thank you” — mean that we begin each
day by giving thanks.
Gratitude also lies behind a fascinating
feature of the Amidah. When the leader
of prayer repeats the Amidah aloud, we
are silent other than for the responses of
Kedushah, and saying Amen after each
blessing, with one exception. When the
leader says the words Modim anachnu lach,
“We give thanks to You,
” the congregation
says the parallel passage known as Modim
de-Rabbanan. For every other blessing of
the Amidah, it is sufficient to assent to the
words of the leader by saying Amen. The
one exception is Modim, “We give thanks.
”
Rabbi Elijah Spira (1660–1712) in his
work Eliyahu Rabbah, explains that when
it comes to saying thank you, we cannot
delegate this away to someone else to do it
on our behalf. Thanks has to come directly
from us.
Part of the essence of gratitude is that it
recognizes that we are not the sole authors
of what is good in our lives. The egoist,
says Andre Comte-Sponville, “is ungrateful
because he doesn’t like to acknowledge
his debt to others and gratitude is this
acknowledgement.
” La Rochefoucald put
it more bluntly: “Pride refuses to owe, self-
love to pay.
” Thankfulness has an inner
connection with humility. It recognizes
that what we are and what we have is due
to others, and above all to God.
Comte-Sponville adds, “Those who are
incapable of gratitude live in vain; they can
never be satisfied, fulfilled or happy: they
do not live, they get ready to live, as Seneca
puts it.
”
Though you don’t have to be religious to
be grateful, there is something about belief
in God as creator of the universe, shaper of
history and author of the laws of life that
directs and facilitates our gratitude. It is
hard to feel grateful to a universe that came
into existence for no reason and is blind to
us and our fate. It is precisely our faith in a
personal God that gives force and focus to
our thanks.
It is no coincidence that the United
States, founded by Puritans — Calvinists
steeped in the Hebrew Bible — should
have a day known as Thanksgiving, recog-
nizing the presence of God in American
history. On Oct. 3, 1863, at the height of
the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued a
Thanksgiving proclamation, thanking God
that though the nation was at war with
itself, there were still blessings for which
both sides could express gratitude: a fruit-
ful harvest, no foreign invasion and so on.
He continued: “No human counsel hath
devised nor hath any mortal hand worked
out these great things. They are the gra-
cious gifts of the Most High God, who,
while dealing with us in anger for our sins,
hath nevertheless remembered mercy …
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in
every part of the United States … to set
apart and observe the last Thursday of
November next, as a day of Thanksgiving
and Praise to our beneficent Father who
dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recom-
mend to them that while offering up the
ascriptions justly due to Him for such
singular deliverances and blessings, they
do also, with humble penitence for our
national perverseness and disobedience,
commend to His tender care all those who
have become widows, orphans, mourners
or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in
which we are unavoidably engaged, and
fervently implore the interposition of the
Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the
nation and to restore it as soon as may be
consistent with the Divine purposes to the
full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tran-
quilty and Union.
”
What might such a declaration made
today — in Israel, or the United States or
indeed anywhere — do to heal the wounds
that so divide nations today? Thanksgiving
is as important to societies as it is to indi-
viduals. It protects us from resentments
and the arrogance of power. It reminds us
of how dependent we are on others and
on a Force greater than ourselves. As with
individuals so with nations: thanksgiving is
essential to happiness and health.
The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served as the
chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the
Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teachings have been
made available to all at rabbisacks.org. This essay was
written in 2014.
“THANKFULNESS HAS AN INNER CONNECTION
WITH HUMILITY. IT RECOGNIZES THAT WHAT WE
ARE AND WHAT WE HAVE IS DUE TO OTHERS,
AND ABOVE ALL TO GOD.”