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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.”