As we do each (or, most) weeks, we reflect back on what we learned in our Torah discussion this past week, reflecting on how this Etz Chayiim, Tree of Life, as the Torah is sometimes called, extends into our generation, offering us learning, helping us to reveal the holiness with which all life is infused.
This past week, we continued the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) where Moses is offering his final remarks (spread over several weeks) to the Israelites. We focused on his phrase to the Israelites where he lays out his imaginings of their experience of the land into which they are about to cross. He describes the bounty they are to experience and then says, v’achalta v’savata u’verachtah et adonai eloheichah, or, “You shall eat, and you will experience satisfaction, and you will [or, you should] give thanks to the Source of All Existence” (Deut. 8:10).
For us, this sparked a discussion about the opportune times to offer thanks or praise or prayer. Judaism seems to invite us to give thanks even when it might not be so intuitive to do so. We wrestled for example, with whether it feels more intuitive to give thanks before we eat or afterwards, recognizing that Judaism invites us to give thanks in both instances, both when we are ravenous and about to chow down, pausing to recognize the divinity inherent in all of life, and afterwards, when we are satiated, perhaps inclined to forget our dependence on others and on the divine, simply moving on with our day. In both instances it invites us to attune our attention to the Holy.
This extends, one might say, to every moment of life. We studied the Talmud (in a sense, the next entry in the Jewish canon after the Torah) which reveals that we are to offer blessings upon receiving both good and bad news—upon the former, Baruch hatov v’hametiv, Blessed is the One Who is Good and Does Good; and upon the latter, Baruch Dayan Ha’Emet, Blessed is the True Judge. As challenging as this language can be (it is said upon receiving the news that someone has passed), what it does, our participants said was help attune ourselves to those moments; to not allow ourselves to go numb; to truly pause to take in life’s gravity and life’s sanctity. Further, one participant said, blessing the bad as well as the good, helps us truly appreciate the good, the love, in our lives, challenging as it can be to discern in certain moments. That is what offering thanks does.
To explore the sources we studied, click here.
Warmly,
Rabbi Nathan Kamesar