Whether or not one considers Thanksgiving a Jewish holiday, giving thanks, or hakaras hatov, is arguably one of the most fundamental qualities of a Jew. Even the name "Jew", which comes from "Yehudi" means to acknowledge and give thanks.
I was recently listening to a shiur by Rabbi Manning on Ahavas Hashem and he mentioned a pasuk that I have learned numerous times, but did not truly appreciated until now.
He was discussing the curses described in Sefer Devarim, Parshas Ki Savo, that will befall the Jewish people if they fail to observe all that Hashem commanded them. After a whole series of curses, the Torah teaches us (in Devarim 28:47) that all of these terrible tragedies occurred "because you did not serve the Lord, your God, with happiness and with gladness of heart when [you had an] abundance of everything"
This pasuk seems to demand explanation and many mefarshim question and discuss the nature of the connection between not serving Hashem with simcha and the terrible tragedies that will (and have) befallen the Jewish people. They also discuss the centrality of simcha (and simcha shel mitzvah specifically) as well as whether or not there is an actual mitzvah of simcha, and, if not, how we can be held accountable for a lack of simcha.
Rabbi Manning had a beautiful pshat connecting the concept of simcha to Ahavas Hashem (Listen to the full shiur here), but I found the simple meaning of the pasuk to be even more striking. Instead of focusing on the beginning of the pasuk, "because you did not serve Hashem with happiness and gladness of heart" I was drawn to the end: "When you had an abundance of everything". I think that this is the key to understanding the entire pasuk. We know that gratitude is a core value of Judaism and if we do not appreciate what we have been given, we will lose everything. When we open our eyes to the gifts all around us, we will naturally feel happy and grateful. If we do not - and demonstrate an inability to recognize the good that has been done for us - we are not living up to our mission and name of "Yehudi".
Yes, there is a lot of pain all around us, both on a national and personal level, and it can be very hard to feel grateful when going through something especially difficult. Nevertheless, in this pasuk, we are given a directive - it teaches us what not to do. We cannot allow the pain and challenges in this world to distract us from all that is going right and all the things we have to be grateful for. It takes hard work, but by shifting our focus to the many gifts we have been given, we will be able to achieve simcha. Of course, for most of us, this will be a life long struggle and we will need to proactively choose to reframe and refocus on the good on a daily basis.
Some of us, like myself, may find this even harder to do if we are naturally more critical about things. We may find our focus being drawn more frequently to the trees instead of the forest. The above idea challenges us to remove our focus from the trees and things that are "wrong" in our lives, and broaden our perspective to take in the whole forest. For example, when a person has an extremely painful toothache, it may be hard for him to focus on his other teeth - and body parts - that are functioning properly and to appreciate them. However, as the pain slightly subsides or even goes away completely, we are better able to realize how most of our body is working perfectly and there is so much to be grateful for. Our teeth, which help us eat, talk and smile, are something that generally works well and are easy to take for granted. We don't usually think about them unless we have a toothache or other issue.
Just like in the above example, when we stop to think about the big picture, we will realize how good we actually have it. So many of our dreams and the bigger things in life that we have davened for are now so much a part of our current reality that we barely remember not having those things. Hopefully through our reflection, we will uncover the feelings of gratitude and happiness that come from deep appreciation of all we have been given and channel those feelings into our Avodas Hashem.
I was recently listening to a shiur by Rabbi Manning on Ahavas Hashem and he mentioned a pasuk that I have learned numerous times, but did not truly appreciated until now.
He was discussing the curses described in Sefer Devarim, Parshas Ki Savo, that will befall the Jewish people if they fail to observe all that Hashem commanded them. After a whole series of curses, the Torah teaches us (in Devarim 28:47) that all of these terrible tragedies occurred "because you did not serve the Lord, your God, with happiness and with gladness of heart when [you had an] abundance of everything"
This pasuk seems to demand explanation and many mefarshim question and discuss the nature of the connection between not serving Hashem with simcha and the terrible tragedies that will (and have) befallen the Jewish people. They also discuss the centrality of simcha (and simcha shel mitzvah specifically) as well as whether or not there is an actual mitzvah of simcha, and, if not, how we can be held accountable for a lack of simcha.
Rabbi Manning had a beautiful pshat connecting the concept of simcha to Ahavas Hashem (Listen to the full shiur here), but I found the simple meaning of the pasuk to be even more striking. Instead of focusing on the beginning of the pasuk, "because you did not serve Hashem with happiness and gladness of heart" I was drawn to the end: "When you had an abundance of everything". I think that this is the key to understanding the entire pasuk. We know that gratitude is a core value of Judaism and if we do not appreciate what we have been given, we will lose everything. When we open our eyes to the gifts all around us, we will naturally feel happy and grateful. If we do not - and demonstrate an inability to recognize the good that has been done for us - we are not living up to our mission and name of "Yehudi".
Yes, there is a lot of pain all around us, both on a national and personal level, and it can be very hard to feel grateful when going through something especially difficult. Nevertheless, in this pasuk, we are given a directive - it teaches us what not to do. We cannot allow the pain and challenges in this world to distract us from all that is going right and all the things we have to be grateful for. It takes hard work, but by shifting our focus to the many gifts we have been given, we will be able to achieve simcha. Of course, for most of us, this will be a life long struggle and we will need to proactively choose to reframe and refocus on the good on a daily basis.
Some of us, like myself, may find this even harder to do if we are naturally more critical about things. We may find our focus being drawn more frequently to the trees instead of the forest. The above idea challenges us to remove our focus from the trees and things that are "wrong" in our lives, and broaden our perspective to take in the whole forest. For example, when a person has an extremely painful toothache, it may be hard for him to focus on his other teeth - and body parts - that are functioning properly and to appreciate them. However, as the pain slightly subsides or even goes away completely, we are better able to realize how most of our body is working perfectly and there is so much to be grateful for. Our teeth, which help us eat, talk and smile, are something that generally works well and are easy to take for granted. We don't usually think about them unless we have a toothache or other issue.
Just like in the above example, when we stop to think about the big picture, we will realize how good we actually have it. So many of our dreams and the bigger things in life that we have davened for are now so much a part of our current reality that we barely remember not having those things. Hopefully through our reflection, we will uncover the feelings of gratitude and happiness that come from deep appreciation of all we have been given and channel those feelings into our Avodas Hashem.