For These We Give Thanks

 For These We Give Thanks

Rabbi Gary Creditor

November 22, 2021

Richmond, Virginia

 

When Reverend Erol Rohr contacted me with the invitation to speak here today, I mentioned to him that while in high school in Belleville, New Jersey, I was in the Key Club, sponsored by the Kiwanis. Over the decades and miles I proudly have my pin and bell. It makes this a very special privileged and feel most honored to be here and share this thoughts and reflections.

 

Introduction

Some prayers, perhaps being sung or recited from youth, and maybe in rote-like manner, we miss the really very deep and crucial insights they contain to help us travel the journey of life.

 

I turn to the daily Jewish liturgy, originally and usually recited individually upon awakening. Perhaps due to growing older, perhaps due to the weight of these times we live in, I share these pieces with you to illustrate my theme “For these we give thanks,” appropriate for this season and to uplift all our hearts.

 

I. Modeh Ani

 

“I gratefully thank You, O Living and eternal King, for You have returned my soul within me with compassion – abundant is Your faithfulness.”

 

A. Thank God I’m alive! Maybe when I was young, younger, I took for granted that I would wake up in the morning. Age and experience has taught me to be a lot more cautious. So the first thing I do upon waking is to rejoice and give thanks, whether it’s raining or sunny, despite any bodily aches and pains. Thank You God, I’m alive!

 

B. I learned this piece as a youngster with its lilting simple tune. I didn’t realize that embedded in it was a tremendous faith. While my first stress was on “I’m alive,” now it is on “Thank you God.” I feel and rejoice in God’s compassion. He/She cares for me -  always! In the world we live in, weighed down with so many pressing issues and concerns, I/we have gratitude to God for His loving care.

We are not alone.

We have hope!

We smile!

For all these qualities, we give thanks.

 

II. Asher Yatzar

I first discovered this next private piece of liturgy in sixth grade. It was posted on the bathroom door at the Jewish day school I attended. As all young boys, it elicited inappropriate comments and snickers. But along the journey, I have recited it daily with increasing fervor!

 

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who fashioned man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many cavities. It is obvious and known before Your Throne of glory that if but one of them were to be ruptured or but one of them were to be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You. Blessed are You, Lord, Who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.”

 

Thanks God my body is working!

Regardless if its needs a little medical inducement, I wake up and say: “Thanks God I can touch my toes! Thanks God my body is working!”

 

As a youngster I was too oblivious and nobody talked to us explicitly when they gave us a sugar cube in a little paper cup. I really didn’t understand what polio could do to the body. Only later, when learning about FDR did I “get it.” Now at age 73, after twenty months of pandemic, I tremble when I recite privately and silently this prayer and humbly say “thank you God” for wondrously allowing my body to work properly, and pledge to Him to do all I can to keep it that way.

 

By reciting this prayer daily I remind myself that this mortal body is a gift from the Eternal God, whatever its shape, whatever its size. And I must protect it and do it no harm. It is “like” a Christmas gift, a Hanukkah present, unwrapped every day, with a gift tag reading “I love you,” signed “God.”

For the mundane and not so mundane bodily acts, each morning I express my gratitude..

 

III. Asher natan la-sechvi

 

There is a string of fifteen or sixteen simple one line blessings originally and still meant to be recited individually after rising, but in some synagogues, as my home synagogue in my youth, they were incorporated into public prayer. All of them really express gratitude and thanks. One stands out and several can be grouped into a common theme, all particularly relevant for now and these days.

 

A.    The first blessing uses the language of the rural, agrarian setting.

 

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who gave the rooster understanding to distinguish between day and night.”

 

While we use alarm clocks of one fashion or another, the rooster crowing says that night is changing to day, the globe is rotating properly, arise and see the majestic dawn. I confess to still burning the candle from both ends, and I relish seeing the changing hues from pitch black to shining light. For this Divine Gift, incomparable in all the galaxies, I/we give thanks. This experience, this blessing sensitizes us to the beauty of nature, the exquisiteness of the natural world. My mind always “hyper texts” to the Rabbinic midrash, that after telling Adam and Eve to take care of the “Garden” He says “And if you ruin it, there will be none to set it aright.”

 

This first blessing in the string is a daily and perpetual ecological wake up call! I can add our motto “reduce, reuse, recycle” and take pride that my recycling bin  is fuller than my supercan. The inner compulsion to do all I can and support endeavors to deal with climate change, clear water and clean it, preserve green open space and purchase foods and goods wisely is impressed upon me every day through the recitation of this blessing! For this blessed sphere that supports human life, I/we give thanks.

 

B. I will conclude these remarks with other blessings from this unit by joining several of them together. Long before we had the language of “first responders,” these blessings sensitized  the reciter to their strengths and others weaknesses, and the need to fix, address, change their condition.

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who gives sight to the blind.

                                                                                         Who clothes the naked.

                                                                                          Who releases the bound.

                                                                                          Who straightens the bent.”

Because of its condition, I only occasionally pray from a prayerbook printed in Frankfurt, Germany in the late 19^th or early 20^th century. It includes a line that I never saw elsewhere.

 

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who raises up the lowly, the fallen.”

 

One can relate to these simple blessings in multiple ways, personally, communally. For me, every morning I recite them, I think of our middle daughter, Lt. Commander, Rabbi Yonina Creditor, chaplain United States Navy. Previous to September 11^th, 2001, while she was in college, she enrolled and became a volunteer EMT in New York City, stationed in Central Park, serving the Upper West Side. In the days, weeks and months after 9/11 she missed school whenever her unit was mobilized to support those excavating the ruins of the Twin Towers and surrounding area. When I read this obscure and single blessing, I give thanks that our daughter joined her selflessness to that of so many others, to raise the fallen, elevate those lowered. To her, for her and all the others, I daily and humbly give thanks.

 

And they have been joined in particular these past twenty months with those in hospitals, clinics, the RIR and other places giving vaccines, the store workers and bus drivers and others. As much as we have a proclivity to complain, to kvetch, let us set it all aside and lift up our eyes to our world, to our fellow human beings of every color, race, creed and origin, to the sun, moon, sky and earth, to our bodies, to life itself, and not take for one moment, not take one scintilla of it for granted. Ever. For all these, I/we most humbly, most sincerely, daily and forever give thanks.

 

Conclusion

 

So let me conclude with a memory. In the later years of his life, as the family gathered for Thanksgiving meal, my father would briefly reflect on family events, give thanks and hope for the future. This Thursday, around your tables, with family, friends, or alone, with or without glass in hand, let us lift up our eyes, our hearts and in your own words, let us give thanks.

 

Again, I thank you for this opportunity and wish you and your families, a happy, healthy and blessed day of Giving Thanks.

 

Shalom.