Is Gratitude Enough? Reflection by Rabbi Barbara Symons

 

The following is the reflection that Rabbi Barbara Symons offered during the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service on Monday, November 25, at Trinity Methodist Church on City Island in the Bronx, NY. The service brought together faith leaders and community from City Island’s houses of worship: Temple Beth-El of City Island, St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church (Father Augustus), Trinity Methodist (Pastor Sara), and Grace Episcopal Church (Father Kevin). The evening featured readings and song from all faiths, and included song from Temple Beth-El’s band (Stu Goldstein – Shari Berkowitz – Bob Berent – Cheryl Berent). 

 

Take a moment in silence to think of someone or something for which you are grateful. Think about: how do you feel? Are you warm and fuzzy? Did gratitude begin in your mind and travel throughout your body? Are you a little more relaxed?

Science shows that with gratitude comes:
Attitude: happier, more resilient, improves our self-esteem
Physical: Better sleep, lower blood pressure, pain reduction, a greater desire to engage in physical exercise
Interpersonally: more compassionate, helpful, kind
In fact, living with gratitude is nothing less than life saving!

Here is proof:
Nun Study
Some 700 American nuns, aged 75-102, members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in the United States, agreed to allow their records to be accessed by a research team investigating the process of ageing and Alzheimer’s Disease.

In 1930 the nuns, then in their 20s, had been asked by the Mother Superior to write a brief autobiographical account of their life and their reasons for entering the convent. Researchers used a coded system to measure positive and negative emotions. Question: did their emotional state in 1930 have an effect on their health some sixty years later? Having all lived a very similar lifestyle during these six decades, they formed an ideal group for testing hypotheses about the relationship between emotional attitudes and health.

Results published 2001. The more positive emotions – contentment, gratitude, happiness, love and hope – the nuns expressed in their autobiographical notes, the more likely they were to be alive and well sixty years later. The difference was as much as seven years in life expectancy. This finding led to a new field of gratitude research, as well as a deepening understanding of the impact of emotions on physical health. (Source as quoted in: https://www.yeshiva.co/midrash/37632).

It is not – it cannot be! – just in the countdown to Thanksgiving that we should think about what is gratitude and how to develop the attitude of gratitude.

Alan Morinis, who is a leading figure in Mussar which is a Jewish tradition of learning and practices focusing on character and ethical development that leads to self-awareness, wisdom, and transformation, explains this – and the explanation is shorter than the introduction! “The Hebrew term for gratitude is hakarat hatov, which means, literally, ‘recognizing the good.’” In other words: the good is already there.  “Practicing gratitude means being fully aware of the good that is already yours.”

I invite you to go back to that exercise we did a few minutes ago: every single one of us regardless of age, gender, wealth, religion could find something or someone to be grateful for. Even in difficult times, every single one of us could make a list of that for which and for whom, we are grateful.

Let us think about how to develop gratitude. Here are just a few, very doable, ways meant to take us far beyond our Thanksgiving table:

Let us pay attention to details
If you will be enjoying a feast on Thanksgiving, think about all the hands and systems and traditions that allowed this food to come to your table.

Let us recognize the source of our blessings
Both human and divine.

One way to do that is to begin and end our days with blessings and prayers and add blessings in-between. Pausing to say a prayer before we eat, for example, is a small investment of time and focus which makes simple and common moments sacred.

There is a Jewish practice of reciting 100 blessings a day. The morning blessings thank God for eyesight, mobility, and consciousness. We recite blessings before and after partaking of food. Even after using the bathroom, we thank God for our wondrously functioning human body.

Imagine spending your day seeking moments of blessings…while you are working and volunteering, raising children and grandchildren, commuting and traveling, exercising and resting, on holidays and regular days. Each blessing is a doorway to gratitude.

Let us be more mindful of the good that is both present and possible in our lives rather than focusing on something small that irks us or thinking we are owed good fortune or focusing on what we lack rather than what we have.

Let us remember: Gratitude is not just being polite. Gratitude is not just about saying “thank you” as important as that is. Gratitude is a way of life which has proven long term effects including:
Improved relationships
Better sleep
Increased generosity
Better decision making
Improved blood pressure
Better recovery

And the next step is to not keep it to ourselves, but to share!

A Thanksgiving Prayer
by Reverend Samuel F. Pugh

“O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.”

I share this Jewish prayer of gratitude for being together:
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, shehecheyanu v’key’manu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh. Amen.
Praised are You, Sovereign of the Universe, who keeps us alive, sustains us, and brings us to this moment. Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving – Thursday and beyond!