Originally published September 19, 2024
Author Anne Lamott writes that human prayer, regardless of faith, can be distilled into three categories: help, thanks, and WOW. This schema maps out onto Jewish prayer, both the words of our prayerbook and the words of our hearts. I want to explore this notion of gratitude – of using our prayers to say “thanks” to God, to the universe, to the ancestors, to our loved ones.
This week’s parsha, Ki Tavo, opens with an odd-sounding ritual, the ritual of first fruits. “When you enter the land that Adonai your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that Adonai your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where Adonai your God will choose to establish God’s name. You shall go to the priest in charge at that time, and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before Adonai your God that I have entered the land that Adonai swore to our ancestors to assign us.” The entirety of the book of Deuteronomy, leading up to these verses in chapter 26, describes the bounty of the Land of Israel, the immense natural and agricultural gifts that fill the land God gives to the people Israel. It paints a hopeful image, for the Israelites still wandering in the desert, of what life settled in the land of Israel might look like. Rabbi Shai Held examines this peculiar ritual at the opening of our Torah portion, a ritual “designed to combat ingratitude and forgetfulness.” This ritual exists, Rabbi Held suggests, because as the memory of slavery and wandering in the desert fades, it’s very possible that Israel might take God’s gifts for granted. This ritual exists to help the Israelite farmers express their gratitude, acknowledging God’s role in producing the bounty of the land.
So far, this seems pretty aligned with how we express gratitude today. When we look at our lives and see abundance, we pause to appreciate what we have. Some choose to engage in a gratitude journaling practice – beginning or ending each day by writing down 5 things for which we’re grateful. Some express their gratitude through formal prayer. In our family, we go around the table at Shabbat dinner and share what we’re grateful for from the past week. All of these exercises are a way of orienting ourselves towards gratitude, towards noticing the abundance of our lives, even when we might otherwise focus on what is hard or lacking in our lives.
But the Torah ritual doesn’t end with acknowledging our gratitude. It locates that moment of gratitude in history, with language that may be familiar to us from the Passover haggadah. “You shall then recite as follows, before Adonai your God: my father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meagre numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to Adonai, the God of our fathers, and Adonai heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. Adonai freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. God brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Adonai, have given me.”
These words go beyond expressing gratitude for the land and its bounty. They relive the entirety of Israelite history – from enslavement to freedom, from wandering to arrival in the land. Gratitude for this present moment is situated only in relationship to the past. We are grateful for what we have NOW, because of our history of oppression and redemption. Our personal gratitude is rooted in our collective story.
The first fruits ritual is still not complete. It concludes with not only enjoying the bounty, but sharing it with others – with the Levite, with the stranger, and with the mitzvah to tithe, setting aside a full tenth of the yield for the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the window. When we live lives of gratitude, it easily follows that we want to share our blessings and abundance with others. Rabbi Held writes, “The Torah here makes a radical point, central to its social and theological vision: genuine gratitude to God always leads to generosity and the desire to share our blessings with others.”
So perhaps this week let’s try to be a little more like the ancient Israelites – making a ritual of expressing our gratitude, noticing our abundance, and sharing it with others.
