The first words a Jew is supposed to say upon waking are: Modah Ani or Modeh Ani, which mean “Thankful am I”. Even before we bring ourselves into focus, we are we are taught to center gratitude, and to make being thankful the frame for our existence in the day that is just starting.
That short morning wake-up prayer goes like this in full:
Thankful am I before You
Power alive and enduring
For returning my soul/my breath into me with love
Great is Your faith
Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt, also known as the Velveteen Rabbi, says this last line isn’t just acknowledging the Divine faithfulness to us through giving us life. Rather, it’s actually a separate statement about Divine faith in us. God bets on me for the day to come, that I will pay off that faith even though all I have done so far is become aware that I am here. So in the first seconds of the day a Jew is to say: Thank you, here I am, I see that I’m breathing, great is Your faith in me. And then it’s off into the day.
Though Jews talk a lot about the significance of our name Israel, which means wrestler-with-the-Divine, we don’t talk nearly as much about our more common name Jews — Yehudim, people of Judah. Judah was the fourth son of Leah and Jacob. Leah was the unloved wife, and when the first three sons were born, Leah gave them each names out of her yearning for more love from her husband, and those names did not come true. When the fourth was born she said instead, “This time I thank the Divine.” From the word for “I thank”, odeh, came the name Yehudah or Judah. (Along the way in the rendering of yehudi from Hebrew to Greek to the Europeans languages, the d sound fell away and the y hardened a bit, hence the word “Jew”.)
This thankfulness is more grounded in experience than the first-thing-in-the-morning “Thankful am I.” Leah’s naming-gratitude is gratitude despite, in the face of. But I wouldn’t say it’s only grudging, or through gritted teeth. In Hebrew words are generally built out of roots with three consonants, and often you can hear all three sounds regardless of the form of the word as a noun or verb. One form is todah, the common way to say “thank you.” But all the many forms of the word for gratitude in Hebrew share only one sound, D — the middle letter called dalet, which means: a door.
Thankfulness is a door. More specifically, it’s the decision to open a door from this place you are sitting, a place of perhaps not enough love toward you or from you, or not enough peace or not enough justice – open it and then look toward next-door where there is more of those, or where there are partners and friends and allies, or toward an outside expanse of possibility.
Thankfulness is acknowledging that sometimes that door feels closed, or we don’t have faith enough or energy enough to open it – but then we realize we can, and hopefully we do.
Instant gratitude first thing every day, and gratitude in-spite-of as in our very name — these are two very different ways in which gratitude is meant to be our essence as Jews. May this Thanksgiving help us become more thankful people each and every day.