וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ עַל־הָאָ֥רֶץ הַטֹּבָ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר נָֽתַן־לָֽךְ(Deuteronomy 8:10)When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to your God יהוה for the good land given to you.Gratitude is a central tenet to our tradition and scripture, found in so many of our teachings, prayers, rituals. Every day, we are encouraged to recite blessings for a variety of experiences, from eating food to witnessing natural wonders, helping us to foster mindfulness and gratitude in everyday moments. There is no blessing we should take for granted.In Pirkei Avot, Ben Zoma reminds us: “Who is rich? He or she who is happy with their lot.” He suggests that gratitude is central to human contentment and is the equivalent of spiritual wealth. Today, let us enjoy this time to be happy with our own lot, to eat, walk, listen, play, sing, celebrate, eat again, and rest. May we be nourished, may we find [...]

Holiday gatherings offer us the space for quality time with family, and chosen family, that we are often too busy to enjoy. And also, these large and diverse gatherings can contain people with a wide range of political and social viewpoints with a diversity of perspective and great complexity of feelings. It can certainly be a creative and lively time, but it can also be challenging and even painful. And of course, we know that Jews have heightened sensitivity when we are hungry! Before sitting down to our holiday meal tomorrow, let us consider how we can set up our hearts with compassion for our loved ones: those we disagree with, those we are missing from our tables, those who are in need of physical or emotional healing. I love this offering from my teacher Rabbi Yael Levy, who suggests that, before we take our seats, we bring our [...]

“Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given, Gratitude arises from paying attention, From being awake in the presence of everything That lives within and without and beside us.” -David Whyte The Hebrew phrase for gratitude, hakarat hatov, literally means to recognize the good around us. This choice of phrasing reminds us that gratitude is not something that happens to us, but rather, something that we must actively choose to practice and recognize. True gratitude takes deep presence, and sometimes, our busy minds can make this a bit too difficult to acheive. The great Jewish sages understood well that it takes incredible focus to give thanks with our whole heart; indeed, many of the ancient rabbis would meditate or sit for long periods of time even before they began their morning blessings just so that they could fully give their attention to their practice of prayerful [...]

The Jewish children’s book Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen is a heartwarming piece about acceptance, identity, and understanding the true origins and meaning of Thanksgiving. Molly is a young Jewish girl, daughter of immigrants from Russia, who struggles to fit in at school. Her classmates tease her for her parents’ accents, her clothing, and her cultural differences, making her feel out of place–a feeling eerily familiar for American Jews these days.In class, Molly’s teacher assigns a project for Thanksgiving: each student must create a pilgrim doll to represent the holiday’s story. Molly’s immigrant mother, unfamiliar with the traditional image of the American pilgrim, helps her make a doll dressed in Russian attire, reflecting her family’s journey to America in search of religious freedom. Molly initially fears more teasing, but instead, her teacher uses her doll to explain to the class that Molly’s family are indeed modern-day pilgrims similar to the pilgrims in [...]