Eli Cohn-Wein, Kutz & NFTY Program Associate / Special Edition / November 2011
When I was a child and my family would attend
services, I would often find my attention diverted from the service
by the prayer book. I would explore every page, enthralled by
each dog-eared page. I was usually drawn to a section headed
“Blessings of Praise and Gratitude.” I loved seeking out the
most obscure blessings I could find. I loved that there were
different prayers for eating a meal than eating a snack, or for
seeing a mountain rather than a very large hill. I became obsessed
with prayers, making up a prayer for everything from seeing the insides of
a bug I stepped on, to passing a test.
Join the
Conversation
What are you thankful for this
season?
I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude
recently, and the place it exists within my life. For instance,
despite what various yoga instructors tell me, I do not find
overwhelming gratitude at rising every morning, and I don’t
generally feel a ton of gratitude for being able to draw each new
breath (unless I’ve recently been punched in the stomach). The
overwhelmingly mundane nature of the acts generally prevents me from
feeling the passionate gratitude that such a monumental triumph of
nature and spirit demands. Does that make me a bad
person?
I don’t think
it does. Being grateful for a chocolate cake does not preclude my
gratitude for the flour that goes into it; it is simply built in to
being grateful for the cake. In a similar way, I think that when I’m
grateful for my friends, my family, my community, there is a foot
note attached that says “and my mouth for breathing and being able
to talk and my feet for walking, and my…” and so on. I simply don’t
say it because if I had to list out every ingredient that goes into
making my life awesome I’d never have time to do any of the awesome
things that comprise my life. I fear that this means I have
lost some of the wonder I had as a child for the plethora of prayers
that our tradition holds as a way to remind us to be grateful for
each new thing that greets us. There is some sadness in
that.
However, during times like
this past weekend, when I consider the things I am most thankful
for and I consider my health, the job I love, and the friends and
family that support and love me, something happens to all of those
prayers. They meld together and grow until I almost need to
shout:
Blessed are
you, lord our god, ruler of the universe, who has granted us life,
sustained us, and enabled us to reach this
occasion.
What
are the things that make you shout prayers of thanks? Did you
have a “Shehecheyanu moment” this Thanksgiving? Tweet
with us at #iTorah and
#attitudeofgratitude!
About the
Author
Eli
Cohn-Wein is the Kutz and NFTY Program
Associate. He spent the past 4 summers on the URJ Crane Lake Camp
senior staff, and grew up in NFTY-NEL. He attended the University of Rochester
and lives in Astoria, New
York.
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