Yom Kippur Morning Congregation Bnai Israel Rabbi Louis feldstein Gratitude

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1 Yom Kippur Morning Congregation Bnai Israel Rabbi Louis feldstein Gratitude Two old friends met each other on the street one day. One looked forlorn, almost on the verge of tears. His friend asked, What has the world done to you, my old friend? The sad fellow said, Let me tell you: three weeks ago, my uncle died and left me forty thousand dollars. That s a lot of money. But you see, two weeks ago, a cousin I never even knew died, and left me eighty-five thousand dollars, free and clear. Sounds to me that you ve been very blessed. You don t understand! he interrupted. Last week my great-aunt passed away. I inherited almost a quarter of a million from her. Now the man s friend was really confused. Then, why do you look so glum? This week... nothing! So many of us are walking around feeling glum. There is so much negativity in the world today and so many reasons to feel depressed, anxious, scared, concerned and just downright sad. Rising anti-semitism globally and at home, political candidates on both sides of the aisle spewing hateful rhetoric and growing economic uncertainty as the wealthy get richer and the poorer feel their dollars stretched more, the growing chasm between people who once could at least speak to each other, but now only yell, or just turn each other off. The list can go on and on. In the midst of a radically changing and challenging world, it is easy to forget that a life, lived, can still be good. In the tragedy of Florence, we see pain, the hurt, the trauma. But we can also see the face of God. Everyday people risking their lives, to help those in need. We see the beauty of humanity a reason to rejoice. Who shall live and who shall die, who shall perish by fire and who by water. The words of the Unatanah tokef have never been truer than this week. So much destruction, and yet so much life. So many saved who evacuated, so many saved by simple heroes stepping forward. Each of us has a choice do we focus on the negative, or do we affirm the positive. Yom Kippur, which we can experience as the most downer of the Jewish holidays, also has an incredibly strong positive message. I would like to offer you, that Yom Kippur, 5779 provides us with a way

2 to best overcome the negative enveloping us and to find and embrace the good that truly surrounds us and to express gratitude for all that is positive. Throughout the holiday we pronounce what is broken within us..but through this exercise we also identify that which is strong, that which is good, that which is resilient, that which propels us forward. It is the pursuit, not of life, but of living. In confronting our mortality, we can only do this, if we recognize the gift of life. That is a core Jewish principle. Our Torah reading tomorrow morning affirms the message it iterates in the strongest possible words b chor hayim. Chose Life. Hakarat hatov, gratitude, is a profound religious emotion. Rav, the late first and early 2 nd century rabbinic teacher teaches in the Talmud, that we should actually give thanks for the ability to give thanks. The very first words of prayer we are taught to say in the morning are modeh ani I am grateful to You. מ וד ה א נ י ל פ נ י ך, מ ל ך ח י ו ק י ם, ש ה ח ז ר ת ב י נ ש מ ת י Modeh ani lefanecha melech chai vekayam she hechezarta bi nishmati. I acknowledge and am grateful to God for returning my breath, my soul, to me. Dennis Prager writes in his book Happiness is a Serious Problem: One cannot be a good person without gratitude, and one cannot be a happy person without gratitude.consequently, even if you are more interested in being happy than in being good, you will still have to cultivate the most important ingredient to both qualities. By becoming more grateful in order to be happy, you will also become a better person because gratitude will make you better. In Hebrew, this quality is called hakarat hatov, literally recognizing the good. When we see what is possible with what we have and what we have been given, we are acknowledging the good in our life. It does not mean seeing the world through rose colored glasses. It does mean finding meaning in what we have, not what we don t have. The Mishnah teaches, who is rich? The one who is satisfied with their portion in life. Now granted, it is not always easy. Rabbi Sharon Brous tells this story: A nineteen year old Israeli soldier was on his way home to see his family in the summer of 1994 when he was kidnapped by members of Hamas. For several days his family and the country held their breath as they searched for him, desperate for a sign that he was alive. Finally, in the middle of the night, there was a knock at the family s door. The soldier s father opened the door and saw three generals standing before him, the requisite number for a beit din a Jewish legal court. He immediately knew what this meant. But before they could even tell him that they had found the body of his beloved son, his tall blue-eyed, golden-haired son

3 who was always smiling with the innocence of a child and the understanding of an adult, he had the following thought: thank you, God, for blessing me with nineteen years with this angel on Earth. His beloved son was murdered by terrorists, and his first thought was an expression of gratitude for the blessing of his life. Years later, the father explained: I understood in that instant why I had been praying three times a day my whole life. It was all preparation for that moment. Over the course of a lifetime he had built a consciousness that allowed him to grieve with gratitude. He had cultivated a humble awareness of the gift of life, of the majesty of the world, of the presence and possibility of love. It doesn t mean that loss isn t excruciating, it means that a life of humble gratitude places loss in a context of meaning. It means that even in the darkest and busiest moments, our hearts are open to beauty and possibility. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. But gratitude is not just a nice idea. It is actually been proven to be healthy for us. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi in the UK shared the following: Not until the early 1990s did a major piece of medical research reveal the dramatic physical effects of thanksgiving. It became known as the Nun Study. Some 700 American nuns, all 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. At the start of the study the participants were aged between 75 and 102. What gave this study its unusual longitudinal scope is that in 1930 the nuns, then in their twenties, had been asked by the Mother Superior to write a brief autobiographical account of their life and their reasons for entering the convent. These documents were analysed by the researchers using a specially devised coding system to register, among other things, positive and negative emotions. By annually assessing the nuns' current state of health, the researchers were able to test whether their emotional state in 1930 had an effect on their health some sixty years later. Because they had 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. The results, published in 2001, were startling. 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. So remarkable was this finding that it has led, since then, to a new field of gratitude research, as well as a deepening understanding of the impact of emotions on physical health.

4 Since the publication of the Nun Study and the flurry of further research it inspired, we now know of the multiple effects of developing an attitude of gratitude. It improves physical health and immunity against disease. Grateful people are more likely to take regular exercise and go for regular medical check-ups. Thankfulness reduces toxic emotions such as resentment, frustration and regret and makes depression less likely. It helps people avoid over-reacting to negative experiences by seeking revenge. It even tends to make people sleep better. It enhances self-respect, making it less likely that you will envy others for their achievements or success. Grateful people tend to have better relationships. Saying "thank you" enhances friendships and elicits better performance from employees. It is also a major factor in strengthening resilience. One study of Vietnam War Veterans found that those with higher levels of gratitude suffered lower incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Remembering the many things we have to be thankful for helps us survive painful experiences, from losing a job to bereavement. Our challenge then is to figure out how to live a life of gratitude. Often it is just a matter of perspective and of stepping back and observing our situation in the moment. On the Mussar Institute s blog, a woman wrote: My 13-year-old daughter was having a tough time with insomnia and anxiety, and I was with her for four hours last night, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. At about 1 a.m., I started to get mad, and I let her know. I became aware that my heart was racing and I was fuming. Then I remembered the teaching from the Mussar Institute, and the thought of gratitude came into my mind, and I asked myself: What can I find to be grateful for in this situation right now? Almost immediately, my heart softened as I thought of my daughter, knowing that she was not a demon child keeping me awake, but my dear, sweet girl. I was grateful that I was entrusted with a sacred task of being a parent, and could be with her late in the dark cold night, and be there to help her as she struggles. Part of the secret is identifying, articulating, putting to words things we are grateful for. This summer, the Gratitude Challenge permeated Facebook. While it wasn t inherently Jewish, some in the Jewish community, in the spirit of the month of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, listed three things each day, for five days, they were grateful for. The writer would then issue a challenge, asking three of their Facebook friends to do the same. How hard would it be for each of us to do this? On one level it seems like such a silly idea, but we know from so many other facets of life, that actually articulating something helps us achieve results. Weight Watchers has us write out our weekly weight, and the number of points. To do lists help us check off more items than if we didn t write them out. Recording athletic goals and our progress helps us hit the targets. So, too it is with being grateful. By writing down the items, we are physically reminded of the gifts.

5 We have so much to be grateful for and are so blessed in so many ways, yet it is human nature to complain and to notice what is lacking rather than what we have. Let me tell you about Morty. Morty takes his dog to a vet saying, My dog has a problem. The vet replies, So tell me about it. First you should know, says Morty, that he s a Jewish dog. His name is Irving and he can talk. He can talk? the vet asks. Watch this! Morty points to the dog and commands: Irving, Fetch! Irving walks toward the door, turns around and demands, So why are you talking to me like that? You order me around like I m nothing. And you only call me when you want something. And then you make me sleep on the floor, with my arthritis. You give me this fahkahkta food with so much salt and fat. It tastes like dreck! You should eat it yourself! And do you ever take me for a decent walk? No, it s out of the house, a short pish, and right back home. Maybe if could stretch out a little, my sciatica wouldn t kill me so much! I should roll over and play dead for real for all that you care! The vet is amazed and asks. This is remarkable! So what s the problem? Morty says, Obviously, he has a hearing problem! I said Fetch, not kvetch! A colleague has a great line in the signature block of his ; What could you be grateful for now if you were grateful for something? What a marvelous and enriching thought to share. The Ramban, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, wrote: The purpose of all mitzvot is that we should have faith in God and thank God for being created. THIS IS THE REASON FOR CREATION. One of my colleagues in interpreting the statement shared, I don t think the Ramban is saying that God created us so we could thank God constantly. God doesn t need our praise rather we gain something by expressing gratitude. By giving thanks, we can learn to enjoy life and rejoice in all its blessings. We begin to see the good in all things. In 2012 Jen Maidenberg wrote a blog post for the Times of Israel.com titled: Tell me you love me before I die, not after. In her piece she refers to the surprising outpouring of love and admiration that occurs on Facebook for people we didn t even know such as Steve Jobs and Nora Ephron. She then posits why it is With ease, {that} we acknowledge celebrities more readily than the folks who could match our picture with our first and last name if asked. And likely, one day, we will publicly mourn these dead celebrities in 140 characters or less more readily than we will tell our friends and neighbors how much they mean to us while they live. It s only after they re gone the people who truly fashion the days of our lives that we find ourselves moved to the point to express how much their being in the world made a difference

6 in ours. But she then mentions a personal note of admiration and gratitude she received on Facebook in response to a posted picture. [S]oon after she wondered, would she have told that to my face? I m not sure she would have. Though not because she doesn t think it, obviously. The screen provides a bit of a safety net. Or else the speed with which we are used to responding on social media prompts us to type out the words we really mean rather than the ones we allow after self-censoring. On Yom Kippur, many adorn themselves in white as if in a burial shroud. We fast, for there is no food after we are gone. Throughout the day, we are reminded, who shall live and who shall die. Tomorrow may not be the first day of the rest of your life, in fact, it may be our last. Yom Kippur is our annual reminder that we will all die so focus on how we want to live. Truly a solemn message. And so, with that thought I pose the following question Do we want to live our remaining time in angst, feeling glum, complaining, and wanting more, or do we live it in celebration, and appreciation of the gifts we have the most important of which are the people who grace our lives? As we reflect on this, and yes, the al chets, I encourage each of us to reflect on that which we are most gracious for.and not just think it but do something about it. In the closing words of Maidenberg s column she offers some good counsel: Tell someone you love them today. Tell someone how his smile makes you feel better in the world. Tell someone that she was a role model for you That he turned a bad day into a good one. That she taught you how to be a better person, a better mom, a better friend I may add: Thank someone for a small act of kindness they did for you. Thank someone for the gift of their friendship. Thank someone for something they did or said that changed how you felt. And finally, thank someone for being a part of your community. Expressing gratitude may be difficult, but if we truly want to live life to its very fullest now is the time to express it. Tomorrow, as Yom Kippur teaches, may be too late. Modeh ani lefanecha melech chai vekayam she hechezarta bi nishmati. I acknowledge and am grateful to God for returning my breath, my soul, to me. Ken yehi ratzton

Yom Kippur Day Sermon 5777

Yom Kippur Day Sermon 5777 As we gather together on this Yom Kippur, we know that our world is breaking apart. Yes, we could say it is no worse than it has been before. The wars, the environmental disasters,