Eikev: Gratitude as a Moral Choice Plaut p. 1230

Source Sheet by Yair Robinson

It’s wonderful to be back from camp, and anyone who has spent any amount of time in Jewish camping knows that we end each meal with some version of birkat hamazon, the grace that we say after meals. While it may look a little different than it did when you or I went to camp, the intention is the same: the fulfillment of the mitzvah described in this week’s portion. In a long description of God’s hesed, God’s benevolence, toward Israel, and how Israel is entering a good land where you will lack nothing (“lo techsar kol bah“), Moses instructs that when we have eaten our fill, then we give thanks.

Fundamentally, birkat hamazon is not just a blessing, nor merely an opportunity to bang on the tables in the camp’s chadar ochel, it’s an expression of gratitude. It’s a moment for us to reflect on the gifts we have received–from our community, from God, from our parents and family–and give expression to our thanks for those gifts.

Of course, what happens when don’t feel grateful for what we’ve received? Maybe we don’t experience our blessings as a gift, per se, but as hard-fought and won. Or perhaps we are going through a moment in our lives where we see an absence of blessing–the ideal of lacking nothing very far off. We’re over 320 days since October 7th. We have had our own trials and troubles. We see a world that is the expression of the opposite of the last line of the traditional birkat hamazon, the words of the Psalmist: “I was young and now I’m old and I’ve never seen the righteous abandoned.” How can we possibly offer up words of gratitude in those moments?

Because gratitude is not just an emotional expression, it’s also a kind of moral stance. Gratitude, in fact, does not preclude us from taking action to make the words we speak real–if anything, they call us to action. It’s not about whether I like the food or not; it’s about recognition of what is done for me–for us–and on our behalf, no matter how imperfect, and us willing to not only express our gratefulness for the hesed given us, but to in turn, share it ourselves. As the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto reminds us: “Whatever circumstances one may be in, whether poor or rich, healthy or ill, there is no person who cannot see wonders and many great benefits in his particular situation.” Thus may we take the opportunity to express gratitude for what we do have, so that we can say and make true, as the psalmist does, that we truly lack nothing.