Picture in your mind a person, clothed in flowing white garments, standing on top of a tall hill. What stands out to you is how majestic that person looks as they begin to sound the shofar. While you see the person - you not only hear the sound but feel it, as it reverberates from every direction. You feel the sound deep in your soul, calling to you, nudging you - it’s time, something is happening, get moving.
This is how I imagine our ancestors felt thousands of years ago when the Temple was standing, on Rosh Hashanah morning. They didn’t have calendars like we do today and instead the cycle of months was indicated by the moon and community fires lit on hill tops and New years truly began with the call of the shofar. This morning, like our ancient ancestors, we hear the call of the shofar, and not only will it announce and awaken us to a New Year, this year, it also announces a Shmita year. A shmita year is a once in every seven years phenomenon, mentioned in the Torah. In Exodus 23 we learn that every seventh year the land is granted a Shabbat, a rest. The land may not be worked, and the produce of the land may not be bought or sold. Simply, the land is left alone and people may pick what grows naturally in the fields and orchards as they need.
The idea is that just as we need Shabbat, so too does the earth need a rest. Beyond allowing the land to rest there are numerous rules surrounding the shmita year which focus on feeding the poor and forgiving debt. It is a complicated system of rules that have puzzled the rabbis for millennia, and until 1948 was relegated to something Jews studied and puzzled over as opposed to doing. Why? Simply, the laws of Shmita only apply to the Land of Israel. With the establishment of the State of Israel, the chief rabbis and modern scholars continue to figure out how to follow Shmita in today’s world. In Israeli media over the past few months there have been the following headlines,
from the Jerusalem Post - “Jordan, Israel sign agriculture agreement for shmita year”, the Times of Israel “As Israel’s biblical farming sabbatical nears, medical cannabis is budding issue”, and my favorite from Israel HaYom, “Shmita politics, here we go again” as you can see Shmita is a big deal in Israel.
So, why am I telling you about Shmita when it applies only to the Land of Israel? Because it’s mentioned in the Torah and as Jews we should know about it, even if we aren’t affected by it. And, I believe that there is something that we, non-farmers, living in St. Louis, can learn from the lessons of the Shmita year.
You’ve likely heard the term Sabbatical. This comes directly from Shmita. A sabbatical is when on a seven year cycle, one takes a pause and steps away from their work to do something different. Can you imagine having the opportunity to hit the pause button for a year? You probably can given the past 18 months, but that was a forced pause and not one for which we had prepared ourselves,often feeling more like a roller coaster than a pause. But imagine what life would be like if every seven years, we were able to truly take a pause, take a step back from the daily grind of living and look at our lives, see what’s working and not working, make change where needed and most importantly find the good and give thanks? This is the essence of Shmita - an opportunity to pause and rest, reimagine, and renew.
Lately, I’ve been wondering why it is that we human beings so often seem to focus on the negative instead of the positive? What do I mean by this? So often, we focus on what we can’t do, what we don’t have, what we don’t like, and so on. . . instead of recognizing the blessing of the moment we’re in and what we do have.
The past 18 months have been hard, and together we’ve been strong. In 5781 we focused on strength and courage, two attributes, middot, that we needed to remind ourselves of just how resilient we are and to help us move through this pandemic. This year, we introduce a new attribute a new theme upon which we can focus and enhance our lives, the middah of Hakarat haTov. So often it is translated as Gratitude, but it is so much more, it is really about our attitude toward the world around us. Hakarat HaTov is literally translated as finding the good. And that is our challenge for this Shmita year, to find the good in every moment.
Our tradition teaches that we are to say 100 blessings a day. That is 100 moments of gratitude, as a blessing is a moment of thanks for what is happening. You may be thinking, 100 blessings, I can’t even imagine 100 blessings in a day?! And yet, you’ve probably already experienced close to a quarter of those blessings this morning.
Think about it -
You woke up this morning - a blessing
You washed your hands, your face - a moment of blessing
You went to the bathroom - yes, that too, is a moment of blessing
You drank coffee and/or ate breakfast - blessing
Perhaps you put on something new this morning- a blessing
You’re sitting here in the sanctuary or sitting in our extended sanctuary, your home, because of technology - both blessings
You do a lot of these things every single day, but that does not diminish that they are blessings. The core of Jewish teaching is being thankful for everything around us. If you think back to how we started the service this morning, Rick sang words from the blessing, Asher Yatzar, “I thank you for my life body and soul,” this is a prayer that is said every morning and in fact, it is the traditional prayer said every time one uses the bathroom - because why not recognize the fact that our body is working, doing what it is supposed to do - that is, in and of itself, a blessing! The essence of hakarot hatov isn't just to express thankfulness to those around you and for the things you have in your life, it is to truly feel gratitude deeply, in your heart and soul, and this takes practice.
Gam zu l'tova - this too is for good
This is a phrase that I have known and loved and was reawakened to it this past year when Joseph was applying to college, and it became a phrase I used as he and we navigated a very different senior year of highschool. One of Joe’s college essays asked him to write about a person, a figure from whom he has learned. He chose to write about Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest Torah scholars (thank you to Joseph’s year in Israel studies). He focused on the following Talmudic story.
Rabbi Akiva was traveling far from home with a donkey, a rooster, and a candle. When night came he tried to find lodging in a nearby village, only to be turned away. Rabbi Akiva was forced to spend the night in the field, but he did not lament his fate. Instead he made his habitual remark: "Everything God does is for the best.” Suddenly a strong wind came and blew out his candle, a cat ate his rooster, and a lion came and ate his donkey – Yes, the Talmud likes hyperbole -- but again, Rabbi Akiva's reaction was "Everything God does is for the best.”
Later that night a military regiment came and took the entire town captive, but Rabbi Akiva, who was sleeping in the field, with no bright light, no noisy rooster or donkey to attract attention, went unnoticed and was spared. When Rabbi Akiva realized what had happened he said – you guessed it: "Everything God does is for the best.”
Interestingly enough, Rabbi Akiva isn’t the one who coined the phrase Gam Zu L’Tovah rather it was his teacher, Nachum ish Gamzu. It is said, that like Akiva, Nachum Ish Gamzu endured numerous trials and no matter what was happening he always said, “gam zu-l’tovah; this, too, is for the good.”
In case you’re thinking, wow, that’s the same as “everything happens for a reason,” let me suggest that it isn’t. While I do believe that things can be beshert or “meant to be,” I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe that people get sick for a reason or people die for a reason and so on. What I do believe our sages want us to learn from Gam Zu L’Tova is to reframe the situation in a positive way, not so that we’ll do nothing and just accept what is, but to give us even a glimmer of hope, which compels us to keep moving forward.
I’m not so naive to believe that every time we experience anxiety, loss, distress, grief, you name it, that we’ll immediately say, “this too is for good”; but being positive and having an attitude of gratitude is something we can work on.
Our Sages teach in the Mishnah (Ber. 33b), “One is duty-bound to praise God for the bad days as well as for the good.”
A student, puzzled by this teaching, once asked of his rabbi: “How can we praise God for the bad days in our life?”
“You raise an important question,” replied the rabbi. “I advise you to go to the town of Anapole and find Reb Zusia, a man who has suffered much in his life and he will give you the correct answer to your question.”
The student went to Anapole and asked for Reb Zusia. He was told that on the outskirts of town, there lived a poor man by that name. He went to the place and found Reb Zusia living with his wife in one room. Their clothing was shabby, their furniture broken, and the only food on the table was some stale bread and some apples. Nevertheless, Reb Zusia welcomed his guest and invited him to have supper with him and his wife. “No, thank you,” said the visitor. “My teacher sent me to you because he said you could explain to me the meaning of the rabbis’ teaching, that we must thank God for our bad days as well as for the good.” Reb Zusia seemed surprised. ``l don’t understand why your teacher sent you to me for that purpose, because I never had a bad day in my life. I am grateful to God for every day I live, no matter what it brings. Every day offers me a new opportunity to celebrate life and give thanks to God.”
Similarly, there is a story of a rabbi who was overwhelmed by the number of people coming to talk to her about their worries. So she invited them all to come together so they could discuss their worries in a group session. When the time for the meeting arrived, the rabbi announced that she had an emergency to attend to and perhaps they could begin to discuss their worries among themselves until she returned. Coming back an hour later, she found an empty room and a note: “After listening to each others’ worries, we all decided that our worries weren’t so difficult to bear. Have a nice day.” Often, talking about our troubles with others gives us perspective and reduces our worrying.
Life is not easy, and it feels even more so in our current circumstance of a pandemic. Every one of us here has issues and problems. We look around and we envy others - thinking to ourselves, they have the perfect life, perfect family, perfect job, perfect children, excellent health, but if we really stop and look closely we see that it isn’t so. Perspective - It is a matter of perspective -do I focus on the negative or do I focus on my blessings - do I look at and rejoice in the good, the wonderful of my life?
Everything doesn’t always go as planned or as we hope. More often than not, when things do go well, we don’t realize it, we expect it. Before March 2020, we took “normalcy” for granted. Think about it, how often did we really stop and recognize what was happening to us - good or bad - before our “normal” lives came to a halting stop? When things are going well, we expect them to, so we don’t stop to recognize the good - “hallelujah the school bus came on time and we were able to get in a snack and make all of our afternoon appointments,” “I feel blessed that I ate lunch sitting down instead of on the run, or forgetting to eat because it was so busy,” “Thank you, God, I got through that painful night of excessive homework and got an A on that assignment (ok, maybe our teens aren’t quite thanking God for getting through homework),” but it seems that it is only when the natural order breaks, that we are aware and instead of finding the good, we likely get frustrated, sad, mad, angry. But what if we were for a moment to celebrate those breaks more - maybe we would rejoice more in the good.
Alan Morinis, in his book Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar, points out that “we are experts in wanting and complaining, and even if the problems are real and things aren’t perfect, we don’t give due appreciation to what we already have in hand. Yes, the glass is half empty, but it is also half full. Someone once challenged him ‘What could a prisoner in a concentration camp be grateful for?’ ‘Being alive,’ he answered.”
This is the challenge I put before us this year, this transformative shmita year, to recognize the awesome blessing of just being alive and to find moments of awe and blessing every day for the next 384 days (the number of days in a lunar leap year, with 13 months, which 5782 is). How do we do this?
How about 100 blessings a day? I know it’s a lot, and 100 seems intimidating but could you start with just one? At the end of each day or end of each week, write down one thing for which you are grateful, one thing that was good, one thing that was a blessing. Perhaps in a couple of weeks move yourself to finding 5 things then, 10 things, working your way up to 100. Inspire others by sharing your daily blessings on social media using the hashtag #uhblessing challenge.
If you don’t like writing things down on paper or social media, what about a gratitude jar? At the end of each day or week write down at least one thing that was good for which you are grateful and open the jar and read those blessings when you need to be reminded, game zu l'tova- this too is for good.
The Hebrew word for the Jewish people, Yehudim, comes from the name of Judah, Leah and Jacob’s fourth son “Yehuda” from the Hebrew ‘ahodeh or ‘odeh’ meaning to thank. When Judah was born Leah said “ha pa’am odeh et-Adonai”, this time I am grateful to God. From this, we Jews are “grateful people” - it is in our name!!
Our people have survived for thousands of years, through oppression, persecution, and near destruction. We have a modern, Jewish democratic national homeland. We are blessed to live in America where we can express our Judaism and live Jewishly. We live in a time where ancient rituals can find new meaning and help connect us to the past as we create an amazing future.
Let us commit ourselves in this shmita year, to an attitude of gratitude, so that we may truly live up to our name “Yehudim - Grateful ones.”
Shanah tovah!
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