On this Thanksgiving, it is time to reflect anew on two kinds of gratitude.
Sitting at the Thanksgiving table, we feel grateful for the bounty we were privileged to enjoy. For the abundance of food we enjoy and the enormity of our nation’s gifts, we should offer heartfelt blessings. That alone is not enough; if we express thanks and do no more, that is a feeling that leads nowhere. The second, deeper, gratitude spurs us to give.
Motivational gratitude encourages us to help in a needy world. There are food banks and charities that count on donations and volunteers. Don’t end with appreciation; gratitude should be a green light for giving.
We are grateful for our family and friends. Yet our gratitude should be tinged with sadness for those who are alone or for those who have lost people dear to them. The Jewish injunction at Passover—”Let all who are hungry come and eat, let all who are in need celebrate Passover”—is the joining of appreciation to obligation. We who have so much should be grateful; we who have so much should also be mindful that others do not.
This is a tragic and unsettling time. If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by those whom you love, remember those who are not so fortunate.
This wonderful country is singularly blessed. Much of what we have is a product not of our goodness, but of God’s goodness and the efforts of others. We sit in homes we did not build, eating food we did not grow, speaking a language we did not create, surrounded by a world that was prepared for us before we were born. Like the old man in the Talmud planting a carob tree whose fruits he will not see, we should give to others as so many have given to us.
The lessons of Thanksgiving do not end with a full stomach and a football game. Gratitude for this wondrous but broken world should be a drive throughout the year to donate to worthy causes, to volunteer, to battle against hatred and prejudice and cruelty. Abundant in blessing and full of passion, we are called to give thanks, to bind wounds and to heal hearts.
