Gratitude

It’s easier to complain than to be grateful; it’s more common to count problems than blessings. Perhaps that is the reason that the first ritual on awakening in the morning is to express gratitude for another day: Modeh Ani – “I give thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have restored my soul to me, with mercy. Great is your faithfulness.” Modeh Ani literally means “Thank I,” rather than “I thank,” so that the first spoken word of the day should be “Thank,” not “I.” This acknowledgement that life is a gift, each day renewed, reveals the need to be aware of our precariousness and vulnerability, young and old, powerful or powerless, famous or not.

Gratitude is greatly emphasized in much of Jewish observance, from blessings before and after meals, the celebration of holidays such as Passover, a festival that celebrates liberation from slavery, and in the psalms.

When I think of gratitude, I think of my father.

My father was not a rich man or a religious man, but he was an eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jew steeped in Jewish life and custom. His father died in the 1919 pandemic, and he had to leave school to learn a trade and help support the family. They left Lithuania’s virulent antisemitism in 1930, well before the Holocaust, arriving in Canada during the Depression, where again he had to forgo an education in order to work and help support the family. He spent 50 years in the sweatshops of Toronto.

Further challenges ensued: the death of his wife, my mother, the love of his life, at the age of 44, and the crushing debt of two years of medical care before universal medical care was established. Through it all, he was strong, my rock, for himself and for me, an only child, 11 years old when my mother passed away.

One of the most striking memories I have of him, long after those awful years, was when he showed my colleague, with his arm outstretched and pointing towards his tiny bungalow and yard, and said: “What working man in Europe could have a house like this!” as if he were the Earl of Grantham showing off his country estate. That, in essence, is the spirit of gratitude: appreciating what you have, not regret for the losses and disappointments.

By that time, he had remarried a woman who had survived tragedies and lost everything in Romania during the war, a good wife and a wonderful mother to me. Together, they established a haven, an island of healing for the three of us, and served as a model for me of basic, fundamental, positive gratitude.

Some people are naturally grateful: some grow to perceive the importance of appreciation; and many never do understand that life is a balance and that recognizing one’s blessings is as important as dealing with obstacles and frustrations. It is an imperative, religiously, psychologically and rationally.

Psychology teaches that appreciation is an important value for everyone. Psychology Today explains that gratitude “spontaneously generated from within is an affirmation of goodness and warmth. The social emotion strengthens relationships, and its roots run deep in evolutionary history – emanating from the survival value of helping others and being helped in return.”

Robert Emmons, a scholar who researches this subject, finds that there are two components to gratitude. First, it is an affirmation of goodness: “We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received” and, second, we recognize goodness outside ourselves: “We acknowledge that other people – or higher powers – gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives” (“Why Gratitude is Good”).

My father never had a chance for formal education, never articulated any theory or personal philosophy of life. He instinctively understood that dwelling on loss, being absorbed or obsessed with regrets, would be painful and destructive. He was all too aware of his situation but took responsibility for me and built a life of honesty, stability and dignity. While many are unhappy or even unfulfilled amongst bounty, he taught by example that one can resist self-pity and forge a life of meaning and satisfaction.

He was grateful for what he had, and I was – and am – grateful for him.

Dr. Paul Socken is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and founder of the Jewish Studies program at the University of Waterloo.