“When you enter the
land that the Eternal your God is giving you as a heritage. . . you shall take
some of the first fruits of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the
Eternal your God is giving you, put it in a basket, and got to the place where
the Eternal your God will choose to establish the divine name.”
Cicero described gratitude as the mother of all the other
virtues, and our weekly Torah portion, Ki
Tavo bears this out. The parshah opens with a ceremony of
thanksgiving in which, each year, the Israelites offer the first fruits of
their harvest to the priests in the Temple.
In this ritual drama, they recall their history of difficult challenges,
celebrate God’s liberating power, and express their gratitude for their
blessings.
Commenting on this ritual, Maimonides focuses on the dangers
of prosperity, which, if we are not mindful, can leave us spoiled and
ungrateful. He notes: “Offering the
first fruits is a way people accustom themselves to being generous and a means
of limiting the human appetite for more consumption, no only of food but of
property…For people who amass fortunes and live in comfort often fall victim to
self-centered excesses and arrogance.
They tend to abandon ethical considerations out of increasingly selfish
concerns. Bringing a basket of first
fruits and reciting the prayer promotes humility.”
Psychologist Robert Emmons echoes Maimonides’ concerns in
his book, Thanks: How Practicing
Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Reflecting on what he calls “the poverty of
affluence”, he reminds us that our wealthy, consumerist culture fuels
ingratitude with its obsession with what we do not yet have. We are constantly bombarded by messages to
buy things we do not need, under the false premise that they will somehow make
us happy. But the true path to happiness
lies not in acquisition but in gratitude—in wanting what we’ve got.
As we approach the Days of Awe, I encourage you to focus
just a little more on enjoying what you have and counting your blessings rather
than lamenting what you lack. You might begin by keeping a gratitude
journal, briefly noting, each day, a blessing or two for which you are
thankful. Or just spend ten seconds
every morning by starting the day with the traditional prayer in which we give
thanks for the greatest blessing of all: being alive.
Modeh/Modah ani l’fanecha
melech chai v’kayam sh’hechezarta bi nishmati b’chemlah rabbah emunatechah
I thank you, Eternal
Sovereign, for restoring my soul to life—great is your mercy.
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