CBI Blogs

Friends, the weeks that have followed since October 7^th have been best described as beyond challenging and on an emotional level the words “it’s just so much” have left my lips more than once. Over 240 Israeli’s are being held by their terrorist captors, specialists continue the heartbreaking work of trying to identify the remains of over 300 of those murdered, and antisemitic, anti-Islamic, and anti-Israel rhetoric and acts of hate have reached startling rates in our own country and around the world. I will say it again, it’s just so much.

Despite all that is going on, the sun rises and sets each day, a week becomes a month, and next Thursday we will celebrate Thanksgiving. We will do what humans are so good at, and maybe what these past several weeks have best prepared us for, we will compartmentalize, placing our grief and concern on pause for a few hours.

Afterall, being thankful is one of our most Jewish values. In fact, during the Sundays and Wednesdays when we have met with our Religious and Hebrew school students throughout the month of November this has been our teach: hodaya – the Hebrew word for giving thanks. If you are finding it hard to find something to be thankful for then here are some ideas from our future leaders: family, life, pets, friends, fried pickles, parents, and food, just to list a few.

Gratitude is so important our liturgy is riddled with it. From the moment we wake up in the morning when we are to exclaim: “Modeh/modah ani l’fanecha – I offer thanks to YOU for returning my soul to me in mercy.” We say prayers of gratitude for our bodies working in the words of asheir yatzar followed by thanking God for the opportunity to begin each day with a new soul as we pray the words of Elohai n’shamah, “my God the soul you have given me is pure. You created it, You shaped it, You breathed it into me.”

As we look ahead to Thanksgiving, I hope that you can find gratitude in the mundane. Maybe you will be surrounded by the love of family and friends or maybe this is a holiday for self-care and solitude. No matter how you are spending the day I invite all of us to include a prayer for peace in this moment.

As we often pray during our erev shabbat t’fillah from the prophet Isaiah 2:4:

לֹא־יִשָּׂ֨א ג֤וֹי אֶל־גּוֹי֙ חֶ֔רֶב וְלֹֽא־יִלְמְד֥וּ ע֖וֹד מִלְחָמָֽה׃

Lo yisa goi el goi cherev, v’lo yilmidu od milchamah.

Nation shall not take up
Sword against nation;
They shall never again know war.

Amen.