Jewish Personal Prayer - Giving Thanks Profusely

"Gratitude is a core Jewish value. This can be affirmed by all Jews, no matter what expression of Judaism they practice or profess." Rabbi James Gibson

There is gratitude between people and there is gratitude between a person and God. Our main focus is our gratitude to God, but it's possible our experience with people will affect our experience with God, even if we don't realize it or mean for it to happen.

Between people, just as the word "love" can be powerfully charged, so can the words, "thank you." When we say "thank you" it can be a lot like saying "I love you." Our tone of voice and facial expressions make all the difference. 

Between people, those phrases can be genuine expressions of gratitude and and love, or they can be false, manipulative, empty words. How we feel about those phrases is colored by our experiences, positive and negative.

But, thanking God is not like thanking another person. Giving thanks to God is clean and free of misunderstanding on the part of the Almighty. We are safe to express ourselves with more freedom than we may experience when thanking another person.

I wrote the following Prayer Page one day when I was having a very, very difficult time with a family situation which was completely out of my control. I'd been agonizing over it for hours.

It was a messy prayer session, meaning crying and pleading out loud, writing and discarding emails to the people involved, and finally (yes, after everything else) I remembered write a letter to God.

My handwriting isn't easy to read, so here's a translation of the words in the photo above:
This is not an impossible situation.
Thank you for helping me see past the feeling that it's impossible.
I love you and trust you, Lord.
Thank you for helping me trust this situation is already handled.
Thank you for helping me care the right amount, not too much and not too little. 
I have had a lot of problems with caring too much, Lord.
Please help me not care when it doesn't work.
Thank you for that.

My example assumes it is ok to express gratitude for things that have not yet happened. Gratitude for what's already happened is basic; it's the critical first step. 

In fact, in the Modeh Ani we are thanking God for returning our soul to our bodies each day when we awaken. It is our first, daily expression of faith and gratitude, and it starts our day with an attitude of thanksgiving for the many blessings we tend to overlook.

Feeling genuine gratitude and giving thanks for things that have not yet happened is how we infuse our prayers with our faith in the limitless power of God to create in His own time and at His own discretion.

As Gedale Fenster explains in the following video, "You're either creating your life, or you're complaining." Expressing thanks to God, the Creator of us all, is key to creating our own lives in prayer.





There are countless scientific studies on the effects of positive thinking in our lives, and the use of gratitude as a specific antidote to depression. Besides prayer, counting your blessings, meditating and writing thank you notes to other people are often suggested.

Nothing, however, eclipses the combination of our gratitude and our God. Nobody else can have our gratitude for us. I am the only person who can have and express my gratitude to God.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says in the following  10- minute audio, "Jewish prayer is an ongoing seminar on gratitude."



One thing I've noticed about saying "thank you" to other people is somewhat surprising, at least it is surprising to me. Sometimes they don't like it, because it seems strange or even inappropriate to them. It's possible they don't like to hear my gratitude because they aren't having much of their own. 

As we discussed earlier, our relationship to the experience of giving and receiving thanks is based on our own, personal experiences in life, and that goes for each individual person.

I've come to understand that when I thank people out of my personal respect for God I can't be attached to how people feel about my expression of thanks or their reactions to it. Their discomfort, if any, does not signal disrespect on my part and eventually it may serve as a signal in their own inner life.

King David's Book of Psalms is full of his profuse, ancient words of thanks for past and future events,  Our siddurs, Jewish prayer books, are infused with words of gratitude and praise from King David's Psalms, words we read aloud daily and on Shabbat and Holy Days. 

The dramatic emotions expressed in Psalms are not just for King David. We all have dramatic emotions swirling around in our hearts and minds, and we can always express them to Our Almighty God in the form of heartfelt thanksgiving for our past, present and future life.

Here are seven Jewish ways to express gratitude and thanks from Chabad.org.

This is my ninth post sharing about my own experiences with Jewish personal prayer and the experiences I'm collecting from others. Please feel free to share in the comments, or leave a message on 903-642-1449.