Yesterday I wrote about why I am thankful. Or grateful. I’ll never think about that the same way again.

But it didn’t go far enough for me. It is easy to say I am thankful for life, for family, for friends, for food, for shelter, for heat, for clothing, for health. But there is so much more. For Creation. For nature. For education. For employment.

Each one of those could be paragraphs.

For life—I understand how fine that line is between life and death. I could have been killed in the attack in Israel or in the car accident on the West Side Highway. Therefore I have an obligation to give thanks and to make sure my life matters. I try hard not to be bitter and to live every day to its fullest. Sarah said I should open a bottle of champagne every day and remember to say Shehechianu. I don’t always but I try to say, “Modah Ani Lefanecha” when I wake up. Thank You, G-d. I am still here. I am still alive.

For family—my “nuclear family” of Simon and Sarah. So proud of how Sarah is navigating the complicated world of being an adult, making real choices, living in California. I miss her tremendously today but I am thankful also for cell phones and Skype. The traditions continue. Just differently. Simon keeps me grounded and humble. Even when I get frustrated. Even when I am stressed. I don’t always say it. It is simple. I love him. My wide extended family that includes Simon’s kids, Anna, Richard and Gabrielle, their spouses, Bob and Edgar kids, Madeline, Spencer and Sophia. They have taught me much and make me laugh. My brother, Danny, his wife Darcy, niece and nephew, Nelle and Buddy. My cousins, Laurie, Amy, and Meg and spouses and kids, Simon’s family, Fred and Tricia, Don and Marsha, Laura and their kids and kids. Simon’s cousins. Where else can I feel like a perfect 10.

For friends—I have a lot of them. Apparently more than most. I am “attached”. I could not have gotten through rabbinical school without each of them. Not just rabbinical school Life. High School. College, Beyond. I am thankful for Facebook which keeps us in contact. The “little people”—baristas, hair dressers, massage therapists, Molly Maids. Then there are the really good friends. Friends for a lifetime that I can call in the middle of the night—or from some road or other. If I start naming them I will miss someone but especially today Beryl, Marylin, Lisette, Linda, Amy, David, Jack, Larry. Friends at the Academy—Linda, Katy, Anne, Ziona, Lisa, Michael, again too many to count. And new friends Don, David, Keith. And many, many at Congregation Kneseth Israel. I guess that means I am thankful for my cell phone. Oh yes, you bet. And I think maybe T-Mobile fixed mine today. I am thankful for Ozzie at T-Mobile, and Fred at T-Mobile in Nashua.

For food. It is no secret that I like to eat. I like lots of food. Even vegetables. An Alef Bet of them. Asparagus, Artichokes, avocado, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, corn, fennel, leeks, mushrooms, pumpkin, spinach, tomatoes (OK a fruit). You get the idea. I like the variety, the colors, the spice. I like cooking. I like going to the farmer’s market and picking out the perfect, in-season something. I LOVE steak, potato and asparagus. I love the perfect cup of coffee. I love having conversations over dinner and discussing the issues of the day. And I love the fact that I have a great Weight Watchers leader, Terra, who keeps me in check and reminds me it is not just about the food. It is a lifestyle. And her optimism, her encouragement and her self-love makes all the difference. And I know that not everyone has enough to eat. We have enough food in the world. G-d does provide as the Birkat Hamazon says, we need to learn to distribute it better.

For shelter—I love our new house. We’ve been here a year now in this location. We haven’t spent much time decorating but all the stuff we had crammed in our condo looks great here. We have built in bookcases everywhere and a palatial master bath that is almost embarrassing. We have a big deck that made figuring out how to put up a sukkah more complicated but we did it! We are right next to the wetlands so the sound of birds greets us. Simon put in a large vegetable garden. If I call you and say I live in a cornfield, don’t necessarily believe me although they are in walking distance, as are the cows, and the river. Simon thinks we live in a forest on the edge of the prairie. Not really forest either. But it is beautiful. The sun is shining through the windows with snowflakes flurrying. We have plenty of room. Come visit. Again, I realize that not everyone is as lucky as us.

For heat. This has been a cold year. The coldest November on record in Chicagoland. Snow for Passover, Yom Kippur, Halloween and now Thanksgiving flurries. Again, we are lucky. I am relieved that the cost of gas is coming down. I think we must continue to work on issues of climate change. We have heat. So many do not.

For clothing—Sometimes I can’t figure out what to wear. I am between sizes and that is a good thing. But I have a new winter coat and plenty of hats and scarves and gloves (thank you Roberts Family and Echo!). I have shoes and pants, dresses and skirts, shirts and blazers. Dressy clothes, business clothes, casual clothes, painting clothes, athletic clothes.

For health—This is a big one. I am again lucky. I am relatively healthy. Sure, I could be more healthy if I could lose more weight. I am thankful for scientists who work on research that produce medications that help keep me healthy. I am thankful for doctors who are skilled and smart and compassionate. For nurses. For therapists be they PhDs, social workers, psychologists, physical, occupational, respiratory, massage. All them help keep all of us healthy. I am especially grateful for Leslie, for Marian, for Heather, for David, for Dorothea. I am thankful that I can run again. That I can walk without pain. That I can be outside in creation and enjoy praising G-d in that way. Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav counseled that we should be outdoors for an hour each day, just walked. Henry David Thoreau thought four hours would be ideal. I may not have four hours and some days even an hour seems hard to find. My doctors, my nurses, my medications and my exercise keep me healthy. I am thankful.

For Creation. For nature—How can we not be amazed and awed at the beauty of Creation? How can we not work to protect it? A sunset. A sunrise. A mountain peak. An ocean view. Or a lake. A walk in the woods or through the prairie. For the variety of animals. I can even be thankful—and this is a stretch—for mosquitos. As the song says, “All G-d’s creatures got a place in the choir.”

For education—I am who I am because my parents believed in education. I read early. I devoured books. I learned the importance of asking good questions. For Oakton Elementary, for Breton Downs, East Grand Rapids Middle School, East Grand Rapids High School, Tufts University, Hebrew College and the Academy for Jewish Religion. For teachers and administrators. Guidance counselors and librarians. Coaches and leaders and advisors. For classes and books and extra-curricular activities. Sometimes I learned more from the “extras” than from the classes themselves. “Much I have learned from my teachers, even more from my colleagues and the most from my students.” (Ta’anit 7a) I am grateful to all.

For employment—This is the biggest one this week. I have a job I love. Sure some days the hours are long. Sure there are days I complain. But I have found a job where I can make a difference in the world and maybe even more importantly in the lives of individual people. I have congregants who take their Judaism seriously. Who wrestle with tough issues. Who engage with their tradition deeply. Who ask hard questions. Who want to be mensches. Who want to be a partner with their rabbi. It is exactly what I was looking for when I went into the rabbinate.

This Thanksgiving, I have a lot to be thankful for as well as grateful. What are you thankful for?

November 26, 2014
I had a professor once who thought that Jews didn’t cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Many in the class argued with him vehemently. I am not sure we ever convinced him. I had a congregant argue with me that according to Orthodox Jews, Thanksgiving isn’t a Jewish holiday so they don’t celebrate it in the Orthodox world. The Reform Movement this week sent out an email about how to make Thanksgiving more Jewish. If you are looking for ideas for your own Thanksgiving table it is a good article. http://www.reformjudaism.org/blog/2014/11/21/thanksgiving-jewish-holiday?utm_source=WU&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20141121&utm_campaign=Feature

But it doesn’t go far enough. She is correct. The original Puritans took their religion seriously (too seriously if you ask me and I worked as a Pilgrim at Plimouth Plantation where we were not allowed to joke or laugh or talk about Christmas. Christmas and birthdays were just other days, not something to celebrate). But they did take thanking G-d seriously. And they saw their role in cold, snowy New England, as a utopian society. They were a light to the nations. A light on the hill. Their celebration of Thanksgiving was based on the Jewish festival of Sukkot. The harvest festival. Governor Bradford learned to read Hebrew: “Though I am grown aged, yet I have had a longing desire to see with my own eyes something of that most ancient language and holy tongue, in which the Law and the oracles of God were written and in which God and angels spoke to the holy patriarchs of old time . . . My aim and desire is to see holy text, and to discern somewhat of the same, for my own content” (p. xxviii, edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, 1989).

This month my congregation has been focusing on prayer. It was very enriching. The conversations were wonderful. One older congregant explained that it is really very simple. He prayed, “To thank G-d. To praise G-d. That is all. That is why we are here.”

Another challenged me to think about the difference between grateful and thankful. Until last week I had always thought they were synonyms. Her feeling is that grateful is an internal sense and thankful is what we feel when someone is nice to us. A check of the web leads to many answers. One said that we use grateful when we talk about how we feel when someone is kind to us. “Thank you so much for helping us move. We are so grateful” “I would be grateful if you sent me information.” Thankful is used when we are relieved. “I am thankful to survive the accident.” I am not sure this settles it for me. I love this kind of word play and am delighted to have thought it out.

In any case, the rabbis of the Talmud teach we should say 100 blessings (at least) a day. It sounds difficult. The reality is that in the Birkat Hashachar, the introductory portion of the service, there are at least 50. We spent Saturday morning counting them.

So what I am thankful for?

I am thankful for G-d. For life. For family. For friends. For food. For shelter. For heat. For clothing. For health. For meaningful employment. For the ability to make a difference in the world.

These are good questions. How do you see grateful and thankful? What are you thankful for? Happy Thanksgiving.

How many of us have ever bargained with G-d? While it might seem audacious, we come from ancestors who did precisely that. This past week we read the parsha, portion that includes Abraham arguing with G-d. This argument, bargaining, is how we know that Abraham is a righteous man, for all time, not like Noah who was a righteous man in his generation. What is Abraham arguing about? He is trying to save Sodom and Gemorrah. “Surely you won’t destroy those cities if there are at least 50 righteous people?,” he demands of G-d. Surely not, G-d responds. But there are not even 50 righteous. Abraham bargains all the way down to 10. From this we learn that to have a community you need 10 people. In order to have a minyan you need 10 people.

In our quest to understand prayer this month, this is a very relevant question. Traditionally you need 10 adult Jewish men for a full, complete service. You need 10 for a minyan. You need 10 for Barchu (the formal call to worship), for the Torah service, and for the Reader’s Recitation of the Amidah, You need 10 people to say Kaddish. You need 10 people for Mourner’s Kaddish. Many have argued with me this week: that it is about intention.

• “I can say Kaddish at home and remember my father. I don’t need 10.”
• “We used to say Kaddish if there were 9 by counting a child or the Torah as the 10^th.”
• “We would count a minyan if there were 8 plus two non-Jews, two kids or a kid and the Torah.”

And while this is a tradition, maybe we don’t need a minyan. It is acceptable to pray alone. Many do just that. When we go to sleep we might say the Sh’ma. When we wake up we might say Modeh/Modah Ani. We may live somewhere where there is not a daily minyan. We may like meditating or praying on our own.

Pirke Avot, the Wisdom of the Fathers, part of the Mishneh teaches us:

Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion says: When two sit together without any words of Torah between them it is just a setting for frivolous people, as it says (Psalms 1:1), that a person [who only desires God’s Torah] does not sit among frivolous people. But when two people sit together and there are words of Torah between them, the Shekhinah – Divine Presence – is between them, as it says (Malachi 3:16): ‘Then those who fear God engaged each other in conversation, each with their friend, and God listened and heard. Then it was written as a book of remembrance before Him, for those who revere God and who contemplate His Name.’ (Pirke Avot 3:2)

When there are just three people gathered, a full Birkat Hamazon, grace after meals is recited.

For two weeks now we have held an experimental, experiential, alternative service. The question has come up whether it is a minyan if there are not 10 in the room. My thought was that if there were at least 10 in the main sanctuary and some in the library, we were covered. Halachically that may not be quite accurate. Even if the door is open. However, I think that goes to intention, kavanah. It is our intention to have a service. The conversation has sparkled in there. Words of Torah have been exchanged. There has been deep learning. Deeper prayer. It has provided an opportunity to explore prayer and Judaism. The Shekhinah was clearly present—with or without a formal minyan. And isn’t that what prayer is about?

Last week I saw a post on Facebook I didn’t want to read. Our friend, Kathy Meyer, one of the first people we met in Elgin was not expected to live through the week. I quickly called Simon to see if he thought since I was in Deerfield I should just go to Hyde Park. We decided no, that we would go together later in the week. We had time. I was tired and didn’t want to drive through Hyde Park alone at night. I talked to Sarah and said, “I want more time with Kathy but I am not going to pray for a miracle here. That would be selfish. Kathy was ready to die and she wanted to sit at the foot of Jesus. She was so sure that is where she would be.”

By the time I got home that night, Kathy was gone.

I spend a lot of time talking to people, Jews and non-Jews about life-after-death. Jews seem less sure than Christians. We have a concept of olam ha’bah, the world-to-come, and yet we believe that the reward is in this life. We have a concept of hell—sometimes we use the word gehenna or she’ol. It is maybe the separation from G-d. We may have a concept of purgatory and that is why Jews recite Kaddish for a parent only for 11 months and not 12. We don’t want to think that the soul of our very own parent might hang in the balance, in suspension for the full twelve months. I don’t have clear answers to give people. I wish I did. It would be simpler. Easier.

And yet, I don’t think that life just ends.

Kathy was a remarkable woman. She cheated death more times than most can count. She has been on oxygen since before we knew her. Yet she was active. She walked Wyatt, their golden retriever, part of the reason we have a dog! Then she walked Wyatt and Walter. She was so active in her church—running their missions program, one of their Sunday School programs and doing a teaching on human trafficking. She loved coming to our house for Passover and she attended one Java and Jews and one Shabbat evening service. She was always curious. She was always learning. She loved to cook and to play games on Saturday nights. And she loved her family. Her goal was to get well enough to visit her newest granddaughter in Vancouver, WA just three weeks ago. And she did. She talked about her husband Mike, her daughters, her son and those two grandchildren constantly. And her G-d.

We could learn a lot from Kathy, in how she lived with passion and in how she died. Living fully, courageously. Beating the odds over and over again. Never quitting. Never (at least with us) being bitter.

One of my last conversations with her was about a family member that she described as a secular Jew. They just didn’t seem interested in faith or G-d or prayer and she wished for them the richness she had in her church. I talked to her about the book that Henri Nouwen wrote to his secular Jewish friend, Life of the Beloved. She was going to borrow my copy. I just ordered one for Mike, her husband, to give away.

The funeral was today. Sandwiched between my Java and Jews programs at three separate coffee shops. There was singing. There was story telling. There were tears and laughter. There were prayers. And the acknowledgement that sometimes our prayers don’t work. We all wanted more time with Kathy. There was a recognition that the human race has decided that death is the enemy. But death is not the end.

In the end, like Jewish funerals, there was food. Even deviled eggs. (or angel eggs, just ask me) And those eggs made me smile. Life is a circle, an egg. And Kathy lived hers so very, very fully. Perhaps our prayers, spoken and unspoken were answered.

I haven’t written much lately and people are beginning to wonder where I am. Maybe it is writer’s block. Maybe it was the intensity of the high holidays. Maybe it was writing 40 days or almost 40 days about peace. Maybe it is in not quite completing that project and leaving people who wrote beautifully hanging. For that I apologize. Maybe it is in balancing my own need to write for my own spirituality with the needs of a congregation that is traditional in approach. Historically, Jews did not write on Shabbat. It is one of the 39 categories of prohibited work based on building the Temple in Jerusalem. So if I write on my computer is it writing? Even the Orthodox in Jerusalem are figuring out how to text on Shabbat. Is that possible? http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/international/new-shabbos-app-creates-uproar-among-orthodox-circles Like all things, maybe yes, maybe no.

If I write on my day off, as I am now doing, is it a day off? Do rabbis ever get a day off? Is it possible to turn off my brain from thinking about these really deep theological, philosophical realms?

So I am back to writing. Thank you Jim, for asking for it, cajoling for it, demanding it, nudging for it, even during a football game.

This month my congregation is focused on prayer. Jewish prayer to be clear. We are trying a shorter, more relevant (?) service on Saturday mornings at 10:30 in parallel with our traditional one that begins, like always at 9:30 on Shabbat morning. We are struggling with what to call it. Is it an alternative service? Experimental? Experiential? Some wonder if it is even a service if it is shorter.

As part of this month long focus, I am thinking deeply about the issues, challenges, pleasures of prayer. I am asking questions—of everyone—the kids, the parents, our senior members. I am asking questions of myself.

This week I asked the kids, “What is prayer.” They answered that it is a conversation between them and G-d. They do it in appreciation, gratitude, thanksgiving, to ask for something like a goal in a soccer game or to do well on a test or for a family member who is sick. The adults who came to the first service pray to achieve comfort, community, serenity, peace, calm, healing. As one of our older members said, “It is simple. To praise G-d. Nothing more.”

Why do I pray? For those reasons and to be reassured. To realize that there is something beyond myself. To not feel alone.

So come join Congregation Kneseth Israel’s conversation. How do you pray? Why do you pray? What do you want to get out of a prayer experience?