Mina's Musings: Ha'azinu 2016

I received a lovely note from a congregant the other day in which she complimented me on a sermon I had recently delivered.  I thanked her for the compliment and said, please let me know if there was any negative feedback because I need that too.  She immediately wrote me back with the ways I could improve, and ended the note with a smiley face.  I sent her a second note thanking her for that feedback as well, since we all need both positive and negative feedback in order to grow.

Parashat Ha’azinu, which we read a little earlier, is Moses putting in poetic form some very negative feedback about the behavior of our ancestors in the desert so long ago.  Though the critical words were directed at our ancestors, I believe they in fact still have tremendous meaning for us today. 

We read:  “For the name of the Lord I proclaim; Give glory to our God!  The Rock! – His deeds are perfect, yea, all His ways are just; A faithful God, never false, true and upright is He.  Children unworthy of Him – that crooked, perverse, generation – their baseness has played Him false...

:הַלְיהוָֹה תִּגְמְלוּ־זֹאת עַם נָבָל וְלֹא חָכָם הֲלוֹא־הוּא אָבִיךָ קָּנֶךָ הוּא עָשְׂךָ וַיְכֹנֲנֶךָ

Do you thus requite the Lord, O dull and witless people?  Is not He the Father who created you, Fashioned you and made you endure!”

It is definitely not a compliment to be called crooked, perverse, base, dull or witless.  The question is what exactly is being referred to here?  What terrible sin is it that the Jewish people had done to deserve this tongue lashing from Moses? While some commentators believe that he was referring to the sin of the golden calf, others belief it is a very different sin.  

Focusing on the Hebrew word naval, which our Humash translates as dull, the commentator Nahmanides wrote concerning these verses:  “In my view, the word [naval] really means “ungrateful.” He explains that in the book of Samuel there is a man named Nabal, and of him we read:  “For he is just what his name says:  His name means ‘ingrate’ and he is an ingrate” (1 Sam. 25:25).  David had done him a great favor, guarding all his possessions and he did not want to compensate him as he deserved but “spurned “ David’s messengers (1 Sam. 25:14), treating him with disdain…He then goes on by saying, “So the phrase would seem to mean this:  “Do you thus requite the Lord for the good things He has done for you, you ungrateful people, lacking the wit to understand that you are doing evil to yourselves, not to God?”

This is a very interesting commentary, not only because of Nachmanides understanding of the word naval as meaning grateful, but for the second half of the sentence in which he says that by being ungrateful we do evil to ourselves.  This is a very incredible thing.  Eight hundred years before Oprah Winfrey or any other pop culture icon was preaching about gratitude journals, the 13^th century Spanish commentator taught his students that not being grateful causes one harm. 

Dr. Alan Morinis explains the role of gratitude thusly:  When you open up to the trait of gratitude, you see clearly and accurately how much good there is in your life. Gratitude affirms. Those things you are lacking are still there, and in reaching for gratitude no one is saying you ought to put on rose-colored glasses to obscure those shortcomings. But most of us tend to focus so heavily on the deficiencies in our lives that we barely perceive the good that counterbalances them.

There is no limit to what we don't have and if that is where we put our focus, then our lives will inevitably be filled with endless dissatisfaction. This is the ethos that lies behind the great biblical proverb, "Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own lot" (Pirkei Avot 4:1).

When you live charged with gratitude, you will give thanks for anything or anyone who has benefited you, whether they meant to or not. Imagine a prayer of thanks springing to your lips when the driver in the car next to you lets you merge without protest, or when the water flows from the tap, or the food is adequate?

When gratitude is this well established, it is a sign of a heart that has been made right and whole. Gratitude can't coexist with arrogance, resentment, and selfishness. The Hasidic teacher Rebbe Nachman of Breslov writes, "Gratitude rejoices with her sister joy and is always ready to light a candle and have a party. Gratitude doesn't much like the old cronies of boredom, despair and taking life for granted."

Understanding the relationship between gratitude and joy is perfect as we rapidly approach our Sukkot holiday.  Sukkot is a holiday in which we are commanded to experience nothing but joy.  Coming just a few days after Yom Kippur, where we denied our bodily needs, on Sukkot we enjoy ourselves in the sukkah in which we eat, drink, sing, dance, and enjoy life, all while thanking God for the harvest gifts and all that He gives us each day.  And that is what our portion means when saying that lack of gratitude causes harm to us.  When we lack gratitude we lack appreciation of our life and the inherent joy which comes from living each day as the blessing that it is.  As we approach Sukkot may each of us cultivate gratitude for our many gifts and joy in the blessing that is life.  Shabbat Shalom.