Shabbat before Thanksgiving 2012: Beware lest you think that pumpkin pie is the work of your hands!

A warm meal. A hot shower. Electric lights.

Just a couple of weeks ago, after the Hurricane, so many of us were joyfully grateful for these things. We received them as gifts. Many of us probably said, “Thank God!” when the electricity was restored.

When material and spiritual comforts are scarce, the quality of gratitude is so often right there, on the surface. We can’t help but feel thankful. We are aware that the abundance we live with most of the time can so easily be taken from us.

We read in the Torah, in the book of Deuteronomy:

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God . . . . When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Lord your God – who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage; who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its seraph serpents and scorpions, a parched land with no water in it, who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock; who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers had never known. . . – and you say to yourselves, “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.” Remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth, in fulfillment of the covenant that he made on oath with your fathers, as is still the case.

Here, the Israelites are about to cross over from the desert, a land of scarcity where they had to rely on God to take care of them every moment – to the Promised Land, a place of abundance. Their material needs will be met easily, but in the land, they will encounter a new spiritual challenge – to continue to be aware of God and the gifts that God is giving them at every moment.

More often than not, this is our challenge as well.
My teacher, Rabbi Jonathan Slater writes of this passage that:

This is not a prophecy so much as an observation of human behavior: awareness is sharp in the face of danger, yet dull in the midst of plenty. Why is it that we notice insufficiency, pain, obstruction, resistance, conflict and respond with clarity and energy, offering thanks when we experience relief? And yet, when all goes swimmingly we are less attentive to our lives, less likely to be grateful? And why, in the midst of wellbeing, are we resentful when we experience any diminution, any loss, any impediment to our continued happiness?

It may be partly biological: we are wired for self-preservation, and respond instinctively, automatically to danger. When we recover from times of stress and reaction, the body eases, the field of vision expands and we feel a sense of wellbeing and can say “thank God”. When we are not threatened by danger, when our lives are not (apparently) on the line, we apply ourselves to greater security, more food and shelter, and then even fame and fortune. Out of the habit of struggling for life, we are also out of the habit of saying “thank God”.
The Deuteronomy text warns us that when things are going well, and we have all that we need and more, our hearts grow haughty. Our ego grows so large that we forget that what we have is not due to the work of our own hands alone. We forget our times of struggle and scarcity and vulnerability, and we lose sight that all that we have, all that we have accomplished, is a gift from God.

Next week we will be sitting at Thanksgiving tables, laden with food, surrounded by family and friends. And since the holiday is called Thanksgiving, we will probably remember to give thanks to that which is greater than ourselves. I hope we will remember that that pumpkin pie is not the work of my hands alone.

But in days of abundance, especially on days that are not specially entitled, “Thanksgiving,” the Torah warns us: “Beware!” says the Torah, “lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Lord your God!” The note of warning and fear of God in this passage may not sit so well with us – a sense that if we forget to recognize that all that we have is a divine gift, then something terrible will happen.

The Chasidic tradition gives us a more hopeful interpretation, I think. According to the Birkat Avraham, the fear of God that we are to nurture, is more like awakened attention. Attention to the impermanence of life, its transience and unpredictability. We are to sustain that awareness even when it is less perceptible – when life is good, and all seems secure. When we hold fast to that awareness, we will be prepared for the inevitable stumbles, accidents and losses that occur in a life. They will not appear as insults, inconsistent with our rightful due, but part of the whole of life, as much a part of God as the goodness we knew before. Life and sustenance are “given” to us by God as much as they are “taken away” by God. That is life; it is all grace, a gift given freely, impermanent and precious.

One way that we can nurture this awareness of our own vulnerability is to make it a practice to reach out to others who are suffering from scarcity, to pay attention to their stories, and to respond with our compassion and help.

Once our electricity was restored after the storm I found myself naturally paying more attention to what was happening in Long Island, New Jersey and Staten Island. I was surprised at how intensely moved I was by the stories of folks who had lost everything, who were still without heat and water and electricity. My experience of scarcity was so recent and palpable that I felt a powerful impulse to reach out and help. And I suppose I also felt moved out of gratitude for not having had to suffer as direct a hit from the Hurricane that so many others suffered.

Unfortunately, for me and for most of us I imagine, that impulse towards empathy and action fades, the farther we are away from the event in time and space. Perhaps, this is why we have community institutions like synagogues and Food pantries, to remind us. Please continue to give, especially money – and the Shoreline Pantry needs our donations more than ever. http://cbsrzrabbi.blogspot.com/2012/11/hurricane-sandy-relief-lets-be.htm

And, in light of the violence occurring in Israel and Gaza, give to Federation and/or NIF.
https://secure-fedweb.jewishfederations.org/page/contribute/help-israel-now
http://www.nif.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1449%3Ain-a-time-of-war&catid=15%3Ageneral

Most of us are familiar with the words of the 23rd Psalm which are attributed to King David. It opens with the words, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The Birkat Avraham has an interesting take on this Psalm – he teaches that King David would constantly contemplate: with all of the wealth of the kingdom it was still possible for him to die of starvation for want of everything. It was only because “The Lord is my shepherd” that therefore “I shall not want”. Without God’s help, he could not be sure that he, the King himself, would have what to eat. This fear of losing everything is in fact a quality of faith – a knowing that all depends on God that leads to reverence of God.

Psalm 23 continues “You have set a table before us in full view of our enemies, You have anointed my head with oil, My cup overflows.”

Every day, every moment, we can choose, as King David did, to notice that all that we have is in fact manna from heaven. That there is a force of love and generosity in the universe that makes my life possible. That every table at which I eat is in fact, a Thanksgiving table.