Rabbi Philip Weintraub
Congregation Agudas Israel
8/16/2014
Technology is a funny thing. It helps us in so many ways, yet slows us down in others. Looking at this week’s parsha, I realized there were topics I did not want to discuss, and topics I did, most specifically Chapter 8, vs 10 10 “When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.” (NJPS translation from http://learn.jtsa.edu/content/translations/eikev/torah-portion/eikev )
” וְאָכַלְתָּ, וְשָׂבָעְתָּ--וּבֵרַכְתָּ אֶת-י--ה-ו--ה אֱ--לֹהֶיךָ, עַל-הָאָרֶץ הַטֹּבָה אֲשֶׁר נָתַן-לָךְ.
I knew that I had written about that verse, about the Talmud’s extensive discussion, but did not know when/where. I scrolled down through pages and pages of tweets on twitter, eventually reminding myself that the Talmudic source for Grace after Meals is in Talmud Brachot 47 and following. I searched my google drive--my old sermons in the cloud--and found from Rosh Hashanah 2012 the following:
Today’s study, p. 47, is in the seventh chapter, which mainly discusses Grace After Meals. Just as the Gemara connects one story to another, this section reminds me of a story in my own life. I was once finishing a lunch in the food court of a mall in Jerusalem. Sitting with me was an Orthodox rabbi I had known in college. As we prepared to say the Grace After Meals, he wondered aloud about people’s quest for spirituality. He said he could not understand how some Jews described themselves as “spiritual but not religious” but that many of those very people did not say Thanks to Gd after they ate. He said “How can you take the great blessing, that is eating, being blessed to have enough to eat in such an insecure world and NOT thank Gd for such good fortune!” I was glad he spoke rhetorically, since I had no good answer to his challenge! It made me think about my own difficulty in saying Birkat Hamazon, Grace after Meals, regularly, and he thus encouraged me to say it more often.
For us today, this is a great lesson. Elsewhere in Brachot, it says that one of the reasons the Jews merited the land was that they blessed Gd even when they were NOT satisfied with their food, with their portion. It is hard enough to offer thanks when we are satisfied, but to find it in our hearts to appreciate Gd when we do NOT have enough is even more challenging. Returning to Rosh Hashanah two years ago, I wrote about the
the 47th daf/page of Brachot. On that page I will see conversations about waiting for others to be served and bless their food before eating; when to say “Amen” to the blessings of others; how much food a waiter needs to eat to join a group who would like to say Grace after meals; the fact that a convert is not Jewish until he/she has gone to the mikvah (ritual bath); and can you have a minyan of 9 plus a Torah? As you can see, some of those subjects are clearly related to Grace after Meals and others seem like tangents, but very interesting ones. For more details, you’ll have to look at it yourself.
The Talmud regularly demonstrates associative thinking. Like many of us, it starts discussing a topic, then gets sidetracked. For some modern thinkers, this is incredibly annoying--why can’t they just stick to a topic, but for others, the side notes are what they are coming for, those little pictures of Talmudic life, of Judaism in another era. Yet, how many of us do exactly the same thing. We are telling a story about our hilarious uncle, and then rather than finishing the story, we tell three others before getting back to the point. On a side note, the books of Midrashim, Genesis Rabba, Sifra, Sifrei, include many early rabbinic sermons. They start and end with a verse and tell many other stories in between--with the goal being to create a web of connections bringing you from the beginning to the end. When Chasiddic rebbes would teach on Shabbat, this style was also very common, starting with a verse from the parsha, touching here and there and everywhere in rabbinic literature before coming back to the original to teach a lesson or a principle. In some ways we have changed, in others we have stayed the same.
The real reason I shared this verse
וְאָכַלְתָּ, וְשָׂבָעְתָּ--וּבֵרַכְתָּ אֶת-י--ה-ו--ה אֱ--לֹהֶיךָ, עַל-הָאָרֶץ הַטֹּבָה אֲשֶׁר נָתַן-לָךְ.
was because of Robin Williams. In the last couple days we have heard the story and the challenges of a man who struggled with addiction, with depression, with his own inner demons, yet managed to fight through all of that to teach poignant lessons to us all, to bring a light, a laughter, a humor to so many people. He once joked “I went to rehab in wine country, just to keep my options open.” His humor was incredible. His openness to his struggles brought help to many. I heard on the radio of his own openness to discuss therapy and the years that it brought him, the way it changed his life for the better. As such, he was an inspiration for so many. I pray that his death will encourage people to get the help they need. All of us need the support of each other--one of the things I mentioned on Tisha B’Av. Yet sometimes, we need more help. With Judaism’s focus on Pikuach Nefesh, the saving of a life, we know that it is important to ask for help, but sometimes it is not easy.
The challenge of depression is its power, its overwhelming nature. In the midst, it seems there is no getting out. The verse I mentioned is that we eat, we are satisfied and we bless/offer thanks. When one is depressed there is no such thing as satisfaction. Someone who is depressed cannot reach the level of thanks because they cannot recognize their own satisfaction. Robin Williams could not be satisfied with the success, with the love, with anything, because he had a deadly disease--depression. Until our society recognizes depression as a disease and not a character flaw, we are making this world more difficult for so many people. I shared this week a blog from the wife of a rabbi I know. She shared that when she was younger she went through a bout of depression. At the time, she could see no way out. Eventually she found support, therapy, etc., etc. and managed to be happy again. Now she has been fighting cancer. This time around, her community, her friends, her family, everyone rallied around her. They helped take care of her son, helped around the house. When people show the same level of support for those fighting depression as those fighting cancer, the world will be a better place. (See blog here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kenterskicklymphoma/journal/view/id/53ea7686a689b4bd04a369e2 )
From our holy Torah we learn that if we can eat and be satisfied, then we can find it in our hearts to be thankful to Gd for all of our gifts. Many of us are good at the eating. Some of us are pretty good at thanking Gd. It is the being satisfied part that is challenging. We may desire that which we do not have, that which our neighbors or friends or those on TV have. If we live our lives in that space, we can find ourselves wanting, as in lacking and also wanting, as in wanting more. As I mentioned earlier, we gain merit for offering thanks, especially when we are not completely satisfied. The funny thing is that once we offer thanks, we find that we ARE satisfied. Think about eating dinner. How often do you go back for seconds? What happens most of the time if you wait ten minutes--you realize you are full and don’t need those seconds! If we took that time to thank Gd, we would realize we do not actually need anymore. We have enough. If we flip the order around, if we offer thanks second, we can find that missing satisfaction.
The simple lesson from this one verse is the secret to a good life. Enjoy, be satisfied and offer thanks. It can be lesson for how we treat one another--enjoy each others presence, recognize and appreciate it within yourself and then share that gratitude with the ones bringing you joy. It can be a lesson for how we relate to Gd and the universe--for food, for comfort, for the very gift of life. As we start looking ahead towards the holidays to come, let us recognize all the good and Gd in our lives and offer thanks. Shabbat Shalom.
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