Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together.
There’s a wonderful old Jewish story that goes like this. One night, Isaac, the son of Reb Yechiel of Krakow, had a dream. He saw a wonderful treasure hidden under a bridge in Warsaw. When he woke up early the next morning, he knew he had to go there and find the treasure. So off he went.
This was not a short trip—Krakow to Warsaw is nearly 200 miles. But he had seen the treasure so clearly, so he was motivated. His spirits were high.
When Isaac arrived at the bridge, he wanted to go to the spot he had seen in his dream right away. But there was a guard standing watch. Isaac paced and waited on the bridge all day long, but the guard never moved. Eventually, after nightfall, he noticed Isaac and came over to ask him what he was doing there. Isaac told him the story: “I came all the way from Krakow because I had this dream last night—it was so vivid! I could see a treasure buried under this bridge!”
The guard said, “Wow, that’s funny—because I also had a dream about a treasure last night. Except in my dream, the treasure was hidden inside the oven of a man named Isaac, the son of Reb Yechiel of Krakow!”
Upon hearing this, Isaac thanked the guard, turned around, and raced all the way back to his home in Krakow. He sprinted through the door, entered the kitchen, opened the oven, and sure enough, there was a splendid treasure right there! He became a wealthy man.
This is a wonderful story—one that Rabbi Alan Lew uses to open his book, Be Still and Get Going: A Jewish Meditation Practice for Real Life. And its main point is very clear: Sometimes in life we are so focused on finding or acquiring something we want that we miss the enormous treasures that are already in our lives. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we can take ourselves on journeys—whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual—far from home, only to realize that the things we were looking for were right there all along.
The reason Rabbi Lew began his book with this story was because he observed a generation ago that so many Jews were like Isaac. They were looking for spiritual treasures in other spiritual traditions like Buddhism—but they were missing the spiritual treasures right in their own backyard, the spiritual treasures of Judaism. Because of him and other trailblazing teachers over the last couple of generations, today we’re thankfully in a different place, and more folks—still not enough, but more!–have realized the treasures right there in their kitchens. The very existence of this podcast is a testament to that.
I also think the treasure under the bridge story is a great lesson in one of the most basic spiritual practices we have in Judaism or any other tradition. That’s the practice of gratitude. Isaac can’t offer gratitude for what he has until he knows it’s even there. But often, I think you’ll agree, the process works in reverse: we only realize what we have when we start looking for something to be grateful for.
This episode is airing right after the conclusion of our fall Jewish holidays. We’re hopefully feeling spiritually full. But this can also be a time when we feel some dropoff after reaching that high. As we look to carry the energy of the fall holidays into the new year, I think there’s no better or more foundational place to start than paying attention to gratitude. So we’re going to spend the next chunk of weeks on gratitude and how, with riches of our Jewish spiritual tradition, we can practice more of it in our lives.
Probably the first thing to say in a miniseries about gratitude is that it’s literally in our name as Jews. The word Jew comes from our ancestor Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah in the Bible. You may remember the story: Jacob had wanted to marry Leah’s sister Rachel, but was tricked by his uncle, Rachel and Leah’s father, Lavan, into marrying Leah first. This puts Leah in a seriously lousy position, and as she gives birth to Reuven, Shimon, and Levi, she gives each of them a name that reflects desperately how much she wants her husband to love her.
But when it comes to her fourth son, Judah, something changes. Hapa’am odeh et Hashem, this time I will be grateful to the Holy One, she says. That word odeh is a form of the word hoda’ah, gratitude—and it’s the root of Yehudah, Judah’s name in Hebrew. Judah is born into gratitude. That, perhaps, sets him up to be the leader of his brothers that he eventually becomes. And it definitely gives us an amazing spiritual inheritance, right there in the very name of our people.
It also gives us the very first word we traditionally recite in the morning, the first thing that comes out of our mouths: modeh or modah ani, I am grateful to you, Source of Life, for renewing my soul on this day.
When we wake up in the morning and, with our very first words, say Modeh ani, I am thankful, what we’re doing is grounding into the deepest roots of Jewishness. To be a Jew is, in essence, to be grateful—for the gift of this new day, for this new opportunity to live and make a home for the Divine in the world.
I want to really encourage you to make this practice a part of your life if it isn’t already. How we wake up can have such an important effect on the rest of our day. So, if you already have a waking up gratitude practice, great. But if you don’t, or if you’d like to try something new, here’s something simple.
When you become aware that you’re awake, try not to open your eyes for a moment.
Try to allow yourself to be aware of the sensation of waking up. It’s a pretty magical moment, that time when we’re just shaking off the slumber, when we’re conscious that our awareness is reactivated. Delight in that for a minute.
Notice your mind, your body, your heartbeat. Notice the sensations of warmth under the covers, of breath entering your nostrils and your lungs. Appreciate how extraordinary these things are—breathing, warmth, your heartbeat. It could have been otherwise. These are gifts.
Notice any sounds you might hear. Birds. Raindrops. Cars passing by. People bustling about. Again, gifts.
And, with appreciation for these gifts, say “Thank you.” Modeh ani for men, Modah ani for women, Odeh ani if you’re looking for a gender-neutral term. I am so grateful for this gift—of this moment, of this day, of this opportunity to be alive.
We’re not trying to paper over the bad parts of the world, the ways it needs to be repaired. We will get to all that work. But in order to do that well, we first need to ground in gratitude, to notice the enormous treasures right in front of us, hiding in plain sight. That’s what this practice does—and, I think, it’s the essence of Jewish life. What a gift to be grateful for.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.
ENDING
Thank you for joining us for Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, a production of Unpacked, a brand of OpenDor Media, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. If you like this show, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Check out our website, unpacked.media for everything Unpacked-related, and subscribe to our other podcasts, and check out the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Most importantly, be in touch–about what you heard today, what you’d like to hear more about, or to dedicate an episode. Write to me at josh@unpacked.media.
This episode was hosted by me, Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Audio was edited by Rob Pera and we’re produced by Rivky Stern. Thanks for joining us.