A good friend got fired yesterday. What a devastating experience!  Oh, I know there are more polite ways of putting it. There was corporate restructuring.  He was downsized.  Bottom line—he got fired. And that is never fun.  For a man losing a job is more serious than just losing income.  It can erode his dignity.

 

Because I know him well and am familiar with his competence and integrity I assured him that he will soon be employed again.  What is more, I promised he will eventually find a far better job and will look back on yesterday as one of the most important days of his professional career.  In fact, I said, he’ll actually want to seek out his former boss and thank him for letting him go.

 

Now that is a special category of Thanksgiving, isn’t it?  Thanking someone who may not have meant you well but whose actions ended up doing you a favor.  And therein lies one of ancient Jewish wisdom’s secrets about gratitude.  Whether you owe someone thanks or not has nothing to do with the other party’s intent and everything to do with whether you benefited.

 

Thanking someone who picks up the keys your dropped comes fairly easily doesn’t it?  Few of us find it difficult to thank the checker at the supermarket or our taxi driver. But it feels quite unnatural and rather uncomfortable to thank someone who at best was indifferent to your fate but who, nonetheless, unintentionally did you a favor.

 

It is also difficult to thank the people who are closest to us and who love us and do so much for us. For instance, it sometimes feels awkward to thank a parent or spouse.  Which makes doing so all the more important.

 

“Juden Raus” was the dreaded Nazi yell Jews heard as they were being rounded up for deportation to death camps.  It means “Jews Get Out!”  I mention ‘Juden” to illustrate the origin of the most common term today for spiritual descendants of Abraham—Jews.  The word Jew comes from the anglicized contraction of the name of Jacob’s fourth son, Judah.

 

Judah’s mother, Leah, was the first person in the Torah to express gratitude. 

 

 

In Hebrew Judah’s name is pronounced YeHuDaH, from the Hebrew root for thanks. Gratitude is such a vital value that although Isaac was the first born Jew and his son, Jacob, had twelve sons, all of Jacob’s descendants take their collective name from Judah. It is not hard to see within this name the two letters Y and D which make up the word YaD or hand. 

 

What does hand have to do with gratitude?  Do you recognize expressions like “I really must take this problem in hand,” or “He has a hand in it” and “He’s an excellent handyman?”  The word ‘hand’ is always a metaphor for action.

 

That is why gratitude and hand are linked through the magic and mystery of Hebrew.  Gratitude, in order to count, must be far more than an emotion; it needs an action.  At the very least one must verbally express appreciation.  A little higher up the moral scale is writing a handwritten note.  Still better is sending a gift or doing something in return.

 

Acting gratefully toward the majority of people is not too hard.  Doing so toward people who inadvertently helped you but care nothing for you or, paradoxically,  toward people who love you is much harder.  The track for moral growth is to do it anyway.

 

My friend is going to be fine.  You know how I am so sure?  Because he retained his dignity by thanking his former boss for the years of employment he enjoyed.

 

Thanksgiving presents a wonderful opportunity to be grateful for the blessed land in which we live, for our families and friends. As our “action” to express appreciation to you, through Dec. 1st, we are offering free standard shipping on all orders over $30, within the continental United States.

 

Our thanks, also, to those of you who responded to our appeal for the American Alliance of Jews and Christians which sponsors this Thought Tool. We apologize for the links that didn’t work. If you wish to read the letter, click here.