Summer is not too far from now. We are about to change the prayer in Atah Gibbor from prayer for rain and wind to only for dew (for the Land of Israel if not for England!). The couples who are getting married this summer through EHRS are getting itchy about completing their Ketubot and finishing their invitation lists. Sometimes I am invited to the wedding Simchas and sometimes not – I am ok whatever their choice is. It’s just a privilege to be there to officiate for the beginning of a new Jewish family among our people
Most of the time as a Rabbi you are invited to the simcha because the family has got to know you either over the years of in the run up to the life cycle event which the simcha celebrates, you have become a friend of the family. But just sometimes you feel that you are essentially an aspect of the table decorations there are wonderful balloon arrangements, flowers for the great aunts to take home, a bottle of red and a bottle of white and, on the far left or right of the top table, next to bubba, a decorative Rabbi – preferably bearded and with dutiful wife to his right – but if Reform and with working spouse then clean shaven and alone will do. Here is my Simcha story from many years ago and a congregation far away from EHRS.
The groom was Italian though had been living in England for some years, the bride was English from an originally Italian family. The bridegroom’s family over from Italy spoke very little or no English. I had cheerfully mugged up on a welcome speech for the Chuppah itself in Italian – bienvenuti a nostra ceremonia etc. Then it came time for the simcha which took place in a swish London hotel.
I am not quite sure what the family were thinking when they sorted out the seating plan – but certainly the idea that it might be nice for me to be able to speak to someone during the meal had not really occurred to them. Hence on one of those formal top tables there I was on the far left – sat next to the groom’s grandmother, who not only did not speak any English, she didn’t speak Italian but rather only Tuscan dialect, next to her was the groom’s father, he spoke only Italian, then the groom’s mother, who spoke only Italian. I was separated by four people from the next person whom I could speak to. So I spent that particular wedding smiling at the grandmother and staring into space.
As often one of my roles at the wedding was to lead Bircat HaMazon – grace after meals – so at the earliest opportunity I duly led the grace, made my apologies and made my way home.
In the end the only redeeming feature of that simchah was the opportunity to do the mitzvah of leading Bircat haMazon. Though my silent simcha was a particular challenge the simchas I find the most difficult actually are those where I am invited in my capacity as rabbi and am challenged by the request that either we do not do the Grace after meals, or that I somehow make it shorter than the six minutes or so that it normally lasts.
Sometimes this is done from apparently noble motives – such as that many of the people at the simcha will not be Jewish and thus it is assumed would be bored and alienated by Birkat haMason. My response to this suggestion is to say that it is then the duty of the person leading the thanksgiving after meals to make it understood what we are doing, to ensure that all of the guests are provided with a translation and transliteration of the prayers and songs and to lead some of the prayers in English so that all can participate. Too often though I reckon that the real reason why a few people would prefer not to have Bircat haMazon – the thanksgiving after meals at their simcha is because they simply do not feel the need to give thanks for what they have eaten and the plenty that they have shared with their guests at their function, especially when they weigh that act of thanksgiving against the benefits of six more minutes of uninterrupted conversation.
The final words of our second Torah portion this morning are the words which give rise to and are indeed included in our Bircat haMazon – v’achalta v’savarta uverachta et adonai elohaycha al ha aretz tova asher natan lach – when you have eaten and been satisfied then give thanks in blessings to your Eternal God for all the good land which he has given you. If asked by someone what the purpose of religion is I would say that this is one of them – to ensure that we do not take for granted the blessings of our lives – however little they may be and especially when they are manifold such as when celebrating a wedding
Religion helps you to create a space and find a structure to be thankful – to God, to providence, to nature for the goodness that sustains our lives. Having been in the habit of giving thanks, of not taking our blessings for granted we will then be in a more ready state to respond to the needs of others- because we realise what we have. Today there are people suffering around the world – in Myanmar after the earthquake, in Gaza as food aid is not getting through to them and the war continues and Hamas retains hostages from Israel, in Sudan as civil war seems unstoppable, and in London too as the cost of food causes so many families to cut back. How can we begrudge six minutes of thankfulness at our family simchas. The final words of the Liberal and Reform Bircat haMazon go – words which incidentally were written by Rabbi Michael Leigh z’’l in 1967 (Jewish Observance in the Home p25), help us to be responsive to the needs of others, open our eyes and our hearts and our hands so that we may share your gifts and help to remove hunger and want from the world.
The chance to give thanks and the context in which to do so is one of the purposes of religion. Our service is full of thanksgiving. Each of the blessings which end each of our prayers is a form of thanksgiving for the aspects of our life that we might otherwise take for granted. We began our service with thanksgiving for our songs, then thanked God for the light of day and for calling us as a people to serve him. We thank God for our redemption from slavery for his relationship with our ancestors and for giving us life, for the festival, for accepting our worship, for God’s goodness and for the measure of peace that we enjoy.
Each of these pieces of formalised thanksgiving are in the form of blessings beginning Baruch atah Adonai – by their formalisation they can perhaps pass unrecognised but if we can we should pause and contemplate just what we are expressing gratitude for. Rabbi Meir used to say (Menachot 43b) – each of us should find the time and space to say one hundred blessings each,day that we are alive. Indeed in the traditional three service structure of the Jewish day there are indeed one hundred opportunities to say Baruch Atah Adonai.
On Shabbat and festivals though, the services are reduced by omitting the intermediate benedictions – the sequence of short prayers that we have in a weekday service and thus of course in a weekday evening service encountered at a shivah, so how do you get up to your quota of one hundred thank you’s? Rabbi Hiyya had a solution for this, it is reported in the Talmud. He used to keep some spices and sweets on his person and smell them and eat one every once in a while so that he would have to say another blessing of thanks.
A formal structure of thanksgiving, services and grace after meals is a great aid to ensuring that we are grateful for the blessings that surround us, for food clothes and shelter, so that we learn not to take for granted and recognise and want to help with other people’s lacks of the daily essentials. As a father I used to spend large parts of the day reminding my two daughters to say please and thank you for the things that they ask for and enjoy. So indeed it says in our Torah portion that God brings us up like a parent to a child – don’t let him down by begrudging the opportunity to say thank you for the world we live in especially when we enjoy so disproportionately much of its blessings.
