Hadassah Magazine June/July 2008

Counting Our Blessings

By Steven Moskowitz

The Talmud teaches that a person who enjoys the pleasures of this world without reciting a
blessing is like a thief who steals from God (Berakhot 35a). So the rabbis composed blessings
for every imaginable event. Some are familiar, such as Ha-motzi on bread or the Sheheheyanu
we recite on momentous occasions. Others are less familiar: on seeing a rainbow or the ocean
or hearing thunder. We can even express gratitude for the fragrance of a rose.
As a rabbi, I once had the occasion to recite a rare blessing. Because of the convoluted history
of European Jewry and the changes in what was once Yugoslavia, I officiated at a bat mitzva
where the girls grandmother was the queen of Serbia. I invited the queen and her husband, the
king, to the bima to recite a prayer for peace. Afterward, the cantor and I led the congregation
in the blessing on seeing a king, thanking God Who has given of His honor to flesh and
blood.
Imagine having the remarkable opportunity to recite thisin a Long Island synagogue! (S.Y.
Agnon recited this blessing when accepting the Nobel Prize for literature from King Gustav VI
Adolf of Sweden; and when the late King Hussein of Jordan visited Israel, Hasidic Jews rushed
to see him for this purpose.) Why did rabbis living under the tyranny of Roman emperors
compose such words? Perhaps because by reciting them we demonstrate that while the body
might be enslaved, our soul is set free by our expression of gratitude.
Most unusual of all the blessings are those said on seeing people who appear strange, in some
way disabled. Again, it is extraordinary that rabbis composed words of thanks for a situation
when one might not feel thankful. After all, they knew that, in that moment, our thoughts might
be less than noble (i.e., thank God it is not me). Just when our reaction would be less than
ideal, they taught us to recognize everything as a blessing, even when they appear to be the
opposite.
I followed the rabbis counsel at Sams bar mitzva. An autistic boy with significant special
needs, Sam fidgeted about the bima, picking at his talis, which agitated him at times. In lieu of
a sermon, he read brief explanations of drawings of the Torah portion. Still, he touched the
tzitzit to the exact place in the Torah and then recited the aliya blessing from memory. The
congregation sang Siman Tov, but it did not seem appropriate to wish him the threefold hope
of Jewish success: Torah, huppa and maasim tovim (good deeds). Instead, I recited the
blessing: Barukh Atameshaneh ha-beriyot, Blessed are You Who makes the creations
different (Berakhot 58b). I did not know what else to say. Perhaps I should just have cried
along with his parents.
But these ancient words seemed most appropriate to the occasion. They insist that we be
grateful, that we thank God for what we have. Curiously, I stumbled over the words of the
blessing. In Hebrew, a direct object is often separated from the verb by the untranslatable
word et. This blessing lacks that. My sense of Hebrew grammar wanted to add the word, but
the tradition codified the blessing without it. So I stammered. Then the blessings true import
occurred to me: Perhaps the blessing is intentionally broken. Let those who are so at ease with
the words of Hebrew blessings stumble.
Perhaps the purpose of this blessing is not to make me whole and force me to think of the
perfect God and the extraordinary variety of His creation, but instead to make me broken and
realize my imperfection. In that moment, Sam was not broken. In that moment of brokenness, I
was the student and the young boy the teacher.
Steven Moskowitz is rabbi of the Jewish Congregation of Brookville in Jericho, New York.