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Musings on Generosity and Gratitude: In the Shadow of Debt

I would like to express my gratitude to all of you for making time to be here on this Rosh Hashanah, a weekday, as you chose to put aside your weekly concerns and responsibilities and schedule this important time to be with us.

Gratitude is what sets us human animals apart from the animal world in general. Are cats grateful? No. Dogs? No. They love you, but the concept of gratitude is sophisticated, and in many ways, an unnatural set of emotional processes that has to be educated. I have watched my son and other mothers on the playground wrestling thank yous from their toddlers. And if I could only count the number of rhetorical questions that have been proposed by the parent during an average day, “And what do we say now?” In Russian, as in English, we call them “magic words” – “Please” and “Thank you”.

I would like to use this morning to explore the subject of gratitude. It will certainly not be an exhaustive study, but I feel that it’s a worthy attempt.

In Hebrew, there is the concept of “Hakarat ha-tov” – recognition of the goodness that someone does for you.

There is an apocryphal story about Andrew Carnegie, the great early-20th century tycoon. His sister lamented to him that her two sons, who were away at college, rarely responded to her letters. Carnegie assured her that if he wrote them, he would get an immediate response. He sent off two warm letters to the boys, and told them that he was happy to send along for each of them a hundred dollar check. Of course, he cleverly did not enclose the checks. Within days he received warm, grateful letters from both boys, who noted at the letter’s end that he had unfortunately forgotten to include the check. His letters had been read.

This humorous story hints at the real shadow a positive thing like gratitude can cast. Gratitude is complicated. It’s not only divine. 

While I was at the Hartman Institute this past summer, my teacher Yehuda Kurtzer told me about a non-fiction book by the American novelist Dara Horn about a man named Varian Fry. In 1941, the young Harvard-educated classicist arrived in occupied France on a daring mission to rescue more than 2,000 of Europe’s leading writers, artists, and intellectuals from the Nazis. He was 32 years old, and he was volunteered on behalf of the Emergency Rescue Committee, an ad hoc group of American intellectuals formed in 1940 for the purpose of distributing emergency American visas to endangered European artists and thinkers. During his 13 months in Marseille, he managed to rescue 2000 people. Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt, Claude Levi Strauss, Jacques Lipchitz, Andre Breton… these are just some of the people he managed to save from Vichy France.

During his time in Marseille, Fry was thrilled to be helping: “For some of these men, although I knew them only through their work, I had a deep love; and to them all I owed a heavy debt of gratitude for the pleasure they had given me. Now they were in danger, I felt obligated to help them, if I could; I felt obligated to help them, if I could just as they, without knowing it, had often helped me.”

As Dara Horn tells us, “Because of the people Fry saved, New York became the international center of the postwar art world; because of the people Fry saved, American universities became some of the world’s premier research institutions; because of the people Fry saved, Hollywood was reconfigured into global hegemony. Varian Fry essentially saved not only thousands of people but also the culture of Europe.”

“What was perhaps most painful for Fry after his return from France was the dissolution of his relationships with the artists and intellectuals he had saved – or, rather revelation that these relationships were themselves a sort of fiction.”

We can only guess what happened in the minds and souls of these great men and women I have come so much to admire. Horn suggests a sobering diagnosis: they were ashamed. When Fry was at his height, they were at their lowest. A continued relationship with Fry would be a constant reminder. Horn explains:

“The shame is only highlighted by the enormous difference in the experience for the rescuers and the rescued. For those rescued, it was the worst time of their lives, when their lives had the least significance. For the rescuers, it was the best time of their lives, when their lives mattered most. Everyone Fry saved had been living a nightmare. Yet as he left France, Fry wrote to his wife that ‘I have had an adventure – there is no other but this good Victorian word – of which I had never dreamed’.”

Fry’s story is a vivid example of the complexity of the rescuer-rescued relationship, and gratitude. I wonder if some of you have heard this in your own families: a small apartment, crowded quarters. Cousins arrive, live and learn from those who have arrived before. Get jobs, move out, at times do better than their hosts, but then have no desire for continued contact with those people who helped them to survive.

Fry never received the gratitude and recognition he deserved. 30 years after his death, Fry was honoured by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, one of very few Americans included in that list. But it would have been nice to have heard it during his lifetime. The same goes for our family members who have extended their generosity to their extended family who have passed them by.

The President of Yale University, Peter Salovey, addressed the 2014 graduating class: “The fact that there has been so little attention paid to gratitude in my field of psychology – the fact that you and I might not pay enough attention to it – could be because the need to express gratitude reminds us that we are not entirely in control; that we might be indebted or dependent; that our destiny is not entirely in our hands; indeed, that on occasion we are vulnerable. As one of my favourite contemporary philosophers of emotion, the late Robert Solomon, liked to say, gratitude is an uncomfortable emotion because it forces us to ‘recognize that none of us is wholly self-sufficient and without the need of help from others.’ Gratitude forces us to reflect on the limits to our sense of agency.”

People think that a cemetery is a very quiet place, but I disagree. I think that it is the loudest place on Earth. The cemetery is full of the gratitude not expressed during a person’s lifetime.

So what does Judaism teach us about expressing gratitude, or about not receiving the gratitude we feel is due to us?  In my research and observation, one thing became very clear: some of these debts can never be settled, either because we were not mature enough, or strong enough, to express gratitude to our parents, teachers, spouses, during their life, or there was something in the relationship that made the expression of gratitude, or its receipt, very difficult. Therefore, to bridge the gap, our tradition offers an innovative solution.

In the book of Deuteronomy, in the parashah Ki Teitze, the Torah features a wonderful pair of verses:

“When you reap your harvest in your field, and you forget a bundle in the field, you shall not turn back to take it; it shall be for the proselyte, the orphan, and the widow, so that you God will bless you in all your handiwork.

When you beat your olive tree, do not remove all the splendor behind you; it shall be for the proselyte, the orphan, and the widow. When you harvest your vineyard, you shall not lean behind you; it shall be for the proselyte, orphan and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, therefore I command you to do this thing.” (Det. 24: 19-20).

In these verses, the widow, the proselyte, the orphan, receive help from the farmer. But there is no mitzvah requiring them to express gratitude. However, the mitzvah of the farmer towards these vulnerable is directly related to the gratitude to the One who took the farmer out of Egypt, for it says, “you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. We thank God for our delivery, for our freedom, by kindness to somebody else.

Speaking of a debt that cannot be repaid, I think of the work of our amazing volunteers who have come together to sponsor a Syrian-Kurdish refugee family fleeing the civil war.

Our volunteers have worked tirelessly to collect resources, complete piles upon piles of paperwork, and advocate on behalf of these people displaced by a horrible conflict. As Jews, we know that if there is one story that all of us cherish, it is the story of fleeing oppression and coming into a world where the opportunity for safety, education, and sustenance can be provided. All of us in this building today are a result of that.

In 1974, two members of American government, Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson of Washington and Congressman Charles Vanik sponsored an amendment to the Trade Act in 1974, signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975, with countries with non-market economies that restrict freedom of emigration and other human rights. As a result of this law, in order to import the grain needed to feed its citizens, the Soviet Union had to allow emigration. In 1979, 50,000 Jews left the Soviet Union, eventually arriving to the shores of democratic countries: the US, Canada, Israel, Australia… My family was among them. What did I know then about the green hills and mist of Washington, or the tall Ohio corn ripening in August? I never personally thanked Mr. Jackson or Mr. Vanik, neither of whom were Jews, and I do not know the names of hundreds of office employees that typed, carried, filed and distributed papers that in the end rescued my family. I never thanked them, either.

When we arrived to New York, a Jewish woman, a volunteer for the Jewish Immigration service, with short blond hair, met us at the airport and took us to a hotel nearby so that we could make our connection to Indiana the next morning. She handed us an envelope with some money so that we could eat in the restaurant downstairs. We were in such culture shock that we were all dazed. To this day, I cannot remember her name, but I remember thanking her with a small matrishka – we had brought a whole suitcase full of the little wooden dolls. If it was not for her, who knows – we might have still been standing there at JFK, frozen from the shock of arriving in this new world. She likely does not remember us – we probably blend into a palate of the newly arrived Soviet Jewish mass. But to us, she was goelet – the redeemer. To this day, I wish that I could go back and thank her properly.

We owe… and are owed. We live with unpaid and unpayable debt… Psychology professor Robert Emmons, a leading expert on the science behind gratitude, writes:

“There is a basic reality about gratitude. We all begin life dependent on others, and most of us end life dependent on others. If we are lucky, in between we have roughly 60 years or so of unacknowledged dependency. The human condition is such that throughout life, not just at the beginning and end, we are profoundly dependent on other people. And we are aware of this dependence. Moral philosopher Alasdair Macintyre has referred to humans as ‘dependent rational animals.’ To be alive is to be in relationships with others, relationships that are vital to our well-being. Gratitude takes us outside ourselves where we see ourselves as part of a larger, intricate network of sustaining relationships, relationships that are mutually reciprocal….Life is about giving, receiving, and repaying. We are receptive beings, dependent on the help of others, on their gifts and their kindness.”  

Our community has come together to help this Kurdish refugee family. We have found ourselves in a position where we can give in order for this family to escape their horrific situation. We must assist – our tradition calls us to do so. And in doing so, we fulfil the debt we owe to those who assisted us.

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan tells us that “Men are not born free and equal, but are born to become free and equal. It is the goal of all social endeavors to bring about equality in the inequality.” And so, we strive to bring about equality in the inequality, even if it simply by repaying one person’s kindness by being kind to someone else.

But it’s not simply being kind. Our tradition offers us some insight on what that really means – and it is gratitude, but it’s not just saying “thank you”. In expressing gratitude, the Jewish ethos is in dealing in detail. God is in the details.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin recounts a story about Reb Shlomo Carlebach:

“A man who spent much time with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, used to speak of his ability to compliment and express gratitude …even for a muffin. On one occasion he sat with Reb. Shlomo in a dingy restaurant, presided over by a sour-looking proprietress. The woman was unusually homely and unpleasant. He was happy when she put down their breakfast order and returned to the counter. But after taking one bite of the muffin she had brought him, Reb Shlomo summoned her back. ‘My most beautiful friend,’ he said to her gently, ‘are you by any chance the person who baked this muffin?’

‘Yeah, I am, what about it?’ she retorted.

‘I just want you to know that this is the most delicious muffin I have ever tasted in my life.’

The woman gave a hint of a smile, thanked him, and started to walk away.

‘And I also want you to know,’ Reb Shlomo still was not finished. ‘And mamash (truly), I have to thank you because I was so hungry, and you did me the greatest favor in the world by so expertly baking this muffin, which is surely a taste of the World–to-Come.’

By now the woman was smiling broadly:

‘Well, gee, thanks a lot. It’s very nice of you to say so. Most people never comment when the food is good; you only hear from them when they have a complaint.’

Reb Shlomo went on to ask the woman about the special ingredients she used in preparing the muffin, and listed attentively. He was specific with his compliments, commenting on the muffin’s airy texture, its buttery and fragrant quality. Carlebach’s friend recalls that he was watching Reb Shlomo paean to a muffin with a mixture of amazement and amusement, until he gazed at the woman. ‘I was taken aback. The homely woman was no more. A few minutes with Shlomo had done the trick. She was transformed. She had become beautiful.’”

Gratitude makes you happier – and not just when you receive it. Telushkin tells us, “In addition to being the right thing to do, gratitude is also a prerequisite for happiness.”

That is, there is a psychological benefit to cultivating gratitude.

Telushkin explains:

“Consider the mindset of a grateful person: ‘Look what Sam did for me; he really likes me. Look how Barbara helped me; she really cares about me.’ As we cultivate the feeling of gratitude, we also cultivate a feeling of being loved.

“What is the mind set of an ungrateful person? ‘The only reason Sam helped me is to make sure I’ll reciprocate when he needs me. Barbara spoke to so-and –so on my behalf so that she can ask me to do something for her.’ An ungrateful person reveals not only a suspicion, but how profoundly unloved she feels. Ungrateful people cannot imagine that others care enough about them to be generous with no thought….behind it.”

I want to leave you with some spiritual homework: During the Days of Awe, make a list of any family members, teachers, rabbis, friends, colleagues who inspired you and believed in you. People with who you are perhaps no longer in touch, who showed you loyalty and warmth. An employer who gave you a break, perhaps when you were young and inexperienced. Who would benefit from your acknowledgement? 

“Gratitude is a moral memory of mankind” writes sociologist Georg Simmel. “Gratitude takes us outside ourselves where we see ourselves as part of a larger, intricate network of sustaining relationships, relationships that are mutually reciprocal.”

I could never thank the woman who greeted my family at the airport. None of us will ever be able to thank everyone adequately for what they have done for us at different stages of our lives. So what is left? What is left is for our life to become the living embodiment of that gratitude.

Shana tova.