But No Thanks?

The idea of gratitude is central to Judaism. Expressing our gratitude to Hashem for His ongoing kindness in an integral part of the Torah day, and saying thank you to others from whom we have benefited is a bedrock Torah value.

However, while expressing gratitude is something which we can very easily relate to as a value, curiously, it is also something that we can equally easily forget to do. Why is this so?

While there are many answers to this question, a major impediment to expressing gratitude worth noting is the feeling of entitlement that a person may have. He may feel he somehow deserves that people should do things for him, therefore, he doesn’t really owe them a debt of gratitude. If he says thank you, it will be as a courtesy, because that’s how gracious he is to those who recognize the things they should be doing for him. It is the equivalent of being brought food by a waiter in a restaurant. Even if one says thank you, it is not an expression of gratitude for the kindness of giving him the food, but a courtesy for bringing him the food that he paid for. To the egocentric person, he has paid in abundance in advance simply by existing. His attitude can be summed up by saying, “Obviously, people should be doing things for me, after all, I’m me!” Flawless logic, to be sure. Sadly, however, its beauty and cogency are typically lost on everyone except the person who propounds it.

A powerful lesson regarding casting off this attitude is to be found in an intriguing statement in the Gemara:^[1]

Said R’ Yochanan in the name of R’ Shimon ben Yochai, from the day the Holy One, Blessed is He, created His world, there was no one who expressed thanks to Him, until Leah came and expressed thanks, as it says,^[2] “This time I will thank Hashem.”

The verse quoted refers to Leah’s reaction when her fourth son, Yehudah, was born. Indeed, the verse proceeds to say that she called him Yehudah (יהודה) on account of this feeling of gratitude (הודאה).

The words of the Gemara are quite perplexing. Are we really to understand that no one had ever said thank you to Hashem before Leah? This would include Avraham and Yitzchak, Sarah and Rivka!

No one?

The commentators explain: We can be quite certain that many people had indeed expressed thanks to Hashem before Leah. However, there was a certain crucial element of expressing thanks that Leah introduced into the world. The background for this is the fact that the Matriarchs knew that Yaakov was destined to have twelve sons.^[3] Given that he had four wives, simple mathematics dictated that each wife would bear him three sons. Thus, when Leah had her first three sons, we may be sure that she said thank you to Hashem, but it was a thank you accompanied by a feeling of “naturally, each wife will have three sons — thank you for mine.”

All of this changed when Leah had her fourth son. The entire model of “three sons each” was destroyed, for now one of the wives would no longer be bearing three sons. At this point, Leah realized that her thanks to date had been insufficient, for it was a mistaken notion to think that the first three sons naturally accrued to her. With this in mind, she instilled this lesson into her son Yehudah, and taught the world that it is a major error to go through life thinking that one naturally deserves every good thing. The full meaning of gratitude is to recognize that the person did not have to do you that favor at all. Realization and internalization of this basic truth will clear our way toward giving people the thanks they deserve.

^[1] Berachos 7b.

^[2] Bereishis 30:35.

^[3] See Rashi to Bereishis 30:34–35.