Crowds of people were standing waiting and waiting at the bus stop in Bnei Brak on Motzei Rosh Hashana for the 402 bus to Yerushalayim. (Only someone who’s actually been there on Motzei Yom Tov knows what it means…!) Bus after bus, chock full, rode past these families with crying, impatient children, screaming babies, and all their peklach, until they saw an empty bus approaching from a different route. The men stopped the driver and begged him to please have pity on them and take them to Yerushalayim. He asked “Didn’t you see my number?”
After a few minutes of begging, believe it or not, he agreed to do the Bnei Brak – Yerushalayim route and changed his number to 402! Three busloads of people all squeezed into this bus, all holding their breath. No one dared complain that they were squashed, six in a bench of two, as they silently hoped to be allowed the privilege of finally travelling home, and the driver sped off.
Towards the end of the journey, some of the passengers asked the driver, “How come you agreed to do such a thing?”
He answered like this: “There was a shortage of buses at the parking lot, and nobody wanted to be the driver of the one sole bus that was available, dreading to be the target of angry passengers’ complaints at the inadequate service being provided. Suddenly I had a brainwave and volunteered to do the job. I pretended to be doing a different route, and when I ‘agreed’ to do you all the favor and change my bus number, I earned your admiration and appreciation, because nobody expected or demanded anything from me!! So I ended up with a bus (over)full of grateful passengers instead of a journey of never ending complaints!
Isn’t that just amazing?
When our expectations are too great, we end up just complaining our way through life, and automatically giving over the wrong attitude unintentionally to the next generation as well. But when we -the Yiddishe Mammes- really work on Hoda’a, and are zoiche to wake up with a truly grateful song of Modeh Ani in the morning, sincerely meaning it, then the gift we are portraying to our kinderlach is just unlimited!
Little children who only have small השגות get happier much faster. Smile to a 3 month old baby and you’ll get an instant, beaming smile of gratitude back! Give a toy to a one year old, and see how he thanks you with his eyes – even before he’s capable of pronouncing the word ‘thanks’ yet.
Why is this? Because they are still innocently and truly grateful, without thinking like an אויבער חכם… But once they get a little bit older, it becomes a different story. Try taking a six year old to the toy store and buying him a one dollar toy… What goes through his mind? There are so many exciting things around – why on earth is she trying to please me with such a small toy?...
And take a true look at ourselves… what do our own thoughts consist of???
By nature we tend to just demand, and not to thank. I was once in the emergency room with a child and a friend I met there asked me to call my Zeida – Rav Tuvia Weiss of Yerushalayim Shlita, to give his name to be mispallel for. He asked me, “Please call and let me know when he’s out of danger. People don’t think of doing that, and leave me davening and davening, waiting to hear the good news, long after the danger’s over.”
However, once we open our own eyes, work on the concept of Hoda’a and appreciate things, it will automatically be given over to our children, because they’ll just feel it in the air.
I had a little three year old who counted her scrapes and scratches every night, krechtzing, “Mommy, it hurts!” One night, I told her to ask Hashem to make it better… The next morning she comes along – “Mommy! I thanked Hashem as soon as I woke up because He made me all better in the middle of the night, see?”
If it sounds so simple in theory – then why is it so difficult in reality?
Because it’s just the yetzer hora who is trying to magnify the difficult moments and get us to ignore the huge amounts of amazing things we constantly are being given by Hashem in His beautiful world. That’s his job – to push us down and bring us into עצבות, then his job is easy…
It’s possible to find what to thank Hashem for in every situation:
Your dryer breaks down:
Thank You Hashem that my washing machine works,
And that the sun is shining to dry it…
And thank You for giving me the כח to be able to bend down and hang it on the line,
And that my family have more than one set of clothes each…
After a sleepless night with a teething baby:
I thank You Hashem for giving me this baby
And for giving him teeth
And for giving me ears to hear his cry and be there to comfort him…
The list is never ending and even though in the beginning it might take a bit of extra thinking, once we get used to the exercise it can become second nature.
Even in the middle of the concentration camps the Tzanzer Rebbe called out – “I thank You Hashem for being on this side – that I’m part of the Yiddishe nation that’s being pursued and tortured, and I don’t belong to the wild animals on two legs who murder right, left and center without mercy…
I recall sitting in the sukkah of a childless holocaust survivor, as he showed us the simple yet beautiful chains and stars that he himself made to decorate his succah walls. Listening to him singing “ושמחת” with a pure shining face and a true, innocent simcha to be a Yid and be able to sit in Hashem’s Sukka – פשוט לחזות בנועם ה'... really gave me a ‘shuckel’ in my life…
We are all intertwined and tangled into our sophisticated lives, with so many complicated, disturbing thoughts of why others have what we don’t, and why do we deserve less, that we convince ourselves that when we’ll have what we want, then we’ll already begin living a life of Hoda’a.
What did this poor Yid have in his life?
Scars of the war on his body, alone in his sukkah with no children or grandchildren in existence, yet his face radiated simchas hachaim because he didn’t feel alone, or lacking!!! He is with Hashem, full of simcha to be part of the Chosen Nation, and is actually being zoiche to fulfil His will – בסוכות תשבו שבעת ימים. What can a Yid desire more than that?!...
It reminded me of a real life תם from סיפורי מעשיות. The Tam thanked his wife with an אמת, and merited to feel all the delicious tastes in plain, dry bread!
We have such delicious food – teach your children to thank Hashem for all the appetizing different colors and shapes of fruits before they bite into their apple without thinking. Teach them to appreciate the time you spent cooking and baking for them to make the dishes that they like. Parents sometimes mistakenly think that true love to children means not asking them to thank for whatever you are giving them. Yet really, this is negative chinuch which gets the child used to constantly receiving without ever thanking, and growing up feeling that ‘I deserve everything and everyone owes me’. This is the total opposite of how it should be – to know that everything belongs to Hashem and I don’t deserve a thing. All that I receive is a total chessed from Hashem.
Another opportunity to teach about Hoda’a is at bedtime. Try and sit with your child and as you talk together about the day that is just ending, thank Hashem together and help them find little incidents to thank for. On their birthday, help them muse over the past year and recall what they can remember to thank Hashem for, and you can include a tefilla for the next year as well.
As children feel that their parents’ life is good, and they see their simchas hachaim flowing through their veins, this causes the children to receive a tremendous desire to also want to live like this, and this is the subconscious part of chinuch.
A child who knows how to thank his parents will grow knowing how to thank Hashem and set up a home with אהבה ושלום, a place where the Shechina rests. They will not feel lacking in any way, and will have a true חיים טובים in both worlds.
Even more, through Hoda’a we can bring down yeshuos! As the Rebbe says, when someone meets his friend, who asks him how he is, and he answers with simcha, ‘I feel good Baruch Hashem’, even though it’s really not so good, then Hashem says, ‘that’s called good? I’ll show you what good means…
* * *
Visualize the world painted in vibrant, vivid colors!!! Hear the song of the בריאה like music to your ears from all different directions, and with a spring in your steps embrace life with a ruchnius’dig view of seeing Hashem in everything around you. With Hoda’a you will feel a higher purpose in life with an elevated feeling of reaching your own, personalized goal in life, and through this you’ll be able to overcome your nisyonos. As the Rebbe says in Likutei Moharan: ‘The main pleasure of Olam Haba is to thank, praise and recognize Hashem, because through this, we become close to Him.
The Chashmonaim found one small sealed jug of oil, and this burnt for eight days. Our avoda is to search and find the small פך השמן in our neshama, and be prepared to kindle a small light in the darkness of today’s world, even though it doesn’t seem to be achieving much. To remind ourselves that the Rebbe said, ‘a little is also good’, and like that, we’ll know how to thank Hashem for all the little things in life, and be happy with the good. Through this thankfulness, we will receive strength to continue lighting more and more lights b’ezras Hashem.
Let’s daven to be zoiche not just to SAY the words of Hallel on the eight days of Chanuka, but to really sing הלל והודאה to Hashem from the depths of our neshama, and to continue with this derech the whole year round, and like R’ Nosson writes in Likutei Halachos: ‘when people will listen to the Tzaddik and constantly believe that everything is for our good, and remember to thank Hashem at all times, then all our tzaros will end and we’ll be zoiche to the complete geula.’
