November 2024: Finding Gratefulness Where We Can

Hello Friend,

Around this time of year, the word “should” comes up a lot. We “should” find ways to engage in thankfulness, we should feel grateful, and we should spend time with family and friends and feel happy for what we have.

I know that gratitude is good; it is powerful and soul-fulfilling and can be a tool of both self-love and tikkun olam. When we feel we are most in darkness, gratitude can open up our hearts. However, I’ve never enjoyed being told what I “should” feel, especially when I feel unsteady or lost. Even knowing that gratitude can be so helpful, why is it so hard to seek it out when we are told that we should?

Creating and finding new forms of thankfulness requires exploration. Exploration, while beautiful, in turn often requires curiosity, a sense of freedom and playfulness that some may struggle to access when they “should” feel thankful this Thanksgiving. That’s why, when I am in a period of difficulty, I don’t always try to branch out to find gratitude in ways I haven’t before. Instead, I lean on familiar practices. What are the practices I already have that make me feel grounded and can open the doors to mindfulness and gratefulness?

What are rituals in your life? Perhaps you can bring attention to the way the world pauses when you eat ice cream on Friday evenings, or pray in morning minyan, or walk outside after work to hear the birds. These small practices are important; when times are hard, instead of creating new roads we can identify what well-worn paths already exist. By acknowledging and focusing on these things we can bring more intention and gratefulness into our days. Exploration is most successful when we feel relieved of that pressure of “should.” When we need it most, ritual is there for us.

Just last week we participated in communal prayer and study during the yahrzeit held virtually and in-person within the JCC. Cantor Joanna Dulkin taught on the ritual of prayer and the sacredness of practice. In Judaism we have prayers that create moments of reflection for so many things, as big as birth and death and as small as smelling a flower or seeing a rainbow. There is even a prayer for when you cannot pray. “Lord of the universe, Master of prayer, open Your lips within me for I cannot speak…Too often the world has stifled all words of blessing within me.” The ritual of prayer continues, even when we cannot find the words or the energy within ourselves.

This week I hope to have the motivation to explore when I can and find new routes towards thankfulness, but I imagine I will also be leaning on rituals, on the ways I have already paved, to find ways to nourish my soul with gratefulness this year.

In Solidarity,

Maggie Feinstein
Executive Director
10.27 Healing Partnership