Kosher Thanksgiving Day turkey. (Photo by Alan Smason)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Here are some of the 30 blessings I recorded:<\/p>\n
\u2022 A warm bed.
And the list went on. I loved the exercise, helping me to be mindful every day that month \u2014 and beyond \u2014 for how much I am grateful for. Even on the hard days, and even amid a backdrop of a lot of pain in the world, remembering our blessings makes us appreciate the beauty, wonder and magic of life.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny, but I didn\u2019t record any big, expensive stuff on the list. In fact, very few of the items cost even a penny. It\u2019s so often the small, fleeting moments that are the biggest and most beautiful, and the ones that stay with us.<\/p>\n
Gratitude lies at the heart of who we are as Jews. We’re supposed to express thanks to God for waking up every day, for the souls we embody, for the bread we eat, for the wine we drink, for the illness or danger we survive — and for so much more.<\/p>\n
Just as gratitude lies at the heart of who we are as Jews, mindfulness lies at the heart of gratitude. The great Jewish sage Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel talked about mindfulness in this famous quote: \u201cOur goal should be to live life in radical amazement,\u201d he said. \u201cGet up every morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the High Holidays, I read a slim and poignant book that matched my reflective Jewish head-space of the season. In \u201cThe Extraordinary Nature of Ordinary Things,\u201d Rabbi Steven Leder\u00a0writes about appreciating all that\u2019s extraordinary in our ordinary\u00a0lives through a Jewish lens. As we get older, Leder said, we lose our sense of awe and wonder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we look back at the calendar of our lives how many pages are worth saving?\u201d Leder writes. \u201cWe schedule our business appointments \u2014 mastering the lessons of time management and efficiency. But do we really manage our time well? Have we celebrated with our children? Have we visited our aging parents and grandparents or made that phone call to the friend whose loved one is sick? Have we hugged each other enough? Do our children, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our partners in love and life, know what they mean to us?\u201d<\/p>\n
Leder references a Hasidic story in which a rebbe asks his followers where God exists. \u201cEverywhere,\u201d his disciples respond. \u201cNo,\u201d the rabbi replies. \u201cGod exists only where we let God in.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the broader culture, various forms of meditation are hotter than ever, where we let go of our day-to-day\u00a0stresses and noise, at least for a moment, and be more mindful and intentional in our lives.<\/p>\n
In my favorite movie last year, a British love story called \u201cAbout Time,\u201d the protagonist possesses the power of time travel and is able to relive the same moment more than once. By the end of the film, he realizes that it\u2019s better not to relive moments but to appreciate every moment the first time around.<\/p>\n
Soon, we\u2019ll all sit down for Thanksgiving once again, a national holiday that seems like an extension of the High Holidays because it focuses on themes of gratitude so prominent in Jewish values. Let\u2019s all give thanks for the moments \u2014 the extraordinary and the ordinary \u2014 because we\u2019ll only live them once.<\/p>\n
(Cindy Sher is executive editor of the Chicago\u2019s JUF News, where this piece originally appeared.)<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"Turkey_final\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Turkey_final.jpg\")