Remembering Our Blessings
Last month, I attended the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial conference in Chicago. It was an incredible convention and gave me ample opportunity to learn, reignite relationships with old friends and colleagues, and to acquaint myself with fellow reform Jews I had yet to meet. Overall, I left the experience feeling uplifted and more in tune with my Jewish identity.
In contrast, my trip home was somewhat less…transcendent.
It included many unremarkable-but-frustrating travel-related irritants: my cab to the airport was expensive and included about 60 minutes in stop-and-go Chicago traffic; I found myself stuck at the airport for hours, killing time and bored; the restaurant at which I got dinner at the airport serve me the wrong food—something treif, no less; I spilled a drink I bought at the airport all over my bag; my flight attendants were rude; and, once I landed from my very bumpy (of course!) flight, it took about 45 minutes for any of my luggage to come out at baggage claim.
By the time I finally got into a cab headed home, it was clear that I probably wouldn't be asleep before about 2 a.m., which would give me about three hours to rest before getting up for the next morning’s work. All this, of course, might be pretty representative of the nuisances of travel; nevertheless, it was a jarring return from my experience in Chicago.
My cab ride home from the airport, likewise, started out pretty normal, if, blessedly, uneventful. I was tired, a little grumpy, and just ready to get to bed. However, as my driver brought the two of us down I-75, we encountered something that, then, was less typical.
Speeding down the highway, we came upon a car that had just crashed. We pulled over onto the shoulder of the left lane of the road to see if there was anything we could do, and walked over to find a half-obliterated SUV containing a man clumsily trying to free himself from his driver’s seat. It became clear that the man needed help, as his face was badly bloodied and he was somewhat delirious. We called 911, and, baruch hashem, I discovered that my driver—a true mensch—was trained in first aid and had medical supplies in his car. As we waited for the police and ambulance to arrive, as my driver administered first aid, as we all shivered in the cold, standing in the middle of 75 North at 1:30 in the morning with cars speeding around us, it was hard not to reevaluate the earlier portion of my day and the nuisances I had felt were so terrible just a little while ago.
The inherent fragility of the world around us is an exceptional and chilling reality, something that Judaism obligates each of us to grapple with daily. Every morning, traditionally, we are supposed to say a rapid-fire string of blessings—the birchot ha-shachar, what the Mishkan T’filah calls the “daily miracles”—that takes stock of the simple things we require just for daily survival. But Judaism also exhorts us to give thanks in moments of particular peril, times when we personally have lived through especially harrowing events. The blessing for such situations, the birkat ha-gomel, is composed as follows:
The person who survived the experience says: “Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech ha-olam, ha-gomeil l’chayavim tovot, she-g’malani kol tov,” “blessed are you, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, who rewards the undeserving with goodness and who has rewarded me with goodness.”
In response, those who are present with the person making the blessing respond: “Mi she-g’mal’cha kol tov, hu yig’molcha kol tov selah,” “may the one who has rewarded you with all goodness reward you with all goodness forever.”
The meaning of this prayer, it’s purpose, and the reason for me sharing this story all are wrapped up together. It is striking and a very powerful statement of Jewish values that the prayer we say in Judaism when surviving a trying time isn’t a statement that survival and prosperity is what we deserve, that our good fortune is a sign of our merit. This blessing does not suggest that those who suffer earned their suffering, and if we have good fate, we certainly deserve it. Instead, the blessing calls attention to the instability of the world around us—it goes so far as to label us “the undeserving.” It is a confession that we know we are flawed and might not necessarily merit the good things we enjoy, but, even still, we thank God for allowing us to enjoy them.
It may be easy to get caught up in the small things, to think that the world or God owes us nothing but positivity; however, in Judaism, we aren’t supposed to take anything for granted. A periodic reminder of this oughtn’t need to come in the form of someone else’s suffering, but good opportunities for learning and growth come in all forms. I hope you’ll join me in responding with the appropriate words above, of the birkat ha-gomel, as I myself strive to focus my vision and energy not on the distractions and the banal frustrations of daily life, but on what truly matters in this world.
With prayers for a healthy, happy, and meaningful 2020,
Ari Ballaban