A million essays and blog posts will explore the topic of “being thankful” in the next 24 hours.
I’d say, based on a perusal of a Google search I just ran seeking a link to add to this post on my blog, that at least 80% of them talk about “being thankful” with no reference whatsoever to Whom (or even whom) one should be thankful.
definition, have “thanks” without an object of thanks. It is meaningless.
thank
TRANSITIVE VERB:
thanked , thank·ing , thanks1. To express gratitude to; give thanks to: He thanked her for the gift.
2. To hold responsible; credit: We can thank the parade for this traffic jam.
You can’t have free-floating thanks. You can thank her for the gift, you can thank the parade for the traffic. You can’t just thank, however.
You can eat turkey. You can watch football. You get together with family and you can call it Thanksgiving. But not thanksgiving.
Whom are you thanking this Thanksgiving?
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Ron:
Certainly you can have “free-floating” thanks. It happens all the time.
Is God thankful?
Sean, your saying so doesn’t make it so. See the definition of the word. Prove me wrong, not merely by making an assertion.
Is God thankful? No. He lacks nothing and therefore there is nothing we can do “for Him.”
Ron:
1. If God can’t be thankful, then that means there’s something God can’t do. Hmmmm…. Let’s say I make a telescope (which I did), and I use that telescope to look at a comet (which I do), and I think to myself “I’m thankful that I have this telescope.” Who am I thanking?
2. You posted a definition of “thank” which is a verb. I’ll post a definition of “thanks” which is a noun:
thanks pl.n.
1. Grateful feelings or thoughts; gratitude:
It is “thanks” we are giving on “thanksgiving” not “thank”. And the “thanks” we are giving is the very sense of being grateful for what we have. You can believe that we have what we have because of some sort of Santa-on-steroids, but I’m quite thankful of what I have without having to give any credit at all. I simply give thanks to the universe as a whole.
1. Sean, please refer this one to your study group for Philosophy 101. It’s not the topic of my post!
2. “Thankful feelings” or “gratitude” must as a logical matter be directed to an object, Sean. It’s axiomatic. If you don’t get that as a logical argument you either are resisting doing so for some reason, or one of us is a lot less bright than he thinks. But when I see formulations like “I simply give thanks to the universe as a whole” — the universe, which of course is merely a location for where we exist, and no more an appropriate source of gratitude than giving thanks to the Western Hemisphere or to Connecticut — I feel better about both of our brains.
I for one am thankful to the memory of a few isolated communities of English, Scots-Irish and others who came to a cold and hard land across a great ocean far and away from their homelands along with northwestern coasts of Europe, and their founded what would become the american nation. All that we grew to become in succeeding centuries got it start from these frequently cold and hard people — perhaps the only kind of could have entered into and tamed the great wilderness.
They were the first Europeans who had stepped ashore this side of the Atlantic ocean in some six hundred years, when a few shiploads of greenlandic and icelandic Vikings explored the shores of Labrador and set up a temporary settlement at what is now L’Anse aux Meadows on the far northern tip of what would become known as Newfoundland many centuries later.
So thank you, Mr Bradford, and your entire company of men, women and children good and true. And thank you too, the indian tribesmen who helped feed them that first bitter winter.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
All I know is that by this point the word “thank” sounds weird as hell.
Thank thank thank.
Bizarre!
Arnold, now that is an answer!
Ron:
Note that I do not resort to challenging your intelligence in order to make my points. My points either stand on their own, or they don’t. And since I’m assuming we have an audience on this exchange, I’ll leave it as an exercise to the readers whether either of us is exhibiting any level of intelligence at all.
But as for you and me, we will simply have to disagree on both of your rebuttals. God can be thankful too, if not he’s missing out on one of the most powerful and sublime of emotions, I’d hate to take that away from Him.
It is not axiomatic that you have to be thankful to an object, that is merely an assertion that you are making. I can be grateful without being grateful TO someone or something. I can simply be grateful that I exist. And I am. So one of the things I give thanks for is my existence. As far as I know, my existence is not proven to be the result of any object or act that we have been able to identify. You may disagree. I would call that a significant philosophical disagreement that neither one of us can prove one way or the other. But in the absence of a proven objective “creator” I remain thankful that I exist regardless.
Now, I hike a lot. As I’m hiking I get tired. If there is a rock that is suitable for sitting, I am thankful of that. Whom am I thanking? If I find a stream with cool water, I am thankful for that (metaphorically, of course, these days I’d never drink from a stream without a purifier). Whom am I thanking? If the sun is hot, I am thankful for the cloud that passes in front of it.
Need I go on?
I thankfull that we’ve found yet another way to disagree.
No seriously.. be no fun otherwise.
So Tanks A Lot –
hmm…
musical moment..
Thank you very much
Thank you very much
It’s the nicest thing anyones ever done for me!
Thank you very much
Thank you very much
(Oliver! reference in case anyone wondered)
Ron:
Whom are you thanking this Thanksgiving?
I’m thanking God.
Bet you weren’t expecting such a succinct and noncontrarian answer, eh? ;-)
Aw, willya cut it out?
Thank you.
/snarkyrecursiveanswer
Sean, you missed the point. I am quite sure you are every bit as intelligent as I am, and maybe then some.
I do believe you feel gratitude, because you are a good person and you know you have much to be grateful for.
I believe something prevents you from acknowledging the proper object of you gratitude even though your intellect recognizes it… calls it “the universe.” I don’t know what it is that holds you back, because a mind reader, I ain’t.
Happy Thanksgiving Sean and everybody else!
Ron:
And now we come to the heart of the whole thing, which is why I challenged your assertion in the first place. Your entire post was intended to slyly suggest that by engaging in “Thanksgiving” we were somehow truly exhibiting a religious appreciation of our lot in life. I couldn’t let that go unchallenged. :-)
Happy non-specific non-objective gratitude-expressing autumnul festival yourself.
And all you other lugs too!
I’ve seen that painting so many times. I suppose it would be one of Norman Rockwell’s. He expressed the great spirit of America so well in some of its most trying hours.
Thank you Ron. I hope you got inscribed into your book of life this year, and that you can count on that for many more years to come.
So. Do you in fact live in a tiny, cramped but $3000/month New York apartment? With five great big steel locks on the inside of the door? (I’ve been watching too many New York movies.)
You know, Ron. There are frum communities — and even frumier ones probably — where you can live as jewish as all get out, from one end of the USA to the other. You ever kick yourself for choosing the most expensive one of all?
On the other hand, New York in its best moments captures a unique sense of magic shared by no other great city in this country or in the world. I hope you find out one day that haShem himself created it all for you. Now that would be a god and a half.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I really like Arnold’s thanks as well. It brought really good feelings to mind.
I think that is Norman Rockwell’s work too. He really did give us a lot to be thankful for in his art.
By the way, You have a great day Arnold.
Here’s Looking At You Kid.
You too, Mary Janelle. Take one day at a time, and don’t fall off any ladders.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I’m thankful for Dean’s World and Dean and Arnold and Ron and marymadigan, Matoko and Aziz and TSteeles and others.
And thanks to a Mr. Lincoln who at Gettysburg spoke a mere 143 years ago in a brief two minute speech in which a few sentences are remembered:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “
“…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.â€
And I realize some of flat-landers in flyover country wouldn’t be understanding but I’m thankful for being Catholic, thank ye.
And I’m thankful for Weeping Statues. What would we be doing without them ?
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
McK
McK, that was one fine poem. What indeed would this poor world be like without Ireland? And for that matter, without Mary too, I suppose. I hope the Irish at least don’t give her too much reason to weep such tears.
Anyway, it’s all part of our great american culture now, along with bratwursts grilled out in the open sold before a Badgers football game, or Democrats and Republicans playing their eternal Tom &Jerry games.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Eeek!
I didn’t sign the damned thing.
(Dean, put up an edit window so we can fix up this stuff ourselves.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
No, though we used to, when we first got married. I mean it was $750 a month in Brooklyn for one bedroom. We had all these locks plus tempered steel reinforcements on the edges of the door and the jamb! Also a one-way guard over the windows that opened onto the fire escape. Our next door neighbor left theirs open one night while they ran out for a half an hour. They came back and their newlywed silver candlesticks had been stolen.
This was during the Dinkins era; we left town shortly after the Crown Heights pogrom. We moved to the orthodox enclave in Passaic, New Jersey and have watched it grow like Topsy (or maybe Schlocksy). But we are still in the most expensive metro area. We considered moving but this is mostly where the work is, Arnold. Also I love New York — all of it, including northern New Jersey! And we’re thankful to be here!
I thanked my son today for being so good.
I thanked my best friend today (with a bottle of Kendell Jackson Chardonnay to boot) for being so sweet.
I thanked my husband today for putting up with my small foibles so well.
I now thank Dean for inspiring me to blog well (or at least try to).
And I thank Celia Farber for the best laugh of the week (re: Scandinavian kitch; my husband is half Danish — and this piece explains so of his foibles). :)
Happy Thanksgiving to all here!
Ron, I have to disagree with your premise that G-d can’t be grateful. We find in the Talmud (Yoma 86b) that G-d is grateful to someone who sincerely repents of their sins. (That really is something that He is – so to speak – “lacking,” which only human beings can provide – using their free will to follow His rules.)
Some other examples:
* G-d is grateful to our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for being the first individuals to disseminate the knowledge of His existence to a hostile and pagan world (Talmud, Menachot 53a).
* G-d thanked Moses (using the expression “yasher koach” – lit., “may your strength increase”) for breaking the Tablets when he saw the Jewish people worshipping the Golden Calf (Talmud, Shabbat 87a).
Alex, as you know the Torah speaks in the language of people in order to provide us with useful metaphors for understanding. We also learn in the Talmud about G-d’s phylacteries, His tallis, various parts of His “body,” but it is clear that these are not to be taken literally. This is true as well regarding these expressions of emotions of God. We see in the Talmud that G-d amuses Himself with the Leviathan, that He “loses his temper” with the Heavenly Host when they challenge him regarding the deaths of the Ten Martyrs, etc. The Torah tells us that when we bring the sacrifices, they smell good, and implies that the scent brings pleasure to G-d Himself. None of these emotions or reactions are consistent with the concept of G-d as the tradition gives us to understand Him. Amusement is for the bored; anger is for the arrogant; sensory pleasure is for flesh and blood — none is for the Divine.
I also don’t think “yasher koach” is the same as an expression of gratitude. It is rather a form of congratulations. Unfortunately some people in contemporary times, in our circles, have forgotten this! I write more on that topic, generally, here.
But your point about repentance, and for that matter any aspect of divine service, is well taken. We know that the way G-d created the world, He gave us free choice, and that when we exercise it appropriately, He is pleased. But grateful? I do not think so. Precisely because of what Rav Hutner said — that thanks (todah) is an expression of acknowledgment (hodaah) of what we lack, or would have lacked but for the kindness of the one being thanked (as I note in the linked article above) it is axiomatically impossible for G-d to experience or express gratitude!
Ron, you’ve floated a lot of silly arguments in your time, but this takes the cake. It’s perfectly possible to be thankful without being thankful TO anyone. I’m sorry if you think you have a rock solid dictionary case as to why not: that simply collapses into absurdity in the face of the fact that, yes, people can feel thankful and not TO any being and I’m doing it right now. It’s not logically meaningless.
Sorry to throw reality into your nice neat, attempt to be backhandedly bitter about how not everyone believes the things you believe. Sorry if that’s so annoying to you. It’s not like I planned it that way, but for some reason it really gets under your skin, time and time again. Oops.
In my opinion, which any and all are free to mock (and probably will, mocking being a long-standing traditional response here when commenters disagree), is that “thank” has been transformed from a transitive verb to an intransitive verb through “relaxed” usage.
I further believe that many folks who feel grateful without having any object of their gratitude would be more accurately described as “relieved,” or “glad.”
But I’m sure I’ve let my traditionalist nature lead me astray.
Ron, while it’s perfectly true that the Torah uses metaphors to describe G-d, those metaphors themselves have meaning.
R’ Avigdor Miller comments in various places in his writings (e.g., on Genesis 8:21, where G-d is described as “smelling the sweet savor” of Noah’s offering, as you mentioned) that it is vital for us to be able to picture G-d in human terms (while remaining aware that this is not the real truth), so that we can achieve awareness of His presence and thereby come to develop a personal relationship with Him. Without this, we would think of G-d as nothing more than an an abstract entity with whom we can have no real connection.
Chassidic teachings (based on Kabbalah) go further. Everything in our world (and especially in a human being, who is created “in the Divine image”) derives from a spiritual prototype within G-d Himself, which is then filtered and compressed in various ways to become a corresponding material object, mental quality, emotion, etc., such as we would be familiar with. Those prototypes can well be described using the same terms as we use for the things descended from them, and so we can properly speak of G-d’s “hand,” His “tefillin,” or His “gratitude”: we might not recognize them as such, but they are in fact the same things but on an infinitely higher level.
(An analogue could perhaps be drawn with physical DNA: to a molecular biologist, a particular sequence represents an arm or a hand, because it is indeed the underlying germ of that arm or hand; to the rest of us, it would look like a random bunch of smudges.)
[See also Raavad's comments on Maimonides' Laws of Teshuvah 3:7, where he says that authorities "greater and better than us" believed that G-d has a body. Possibly this can be understood on this basis: these "greater and better" sages didn't think that G-d really is corporeal, just that there is something on His level that can indeed validly be described in such terms.]
As for your point about “yasher koach,” I’m not sure that it represents “congratulations” rather than gratitude. First of all, when we say “yasher koach” to the kohanim after they bless us, it could be that we’re congratulating them for experiencing the opportunity to perform this mitzvah, but it seems to make more sense to understand it as “thank you” for making themselves available to serve as the conduit for G-d’s blessings. Second, where G-d says “yasher koach” to Moses, Rashi there explains (my translation): “He assented to and praised him” – and semantically, praise for someone’s actions isn’t that far from thanks for them.
The important point behind all of this is: one of the basic principles of Judaism is imitatio Dei, to follow G-d’s ways insofar as is humanly possible. So if we see that G-d is grateful (whatever exactly that means) to someone who does the right thing, even though the capability to do so ultimately came from G-d Himself, then we should learn from that to be grateful to our fellow human beings when they choose to do good things for us, and of course to be thankful to G-d for making it possible in the first place.
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