Gratitudes
mine, and a tool to help spark yours
This is Life as a Sacred Text đ±, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. Itâs run on a nonprofit, so itâs 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here.
And Life is a Sacred Text subscriptions are on a special through the end of December (thatâs Tuesday night!)
Offer someone(s) you love gift subscriptions â 10% off through December!
Get in on group subscriptions! For 20% off.
And personal subscriptions are also 10% off through the end of the month:
Phew. What a year.
And for so much that has been hard, and painful, and for all the suffering out there in the big world world and also in so many of our livesâ there has also been much good.
It's easy to forget sometimes.
I'd like to spend today focusing on gratitude.
First, I'd like to say thank youâ and then I have an offering for you in the form of a tool you can use on those terrible horrible no-good very bad days when it feels hard to feel good about anything. Or, better yet, that you can use every day to keep the appreciative vibes moving through your body. As needed. Whenever.
Thank you.
Every single one of you.
Thank you.
A year ago, I was recovering from surgery, trying to figure out how to work a whole entire new newsletter platform (still a work in progress, uh) and drafting the post belowâ at least, in my head, probably.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
The fact that I was able to do thisâ to make my work for, and with, youâ my focus now is because over the two and a half years leading up to that time, we had begun to grow something special together. Every Monday essay after Monday essay, every Thursday text study, open community thread, behind-the-scenes writer process backstory, Ask the Rabbi Q & A, and text study after another, we were creating a community.
A community in which people decided that independent Torahâ beholden only to the truth as it's understood in these partsâ matters. Matters a lot.
A community in which creating more space for more people, more voices has always been the value.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
A community in which we know our task down here, our one main job, is to show up for one another.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
So, a year ago, Life is a Sacred Text moved over to Ghost, this wonderful nonprofit platform, and became my primary endeavor.
Doing so has also enabled me to attend to some other crucial things that have really needed more of my attention and focus: family things, health things, other things. You will never fully know the gift that you have given by choosing to be part of this community, but suffice to sayâ the ripple effect is real, and its healing impact on a number of lives is profound.
And over the last year, since LiST has moved over here, we've gone through the whole entire Book of Numbers and embarked upon the Book of Deuteronomy. We've had a bunch of guest posts, both the genial and the provocative, because the Palace of Torah needs all of it. There have been pieces on history and those helping us frame the work moving forward.
(I'll include our guest posts and a few other notables from this year at the bottom of this post; I'll leave most of Numbers out since you can find that recap here.).
Rabbi Pinchas, Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Yochanan [said] in the name of Rabbi Menachem from Gallia: In the time to come, all sacrifices will be annulled - but the sacrifice of thanksgiving will not be annulled. All prayers will be annulled, but the prayer of gratitude will not be annulled. (Leviticus Rabbah 9:7)
And though this time of year tends to have people looking towards self-improvement and what they can do better, honestly? I think gearing into gratitude is a healthier way to be.
From the Jewish angle, well, tradition teaches us to offer thanks on the regular. Blessings are our usual mechanismâ offering gratitude to the Big Bigness for everything from smelling something wonderful to seeing a rainbow, an old friend, the ocean, and of course a ton of things through the usual course of a day of eating, drinking, prayer and whatnot. (In fact, if you pray three times a day and say all the usual blessings before food and the like, you'll get to at least 100 blessings a day, wh00t).
One is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without a blessing. (Talmud Brachot 35a)
But, of course, Jews don't corner the market on gratitudeâ it's a deeply human process, and one from which everyone benefits. The more we can notice what we're grateful for now, the easier it is to be in the here, now, today.
It is from the present momentâ full up on what is, alreadyâ that we can make choices as the best versions of ourselves.
And then, the best versions of ourselves today can live into tomorrow more fully, more whole.
Better than beating yourself up constantly for falling short, no?
Famously, gratitude is associated with increased happinessâ with greater emotional and social well-being, better sleep quality, and possibly even longevity.
One easy / good practice is to just list five things each day you're grateful for. But even if you don't hit every day (again: no to self-flagellation, OK?), remembering to pull out gratitude when you're having one of those days when nothing is going right, or when the pain of the world is overwhelming, can help a lot.
We need you whole. You matter.
Sometimes we offer words of gratitude because we are already feeling grateful. And sometimes we come to feel grateful because we are offering words of gratitude...and the more frequently we carve those channels, the more easily our spirits flow in those directions. (Rabbi Rachel Barenblat)
So here's (below) a little graphic that might be useful when you're having trouble remembering what's good about anything. Something's good, somewhere.
Some suggestions on how to use it:
- Put it somewhere where you'll see it regularly. Your desk? Your bathroom mirror? Next to your bed? As a digital sticky note on your computer or phone?
- Every time you use it, get to at least five gratitudes, if not more.
- If you notice yourself pulling from the same categories a lot, challenge yourself to draw from other categories, to find the things that are sources of gratitude there, too.
- If you'd like, you can try to make a practice of trying to hit each category every other day.
- Notice how you feel using it. What categories make you feel which ways? What happens when you go looking for gratitude in each category? What kinds of information might that give you about where you want to grow, heal, set boundaries, change things up? All information is fodder; don't discount the valuable observations you find along the way, eh?
- Please adapt it to your own circumstances, and expand it in whatever ways are useful. It's meant to be a jumping-off point, not a frozen set of rules!
So, for example: "home environments" can include your favorite cafe, that tree you pass when you walk to work or (whatever) as much as your warm blanket, your favorite piece of art or dĂ©cor, the fact that you have a roof over your head, that yummy meal you had yesterday, your mail carrier who said something niceâtruly! It's meant to be a trigger to help you remember to scan that part of your life.
Can family be chosen family? Of course. Can family include your fur babies? Of course. Can a gratitude for family include that great lesson your grandfather taught you when you were eight that's stuck with you since? Sure can. I am not making the rules, here. Community can be your besties, someone in your groupchat, a nice conversation on Shabbat or after church, your stitch-and-bitch or activist peeps, or a nice chat with one of the other parents at school pickup. I don't know.
Personal growth /spirituality â your inner life! What are you proud of? Did you read a poem that moved you? Did you take the time to learn something new? Gotten back onto regular meditation? Faced something Really Hard in therapy? Handled something with your kid in a way that Past You never could have pulled off? Again: Interpret this however works for you.
When the existence of gratitude and recognition of the good becomes lacking from existence, the spirit of a person is left without sparkle or shine. (Rav Kook, For the Generation's Perplexed, 4:9)
You can see where I'm going with this, yeah? The wheel's just meant to be a trigger, a reminder of ways to scan your life, a supposition that you can probably find at least five things to be grateful for, even when things are really sucky. And Free Space is exactly thatâ none of our lives are the same, and our lives change from day to day, week to week. I don't want this to be limiting at all, so there's the open door for whatever else might want to come in that I certainly can't anticipate.
So, nu. What do you think? Might this be useful to you?
(Color image here, black and white image here.)
Lastly, on the cusp of a new year, a lil' blessing from me to you:
As who you have been begins to cede way to the person you will soon become, may you grow into even stronger connection with the sacred, into the expansiveness of the great Infinite Everything.
May you grow into your greatest, bravest, most loving self.
May you stand tall and unafraid of the great, exquisite, expansive light within you that is straining to get out.
May you trust that light, and may you hear the still small voice within that whispers to you about what you need and who you can be.
May you follow the light and the voice wherever it may take youâeven to places you hadn't guessed, hadn't imagined, that haven't been part of the plan.
May you remain always curious, open, and eager to learn.
May you stay kind and gentle. May you regard others with compassion, generosity, and the benefit of the doubt.
May you be willing to take accountability when you cause harmâ as we all doâ caring for those hurt and using your errors as new opportunities to grow.
May you find your place on deck in the work for a world in need of healing.
May you be brave in the face of injustice.
May your thoughts, actions and very being be an offering to the transcendent, to the great stream of life of which you are a part.
đ±
And, once again, a reminder that Life is a Sacred Text subscriptions are on a special until Tuesday night:
Offer someone(s) you love gift subscriptions â 10% off through December!
Get in on group subscriptions! For 20% off.
And personal subscriptions are also 10% off through the end of the month:
A note on the subscription model:
I want my work to be as accessible to as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible. That's why the Monday essays are free, and why we donate subscriptions to anyone for whom paying is a barrier to the House of Study posts.
I also believe people should be paid fairly for their work. Needless to say, these two values sometimes seem to be in conflict, but I do what I can to find a fair balance. I offer many resources for free, and charge for others. When you donate generously or pay at the top of our scale, that helps support the work I do, provides access for those who have fewer resources, pays for the infrastructure and the technical and practical support that it takes to do this, and helps us keep the work sustainable. â€ïž đ±
A Few Posts from 2024:
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg