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The war in Gaza and the dangerous levels of antisemitism both here and abroad might diminish our Thanksgiving gatherings this year. The joy of being with family and the aroma and taste of delicious foods will be lessened by war updates and the latest acts of antisemitism.  It seems inescapable.  One might even suggest that there is nothing to be thankful for this year. That is where you would be wrong.

I have regularly rebuked the media, especially the late evening news broadcasts, for their out-of-proportion choices.  A thirty-minute newscast includes six minutes of commercials. Out of the remaining twenty-four minutes, we learn of crime after crime, incoming bad weather, and a game that the Steelers should have won(I was elated that the NY Giants won a game). The constant feed of bad news negatively impacts the psyche of all of us, and I choose not to retire for the evening with the day’s listing of murders the last thing on my mind. There are good things happening all around us. It is misguided that the media decide that what we should know is only the bad. We must work even harder to ferret out good things.

There is much in our lives that each of us can be thankful for during Thanksgiving, and it would be a wonderful mental health exercise not only to think about our blessings, but write them down. Carry them with you as a reminder of what is good. If you have a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes on your back, steady income and health insurance, you cannot overlook these gifts. If you need a reminder, just drive downtown to a tent city where those without live. If you have family and friends in your life, be grateful. If you have technology that you understand how to operate and can place a video call, be grateful that you could purchase such a device, know how to use it, that you have someone on the other end can do the same, and that you are in each other’s lives. If you choose to join us for services, either in-person or remotely, be grateful that you have a faith community to worship with together. If you possess a car, be grateful that you could afford to do so and can physically drive it. Perhaps by now you get the idea.

All of us are enveloped in blessings.  What we are lacking is an attitude of gratitude. Thanksgiving provides us with the necessary pause to recognize our blessings, rejoice over them, and find ways to express that gratitude.  It can be simply by thanking people for being in your life or by donating your time or money to important organizations that do good work helping those less fortunate than you. We all know stories where a calamity of some sort can eliminate our blessings in an instant. Generally we cannot prepare for every unexpected turn in life. An attitude of gratitude on Thanksgiving goes a long way towards developing an appreciation of the blessings in our lives, with the potential of acknowledging them more than once a year. Start this coming Thanksgiving, a try it again on Friday. Then the next day, and the next. It might be catching.

May your Thanksgiving be one filled with gratitude.  And so may the day after.