Here I am just before Thanksgiving and I realize that a celebration to express my gratitude for all the good in my life was decided upon long ago by someone else. I want the decision to be mine. I prefer a spontaneous thank you to an official occasion.  I treasure "just because" thank you notes I've received from my children far more than their Fathers' Day cards. I therefore decided to observe Thanksgiving all year round by becoming a "Thank You Collector." (Birthdays)

Instead of making a last minute list of all the things for which I am grateful, I have been collecting my Thank Yous all year. I have a Thanksgiving list that is now so extensive that all I have to do is read it and decide that a spontaneous day of thanks is in order. The decision was still made by someone else a long time ago, but I have added my own in the moment decision, which will make Thanksgiving and Chanukah - the Jewish Thanksgiving - all my own.

I read all the Joseph stories as a description of his becoming a Thank You Collector: He received his Coat of Many Colors as a entitlement, just as he approached his close relationship with Jacob, reporting his brothers' behavior. He shares his dreams, and he dreams with that same sense of entitlement. We don't find any expressions of gratitude.

It's difficult to maintain that sense of entitlement when thrown into a pit and then sold into slavery. Did he learn his lesson? He quickly rises in the house of Potiphar and his sense of entitlement is soon tested. Potiphar's wife offers Joseph the greatest entitlement; he runs everything in the estate, why not take his master's wife? At that moment, Joseph struggles with himself, and despite the heat of passion, rejects any sense of entitlement and runs from the room, and essentially right back into the pit, this time, a prison pit. He quickly rises again, and soon interprets the dreams of Pharaoh's wine-steward and baker.

At that moment he can choose to act as a Thank You Collector and acknowledge God's gift of such an opportunity, or, respond with a sense of entitlement. He chooses the latter and finds himself in the pit for an additional two years.

The entitled Joseph eventually becomes the person who openly acknowledges that all his success was a gift from God. He sees himself as nothing more than a vehicle through whom God prepares the future for the entire family. He is grateful for his role. The entitled Joseph becomes a Thank You Collector.

Joseph's story; his rises and falls, the battle between entitlement and gratitude, is the story of the Jewish People, and our story, the challenge of each individual. Children naturally believe that they are entitled to their parents' love and care. It takes maturity to become a Thank You Collector. Same struggle as Adam.

"A psalm, a song for the Sabbath day: It is good to thank God." Shabbat is the song of the Thank You Collector, who has fulfilled, "Six days a week shall you work." No entitlement, just thanks for the opportunities to work and accomplish.

I do not recite Modim, the daily Thank You prayer because I must. I approach the entire Amidah as a Thank You collector, compiling a Thank You list from all the previous blessings so that by the time I reach Modim my expression of thanks is spontaneous, my decision, not because I must.

The fabulous thing about becoming a Thank You Collector is that you begin to find all sorts of moments and experiences that deserve a Thank You. I've found myself thanking God not just in my prayer, but for the gift of prayer. I study His Torah as a Thank You Collector. I observe His Mitzvot as a Thank You Collector. I am writing these words as a Thank You Collector.

Everything is becoming an expression of gratitude, for which I thank Him above all else.

I wish you all a Thanksgiving and a Chanukah of becoming Thank You Collectors. May your Shabbat be a song of "It is good to thank God."


Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg
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