Count Your Blessings

I just wanted to share a short reflection with everything going on in the world these days with coronavirus and the economic shutdown: I see people are scared and confused, under lockdown and feeling financial strain, and many are getting sick and dying.

But I remember the words of my dear father who used to say:

Count Your Blessings!

And he was so right.  There are so many things, literally every moment of every day, for us to be grateful for:

• Our lives and livelihoods
• Our health and wellbeing
• Our family and friends
• Our faith and freedom

Further, after 2,000 years of exile and persecution, these days we have the incredible merit to be to see the return of our people to the State of Israel and to have the courageous Israel Defense Forces.

I remember learning that in Judaism we are supposed to make a hundred blessings a day of thanks to G-d for all his graciousness and benevolence towards us.

For whatever you feel is lacking in your life or whatever stress you are under, take a look around you at how much you really have to be thankful for.  This reminds me of another thing my wise father used to say to me from Helen Keller about the man who cried that he had no shoes until he saw a man who didn’t have any feet.

Certainly, we all face extreme difficulties or challenges at times in our lives, but things can always be so much worse, and there is still so much for us to be grateful for.  Therefore, truly thank you G-d with a hundred blessings—and more—for every moment of every precious day.  And we affirm that surely the L-rd who created us will continue to sustain us, and that ultimately all will be for the good.