No — I Thank You
A man once came to the great Chassidic master, Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, deeply troubled. His business had collapsed, his home was filled with worry, and nothing seemed to be going right.
“Rebbe,” he said, “our sages teach that a person must bless G-d for bad news just as he blesses Him for good. But how can that be? How can anyone truly thank G-d for suffering?”
The Maggid listened quietly and then replied:
“Go and ask my student, Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli. He will explain.”
The man was puzzled. Rabbi Zusha lived in legendary poverty. His home was bare, his clothes worn thin, and his table was often empty.
Still, he went.
When the visitor asked his question, Rabbi Zusha looked genuinely confused.
“You were sent to me?” he asked. “That is strange. I have never experienced suffering. I would not know how to explain thanking G-d for it.”
The visitor stood speechless. Here was a man who possessed almost nothing, yet sincerely believed his life contained no misfortune.
Rabbi Zusha was revealing a radical Jewish idea: gratitude is not dependent on circumstances. It flows from trust in the One who gives them.
That way of seeing the world may sound extraordinary, yet it is quietly woven through the Torah itself.
In the Book of Leviticus, we encounter a distinctive offering: the korban todah — the thanksgiving offering. Unlike sacrifices brought in response to wrongdoing, the todah was brought simply to say thank you.
But the Torah adds a fascinating detail.
The offering had to be eaten within a very short time and was accompanied by a large quantity of bread. In practice, it was almost impossible for one person to finish it alone.
The message was clear: gratitude was never meant to remain private.
To bring a todah, one had to invite others to join. One had to share the story.
Gratitude became a communal act that revealed G-d’s kindness.
And that same idea — that gratitude is meant to be shared — echoes elsewhere in the Torah.
When Leah gave birth to her fourth son, she declared:
הַפַּעַם אוֹדֶה אֶת ה׳
“This time I will thank Hashem.”
(Bereishit 29:35)
She named him Judah — Yehudah.
The name comes from the Hebrew root י-ד-ה, the language of gratitude. It is no small detail that our people — Yehudim — carry a name built around the act of giving thanks.
As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once observed, gratitude lies at the bedrock of Jewish life. Even the first words a Jew says upon waking each morning are Modeh ani — “I thank You.”
In Judaism, he wrote, we learn to thank before we think.
From that tribe of Judah would later emerge Israel’s greatest poet of prayer, King David.
In the Book of Tehillim, he gave voice to the full range of the human soul — joy and anguish, hope and despair. Yet throughout these prayers, one refrain returns again and again:
Give thanks.
In many ways, Tehillim can be read as Judaism’s great Book of Gratitude.
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“I will give thanks to Hashem with my whole heart”
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But gratitude in Judaism does not remain only in prayer. It also shapes how we see our relationships with other people.
When we perform acts of chesed — helping someone in need, offering support, or giving charity — it is easy to imagine ourselves as the benefactor. We may quietly wait for the “thank you” we feel we have earned.
Yet a person who understands themselves as a shaliach — an agent of G-d — sees the moment very differently.
What we possess is not truly ours.
And the opportunity to help is itself a gift.
Seen this way, the person receiving help is not only the beneficiary. They are also the one granting us the privilege of participating in G-d’s kindness.
So when the recipient looks up and says:
“Thank you,”
the giver responds with surprising humility:
“No… I thank you.”
And perhaps this is the deeper meaning of living with what Rabbi Sacks once called “gratitude with attitude” — the quiet but stubborn conviction that life itself is a gift.
That is what Rabbi Zusha understood in his bare room. He was not denying hardship.
He was revealing something deeper.
When we measure life only by what we lack, gratitude will always feel difficult.
But when we recognize that every breath, every heartbeat, and every opportunity to give is itself a gift, gratitude becomes the most natural response in the world.
Perhaps that is why the words of King David still echo across the generations:
טוֹב לְהוֹדוֹת לַה׳
“It is good to give thanks to Hashem.”
(Tehillim 92:2)
And when we truly understand that even the ability to give is a blessing, gratitude changes the way we see the world.
The person before us is no longer simply the recipient of our kindness. They are the one who gave us the opportunity to share in G-d’s generosity.
And so when they say “thank you,” we answer with the quiet truth that has shaped our people since the days of Leah:
No. I thank you.
שבת שלום
וחג פסח כשר ושמח
שמואל
