The Art & Science of Saying Thank You Hi, it's Phil - I'm getting personal again. Hope you don't mind; sometimes it's the best way for me to get my point across. I have a very strong childhood memory of my immediate post-Bar Mitzva period. The Bar Mitzva was a great experience all around, and the gifts made it even better. But then came... THANK YOU NOTES. My father z"l had ordered personalized stationery for me - first time I ever had any. That was exciting. But every day after school, I spent what seemed like hours sitting at the table with my mother a"h looking over my shoulder and supervising the notes. I don't remember what the daily quota was, but I do remember that the writing of the notes went on for many days. Dear Aunt and Uncle So-and-So, Please accept my sincere thanks for your - "stop", my mother would say, "make the loop of the L in 'please' wider." "No, too wide, it looks sloppy, let's do this one again." After many of these false starts, with loops that were too long or too short, too wide or non-existent, I asked what difference it made. And my mother's answer - which I probably didn't appreciate all those years ago, helped me greatly in later years, to understand and appreciate part of what we learn from Parshat Eikev. My mother taught me that we must always say "thank you" when someone does something for us (all mothers teach that), and that the way you say thank you is a reflection on you and it is important in one's true appreciation of what is being done for him. (I know that was a long and difficult sentence to understand - let's try again.) No "thank you" or a sloppy "thank you" does not say much - to you or the recipient of your thanks - for how much you really are appreciative. A sloppy thank you tells the recipient that you don't really care, and it indicates to you yourself that you don't really care. When a Jew takes a drink of water, he/she is required to say a bracha. Not saying one is variously equated to stealing from G-d and to using that which is His without proper redemption - in other words, sacrelige. Saying the wrong bracha is not proper, of course, and so is thoughtlessly zipping through the SHE'HAKOL at warp speed with no possibility to have Kavana. A sloppy bracha is a sloppy thank you. It does not show G-d (so to speak) or yourself, that you really are appreciative. If we really believe that G-d is the source of all blessing, and that He is our G-d, and that He is King of the Universe, and that everything that exists was brought into existence by His Word, then we should take the extra few seconds (that's all it would take) to say a bracha correctly, clearly, and with Kavana. The science of a bracha includes what bracha to say and various details of halacha related to brachot. The art is how we say it. [The Parshat Eikev Homepage]
|
