100 Blessings

Jewish blessings serve to bring our attention to what we might otherwise not stop to notice. They also cause us to truly take in what startles or frightens us and integrate it with a consciousness of the unity and creativity of all being. And just as God blesses a moment in time on the seventh day, some blessings Jews recite also mark moments in time, giving us a place in its vast expanse.

My Jewish Learning discusses “8 Jewish Prayers You’ve Never Heard Of.” Three stand out to me: ”The Blessing of the Sun,” “Blessing on a Rainbow,” and “Blessing on Seeing an Unusual Being.”

The Blessing of the Sun is unusual because it‘s infrequent, every 28 years. In referencing creation, it reminds us that time depends on human consciousness, on noticing. Beyond creation, beyond humans noticing and marking time, by “blessing” the moment in a variety of ways, there is no time. Or if time does exist outside of human consciousness, it is irrelevant. If we don’t mark the passing of moments, occasions, seasons and times, what difference do they possibly make? Here is the blessing of the sun with its reference to Creation. Time began on the sixth day with the advent of human beings who could notice and reflect on the unfolding of time, and on the seventh day as God modeled that kind of noticing and reflecting:

ברוך אתה ה’ אלהינו מלך העולם עושה מעשה בראשית

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe maker of the works of Creation.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, oseh ma’aseh b’reishit.

Blessing on a Rainbow uses the opportunity of seeing a rainbow to reaffirm a relationship between God and human beings, one that began on the sixth day of creation and was confirmed after the flood. Is there a hint not just of human affirmation but of reminding God of the promise?

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעולָם זוכֵר הַבְּרִית וְנֶאֱמָן בִּבְרִיתו וְקַיָּם בְּמַאֲמָרו

Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe, who remembers the covenant, and is faithful to God’s covenant, and keeps God’s promise.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, zocher habrit v’ne’eman biv’reetoh v’kayam b’ma’amarav.

But Blessing on Seeing an Unusual Being is probably my favorite:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעולָם משנה הבריות

Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe, who makes Beings different.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, m’shaneh habriyot.

My Jewish Learning uses the translation “creatures” for habriyot. It’s a fine translation, except that the connotations of the word in modern English obscure the meaning and intent of the blessings, in my opinion. I prefer “beings,” even “living beings,” although that’s probably redundant.

“Jewish law prescribes the recitation of a blessing upon seeing an unusual person or animal.” The question is, “unusual” in relation to what? Is there a norm out there for how any human or nonhuman animal should look? The specific wording of the prayer blesses God for great diversity in creation, represented in these living beings.

Jewish legal codes don’t provide a norm, but they do provide examples of when the blessing is required, on seeing “an albino, a dwarf, an extremely tall person, a monkey, and an elephant.” What differentiates these beings? What makes them “unusual?” I suspect the only thing that makes them unusual is that they startle us into awareness. And that sudden moment of awareness, of being fully alive, provides us an opportunity to appreciate the infinite creativity represented in the diversity of our world. And so we bless God for creating that diversity.

Three “simple” blessings, a few words, elegantly composed within the bounds of a formula, like haiku, ready for mining, suggesting meanings within meanings.

Time, relationship, diversity. It’s a story much like the one told by modern cosmologists about how we got here and the human purpose in creation. We are here to notice and reflect on the ongoing process of creation as it moves toward greater complexity and diversity. We are here to nurture our relationships.

In the story of God creating the world in Genesis, God recites blessings in three moments. The first is on the fifth day, and it is for living beings in the air and water:

וַיְבָ֧רֶךְ אֹתָ֛ם אֱלֹהִ֖ים לֵאמֹ֑ר פְּר֣וּ וּרְב֗וּ וּמִלְא֤וּ אֶת־הַמַּ֙יִם֙ בַּיַּמִּ֔ים וְהָע֖וֹף יִ֥רֶב בָּאָֽרֶץ׃ 

God blessed them, saying, “Be fertile and increase, fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” (Gen. 1:22)

The second is on the sixth day, when God creates land animals, including humans, and blesses the humans:

וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹתָם֮ אֱלֹהִים֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר לָהֶ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֛וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ וּרְד֞וּ בִּדְגַ֤ת הַיָּם֙ וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּ֖ה הָֽרֹמֶ֥שֶׂת עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ 

God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.” (Gen. 1:28)

The third blessing is on the seventh day, when God stops God’s work of creation, blesses the day and declares it holy:

וַיְבָ֤רֶךְ אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־י֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י וַיְקַדֵּ֖שׁ אֹת֑וֹ כִּ֣י ב֤וֹ שָׁבַת֙ מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָ֥א אֱלֹהִ֖ים לַעֲשֽׂוֹת׃ (פ) 

And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done. (Gen. 2:3)

The specifics of these blessings raise a lot of interesting questions, but I’m thinking right now about the act of reciting a blessing. I’m imagining God saying a blessing.

The picture that comes to me as I imagine God saying a blessing starts from the Hebrew, בָ֤רֶךְ ( b-r-k, “bless”). Immediately the word בִּרְכַּיִם (b-r-k in a plural form, “knees”) comes to mind. So the word for blessing in Hebrew tells us that a blessing involves the knees. Whether or not a blessing specifically tells us to bend our knees, as in va-anachnu, the word for blessing itself suggests that we do just that.

So I imagine God stopping the work of creation to look out at the world God created, at the living beings in it, and appreciating it all. God even appreciates the time to appreciate! And God recites blessings, bends the knees toward life and the special space created in time to appreciate life.

Bending the knees signifies many things to me. Respect comes first into my mind. Submission. Awe. Jews bend the knees at various times during prayer, and it signifies all these things in relation to God. But imagine God expressing the same things toward that which God created. Respect recognizes the worth of life and of time, so intimately connected to life. Submission recognizes and bows to human sovereignty in making our own choices.

And awe? Well, I remember when my sons were born. With each, I was in awe. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Everything about them was beautiful, amazing, extraordinary, miraculous . . . awesome. When I imagine God surveying creation, living beings, and bending the knee, when I imagine God in awe of us, it completely transforms my perception of how humanity relates to God.

And then it’s time for creation, for human beings in particular, to respond in kind. There are so many ways to respond, with acts of loving-kindness, with prayerful conversation, with expressions of joy and gratitude — but there is one important Jewish way of responding, with a blessing. We are in a reciprocal relationship. God bends the knee to us as God recites a blessing . . . And we, in turn, bend the knee to God:

בָּרוּך אַתָּה אַדָנָי אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם הָמוֹציא לֶחם מן הַארץ

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.

As we “stop” for a brief moment in the expanse of time, appreciate the moment, notice what is before us, truly notice the miracle of this world being here at all, of us being here in this moment to see it . . . notice that our world provides what sustains us, our bread . . . then we cannot help but feel respect, submission to what is much greater than we can possibly grasp or imagine, awe and amazement.

Finding blessings everywhere isn’t “toxic positivity.” It’s a choice.

The chorus of Leonard Cohen’s poem/song, Anthem, is running through my mind this morning:

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in . . .

This is the wisdom of Jewish blessings. They’re not just about what we immediately recognize as beautiful or beneficial. They are also about finding the light in the cracks.

But there is another bit of wisdom in these lines. Maybe it’s a wish for perfection, conscious or unconscious, that blocks us from seeing the light in the cracks, from even looking at the cracks. If we experience what is imperfect as “less than,” we miss opportunities to experience connection and interbeing. We miss a chance for finding blessings.

So if life seems full of cracks, I want to do a better job of finding blessings in the cracks. To be honest, it doesn’t come naturally to me — but it’s a challenge I choose to accept.

It’s good advice for all kinds of situations. It’s a primary tool in the healing toolbox: stop. Just stop.

I remember years ago when I wanted to become shomeret Shabbat, a Sabbath observer. This meant finishing all my house cleaning and cooking before Shabbat started, refraining from all “work” as defined by the Mishnah and elaborated for the times by later rabbis. There are lots of things not to do on Shabbat — but the basis of all those things is that we are required to just . . . stop.

The origins of Shabbat are explained in the Torah: it is because God stopped on the seventh day:

וַיְכַ֤ל אֱלֹהִים֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֑ה וַיִּשְׁבֹּת֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָֽׂה׃

On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done.

וַיְבָ֤רֶךְ אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־י֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י וַיְקַדֵּ֖שׁ אֹת֑וֹ כִּ֣י ב֤וֹ שָׁבַת֙ מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָ֥א אֱלֹהִ֖ים לַעֲשֽׂוֹת׃ (פ)

And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.

Ceasing, stopping, is a conscious action. It involves a decision to take action, that is, to stop. And that becomes the commandment that is the basis of what we do and don’t do on Shabbat. As God did, we stop work on the seventh day. What an amazing practice.

Think about shutting down and disconnecting from anything that might bring you into contact with work, whether it’s involved in your personal needs, the needs of others including your family, your phone, your computer, driving a car. Twenty-six hours. It probably seems pretty impossible, right?

But also think about what might happen during that time. There is a tradition that our extra soul is restored on Shabbat. When you disconnect in this way, amazing things start to happen. You have time to be with family and friends, to share meals prepared in advance, to take a walk, to read and study just because. You have time to notice. Perhaps to feel gratitude because you had time to notice.

And that brings me back to blessings. Blessings are a small, minute-by-minute practice that reflect the same idea. Just . . . stop. And notice.

The alarm goes off. Roll out of bed, get through your morning routine as quickly as possible so you can move on to the tasks of the day or rush off to work. Every moment of your day seems to demand your attention until you climb back into bed in the evening exhausted. It doesn’t take long before even tasks and work you love becomes oppressive.

Let’s try that differently. Imagine that the first thing you do as you wake in the morning before you even get out of bed is to recite a blessing:

מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶֽיךָ מֶֽלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּים. שֶׁהֶֽחֱזַֽרְתָּ בִּי נִשְׁמָתִי ,בְּחֶמְלָה. רַבָּה אֱמֽוּנָתֶֽךָ

I give thanks before you, King living and eternal, for You have returned within me my soul with compassion; abundant is Your faithfulness!

This blessing points to two important thoughts:

• My life itself is the result of compassionate action.
• Human beings are worthy.

This blessing calls our attention to the compassion that surrounds us and to our meaning and value in the world. It isn’t about blessing God — it is about us, reminding us that we are cared for and valued. What better way to enter a day than with a reminder of the meaningfulness of what we do in it?

I once heard that depression is anger directed inward. This is undoubtedly an over-simplication of the relationship between depression and anger, but it’s clear that there is a correlation between these emotional states. Some scientists say that anger and irritability may be expressions of depression for some.

This morning I’m thinking about how a practice of reciting blessings might interrupt that cycle and create a different outlook. If that works, it might be because anger and depression are symptoms of a disruption in the relationship between self and other.

I believe that humans, like nonhuman animals, have an evolutionary drive toward cooperation and compassion — as well as a drive toward competition and caution, or even suspicion, toward the other. Both these drives serve our evolutionary success in different ways.

Perhaps when these drives become imbalanced, a result is that we diminish ourselves and our own needs — or become overly aggressive and combative towards the world. Of course these expressions may be intermingled since we’re never all one thing or another. The main idea is the imbalance that expresses itself in a variety of ways until a person can again find balance.

I wonder if those who are most comfortable in their lives, most “successful” at living, might be those who have found the key to this balance. Some find it very naturally — others with greater difficulty. For some of us, it’s the work of a lifetime, tinkering here and there on a daily basis, occasionally requiring a major overhaul.

Another thing I once heard is that everyone needs a spiritual practice. Isn’t that what 100 blessings a day is? A spiritual practice directed toward teaching us to pay attention, notice.

Yuval Noah Harari points out that hunter-gatherers were much more attuned to their environment and the creatures in it than we. They had to be. And I would guess that close connection to externals helped maintain a more balanced evaluation of self in relation to the environment and other beings. Finally, and this is just a guess, I bet hunter-gatherers were not as subject to depression and irritability.

Blessings are a tool available to us to reesablish our intimate connection with the world around us and become more realistic in our evaluations of ourselves in relation to it. In this way, blessings keep us healthy.

Imagine if you were to find 100 reasons to recite a blessing every day of your life. How might it transform your outlook and your world?

There is a Jewish tradition that requires we recite at least 100 blessings a day. For an Orthodox Jew who prays three times a day, this is fairly easy to accomplish. But the practice has life-changing benefits for all of us, no matter what our religious or spiritual practice, if we have no spiritual practice, or if we are secular. It’s about cultivating full awareness, a sense of loving and being loved, of gratitude and awe.

Blessings are everywhere, although we tend to overlook those opportunities. We are busy with our lives, or we are overwhelmed with the difficulty of our days. Life can seem random, full of disappointment and loss, even ugly and brutal. How do we know love in the midst of that?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “It is well known that the Chinese ideogram for ‘crisis’ also means ‘opportunity.’ Any civilisation that can see the blessing within the curse, the fragment of light within the heart of darkness, has within it the capacity to endure.” Jacob wrestles with the angel, is permanently damaged but refuses to leave without a blessing, forcing the angel to see and acknowledge him in his pain.

100 blessings is about cultivating the awareness that is the foundation of radical love and joy.

And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the Lord. (Gen. 15:5)

What an extraordinary instruction from God, to look toward the heavens and count the stars! And such an extraordinary response from Abraham follows, related in this simple, matter-of-fact statement, “He believed in the Lord.” Look up, count, believe.

When I imagine myself into that moment when God spoke to Abraham, telling him to look toward the heavens and count the innumerable stars, I can almost touch that experience of wordless faith and certainty.

What if the blessings that surround us work the same way? If we only pause to notice, one by one, the innumerable moments and things that have the potential to inspire amazement, awe, wonder, and gratitude, will that fill us with faith and certainty as we take the next step in life?

To the human eye on earth, stars are tiny and distant. But somehow, looking up, whether looking at the vast display so far away or trying to count each one, we are aware that we are part of something so much greater than we. This is something we can’t experience when we spend our days without connecting to the rest of the universe, even disconnected from our own bodies. Extending a hand to another in friendship or to help, a colony of ants working in community, a world reflected in a drop of water, a seedling struggling to burst from the dirt . . . all these things and so much more inspire faith and certainty but only if we notice them.

The basic unit of Jewish prayer is a blessing. “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Who…” With this formula, we bless different types of foods and beverages. We bless the moon and the sun. We bless an unusual sight, a beautiful sight, religious garments. We begin the Sabbath or a holiday with a blessing, and we end it with one. There is a blessing for surviving illness or danger. There are blessings when we get up, when we lie down and when we wash our hands. 

There is an extraordinary blessing to use after we go to the restroom, Asher Yatzar. This prayer thanks God for creating us completely, with all of our body parts in working order. It declares that if any part of our body were to work in the wrong way, life would be more difficult. The blessing ends with a statement that God “heals all flesh and does wonders.” 

Think about that for a moment. We don’t even notice when we’re healthy and everything is working well…but when the smallest thing goes wrong in this amazing system that is our body, it can cause a lot of debilitating problems. This blessing calls us to take notice even in the moment we’re not likely to, when everything is fine.

There is a teaching in Jewish blessings. Form and content work together to call us to attention, call us to notice, in the best and worst of places and moments. There is no phenomenon in all of creation that is too small or too great to merit a blessing, no situation without one. The specific content is important for bringing alive the innumerable multitudes of potentialities. The form is important for awakening us. Without us noticing, the potential remains unfulfilled.

Each time we recite a blessing, it fulfills a potential, the potential to believe, to feel faith and certainty as Abram did the night God took him outside to look at the sky. “Look toward the heavens, and count the stars.”

וַיִּקַּ֛ח יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֑ם וַיַּנִּחֵ֣הוּ בְגַן־עֵ֔דֶן לְעָבְדָ֖הּ וּלְשָׁמְרָֽהּ׃ 

The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. ~ Gen. 2:15

The older I get, the more ways I see I am like my Dad. The anniversary of his death is coming up soon, so I guess I’m thinking about him now. I wrote about him the day he died, a post I like to share each year on the anniversary of his death — or sometimes on his birthday, which that year was just two weeks before he died, the morning of the first day of Pesach.

My Dad had a deep sense of what I can only call spirituality, as amorphous as that word is. In his best moments, he knew he was part of the unity of all being, and there was inner peace in that. I described him like this as he approached death: “These last weeks my Dad was in a very Zen space. He was neither rushing toward death nor struggling to remain in life. He was exactly where he was and was content there.”

But he did have extended times of disconnect, as I do, times when busy days and complicated emotions get in the way of the experience of “interbeing” and simple truth. It was easy to see when he was in this space. His body language declared it. I called it his Executive Walk. When he moved like this, his shoulders were hunched, his eyes were down, and he drove forward with greater speed as though it would move him through his tasks and responsibilities more quickly.

I also do an Executive Walk, even when I’m in one of my favorite times of day, walking outdoors. Doing that Executive Walk decreases the simple pleasure of my walk. Rushing toward my steps goal so I can move on to my next tasks and responsibilities means I miss that opportunity to restore my sense of interbeing, to connect to the air on my face, the clouds drifting above, the buds on the trees, the wrens on the bushes around our homes singing their hearts out just because. I am disconnected from my little dog and the pleasure he gets from stopping to investigate and experience every tiniest aroma. I am even disconnected from myself, my sense experience and my body.

Blessings teach us to notice. Perhaps instead of counting steps, I should count blessings, strive to reach that elusive 100 blessings a day. Maybe in this way blessings are an antidote to “busy-ness,” those things that fill our days and distract us from our true purpose and meaning, tilling and tending the Garden that surrounds us, noticing what it truly needs, not what we, in our busy-ness, think it needs.