One Hundred Blessings Everyday
Kol Nidre – September 29, 1998 – 5759

A story: There was once an irreligious seaman who was in a boat fishing with some friends. A sudden storm broke out which threatened to sink the ship. His companions pleaded with him to offer a prayer, but he hesitated, saying it was years since he had prayed or entered a house of worship. When they continued to insist, he finally made this prayer: “O Lord, it have not asked You for anything for fifteen years, and if You deliver us out of this storm, and bring us safely to land again, I promise that I will not bother You for another fifteen years.” I’m not sure of the disposition of this prayer.

Perhaps we make good the seaman’s promise. From time to time the following words pass through our lips: “God bless you;” the shorter form “God bless;” and once in a while, “Thank God,” all recited as third person “distant” rather than second person “personal.” Like the storm tossed seaman, our communication with God is brief and only for the matter at hand. Maybe we imagine that God runs the super computer-on-high and we are on His buddy list. On AOL there is this twinkling sound when you receive an instant e-mail. Once in a while, for the seaman, a long while, we e-mail God, and hope that He responds in the affirmative.

Yet our faith, our Judaism, our being here this night, this yom tov season, and indeed every day of the year, is founded on talking to God. Being a Jew is singularly defined as omdim babrit- standing in the covenant, communicating with God. In the Talmud, Rabbi Meir, who lived about 150 C.E. proclaimed the dictum: We are duty-bound – chovah alaynu – to utter 100 blessings each day.

Not e-mails!

No thirty second voice messages!

No forty-five second answering machine tapes!

Full fledged berachot: Baruch atah Adonay’s

Second person: “immediate” - personal.

Quality time and quantity of content.Us and God.

Rabbi Meir supported his statement by midrashically playing with a word in a verse in Deuteronomy: “And as for thee, O Israel, what – mah – does God want from you?” Mah sounds like “Me’ah” meaning 100. He transposes the sentence: “God wants me’ah 100 – blessings – from you.” Later tradition supported Rabbi Meir. By the ninth century the Gaon of Sura, leader of Babylonian Jewry elaborated on this. Later halachic sources specified the exact berachot. Rabbi Meir’s teaching determined the structure of the siddur and machzor to this very day.

After all this interesting historical detail, I ask the following question:

If you were going to say these one hundred blessings,

What would you bless?

What would you say?

Would it all be requests?

Better business? Better test scores? More money?

Trying to remember my maternal grandmother’s Yiddish, she used to say “Vus vilste fur meir?” – “What do you want from me?” If we were to say berachot, God has the right to ask back at us: “Vus vilste fur meir?” – “What do you want from Me?”What would you say?

What would be your blessing?

My question is not frivolous. The berachot in our machzorim and siddurim reveal the essence, the heart of hearts, of our feelings and our yearnings. No word is wasted. The berachot address the Truths of Truths. I’ll share with you my berachot. After yom tov, perhaps you might want to write down your berachot, and keep it in your pocket or on the dresser, review and recite the list every day, even if it isn’t one hundred.

I bless God for health. In the obliviousness of our youth we might think ourselves invincible. Maybe that explains why more young people are smoking, using drugs, driving like meshugas, and other risky behaviors. I don’t take my body and my health for granted. Many of Rabbi Meir’s blessings are berachot hodayah – thank you words to God, that we wake up with bodies working, more or less, and health enough to live meaningfully another day.

I bless God for the world. I don’t take the sunrise or the sunset for granted. I walk my lawn looking for crabgrass, rake the leaves and trim the bushes with the same awe of the mystery of why all these things grow, whether I want them or not! People might question my tolerance, yes, and even desire to hear a baby’s cry and a child’s voice in shul. Far from disturbing me, each sound, testifying to our creative power, is a miracle. Each peep, a few times too many, for sure, is a beracha unto itself! All I want to do is say Amen! Amen! I thank God “yom yom” – daily - for the physical world and our part in it. This, too, is included in Rabbi Meir’s one hundred blessings.

I bless God for love. For His love. For my wife’s love. For my children’s love. For my mother’s & my brother’s. For yours. For my ability to love. While I’m not sure that the Beatles were right when they sang “All You Need Is Love”, love – to love others and to feel their love, is an indispensable element in life. Frequently our tefillot include the word ahavah – love. We assert our faith through the beracha that God loves us, in our youth and when we’re old, in our prosperity and our poverty. Through the beracha, we love God back. Through the beracha we love others, and through the power of beracha, feel them loving us. My reading informs me that one of the greatest fears is that of being alone. Through me’ah berachot, one hundred blessings, we sense and believe, that we are never alone, never abandoned by God or by others.

I bless God for time. Whether I am on vacation or not, I inherited from my father, alav hashalom, an internal time clock that wakes me at 6:00 A.M. Fortunately it was not his exact clock, for he awoke at 5:00! I appreciate the stillness before the traffic, undisturbed birds, untouched snow and the quiet sounds of the family asleep. I am equally lost without my watch that has the day and date. I can look at the dial and be reminded of events past and those to come. At different junctures I often quote from Psalm 90: “Teach us to number our days, so that we may attain a heart of wisdom.” I take these words to heart. Time is fleeting. The older I get, relative to others, the shorter are the days. The week feels over by Monday afternoon. I read an interesting piece calculated that every morning we rise with an account that is credited 86,400 – seconds. In the metaphor, there is no carry over from one day to the next. The challenge – the blessing, is to use it up - completely. Another piece calculated that based on a life span of 72 years: we spend 14 years working; 20 sleeping; 4 enjoying pleasures; 3 dressing and shaving; 2 eating; 3 just ‘waiting around;’ and 1 year on the telephone. Give or take. And it goes so fast.

James Shotwell wrote this poem:

Time is a cunning thief, beware,
He picks our pockets daily,
Not an old gray beard, bent with care
But a youngster grinning daily.
The glass and scythe are mere disguise,
To cover his queer behaving,
And you find at last with sudden surprise,
He has stolen all your savings.
But when this happens the thing to do
Is not to beg or borrow,
But with defter fingers rifle him too,
And steal another tomorrow.

So I bless God for time . Through the prayer of beracha, I appreciate yesterday, love today, and ‘steal another tomorrow.’

Now, except for the time constraints, I’m just beginning my personal list of me’ah berachot, before even repeating the traditional liturgy based on Rabbi Meir. I, we, can’t possibly be like the seaman in the opening story, having not conversed, not blessed God, for fifteen years. There is so much to say. So much to be thankful for; even before we make our petitions. After yom tov, try to make your personal list of me’ah berachot. You’ll see how easy it is and how hard it is, to get everything in.

A story: A person was speeding on the road and was stopped by the inevitable policeman. He expected the usual, a speeding ticket. The policeman started with the following questions:

“How much have you traveled on this road?”

“About twenty-five miles.”

“Did you notice, about ten miles back, the beautiful landscaping on the strip between the lanes?”

“No, I am afraid not.”

“About five miles back, did you notice a circle planted with beautiful flowers?”

“I noticed the circle, but I was driving too fast to see the flowers?”

“Three miles back, did you notice the woods on both sides with some stately poplars?”

“No, I had to have my eyes glued to the white line because of the speed at which I was driving.”

Now the man resigned himself to the penalty. He was shocked when the policeman gave him this speech:

“My dear man, our state spent a great deal of money to beautify this road. It did it for your enjoyment. Why don’t you enjoy it? Next time, go slowly, and remember – look at the flowers.”