My father often tells the story of a group of adventurous mountain climbers who trained for months in order to prepare to scale an exceptionally tall, steep mountain. Finally, they purchased all their equipment, packed their bags, and set out on their expedition.
They climbed and climbed, utilizing every bit of energy they had, for several days, hoping to make it to the top. After a grueling trek, and after wondering on many occasions whether perhaps they might not make it, they were almost at the peak.
As they approached the mountaintop, they heard people talking. They were startled. How, they wondered, did those people get there?
When they finally reached the top, they introduced themselves to the people who were already there.
They asked, “How did you get here? Climbing this mountain is about the most difficult feat imaginable. How did you do it?”
“Simple,” they replied. “We were born here.”
This story aptly captures the attitude that virtually all of us have towards someone or something in our lives.
Like the people on the top of the mountain, we don’t appreciate how much work went into getting us to where we are. We tend to take everything for granted, assuming that it just kind of happened by itself.
The Roots of Ingratitude
This phenomenon is as old as the world itself.
After Adam committed the sin of eating from the forbidden tree, Hashem came to him and asked him about what he had just done. Adam replied, האשה אשר נתתה עמדי היא נתנה לי מן העץ ואוכל – “The woman whom You placed beside me, she gave me from the [fruit of the] tree, and I ate.”
In other words, Adam was saying, “It’s her fault!!”
The Gemara comments that Adam here was כפוי טובה – ungrateful. Hashem gave him a wife as his helpmate, and he complained about her.
Many centuries later, when Beneh Yisrael were in the desert, they complained about the manna, the miraculous food that rained down for them each morning from the heavens. They did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to obtain this food; it was just given to them – and yet they complained, even saying נפשנו קצה בלחם הקלוקל, which loosely translates as, “We are sick and tired of this miserable food!”
The Gemara says that Hashem responded to their complaints by saying that they were כפויי טובה בני כפויי טובה – ungrateful people, the children of Adam, who was ungrateful. Just as he complained about the wife he was given, they complained about the food they were given.
The roots of ingratitude lie in the story of the people on the mountaintop. People are ungrateful because they don’t open their eyes to see what went into reaching the top of the mountain. They take everything for granted, without opening their eyes to appreciate what was done for them. They see all the good as self-understood, and then complain about what they don’t like.
Let’s go through some familiar examples.
Kids
I was once on the subway with my kids, when a man who was likely homeless came on the train in a wheelchair and asked for money. I gave him a dollar, and then said to my four-year-old son, “You see this person? He probably does not have a house to live in. He doesn’t have money for food or clothes, so we gave him some money to help him. We are so fortunate – Hashem gave us a house, food and clothes.”
“No He didn’t,” my son said.
“What?!” I asked, startled.
“He didn’t have to. We had all that before He gave it to us!”
This is how the mind of a four-year-old works – but to some extent, this is how kids think even when they get a little older.
They have absolutely no idea, and do not care to think, about what went into the home, food and clothing that they have. They have no idea what it takes to earn enough money to pay all the bills, and what it takes to constantly maintain the home, shop, wash clothing, and do everything else needed to care for them.
Then there’s the issue of married children….
Once when I was giving a class on the subject of parents and in-laws, a woman raised her hand and said, “CAN’T THEY JUST CLEAN THE HIGHCHAIR!?!!?”
They come with their small child or children, use the house, the kitchen, the toys and the furniture, and eat the food…and then just leave. They leave with a hug and a “thank you” – but also with a giant mess all over the house! They don’t recognize that somehow, all this has to be cleaned up.
The Torah tells in Parashat Shemot that after Hashem appeared to Moshe and gave him the most important job ever in human history – to bring the Jews out of Egypt, bring them to Mount Sinai and give them the Torah – Moshe went to his father-in-law, Yitro, and asked his permission to leave. Let’s think about this: G-d spoke to him, told him to go to Egypt and fulfill the most important mission ever, and Moshe did not go before asking his father-in-law’s permission!
The Rabbis explained that Moshe felt a debt of gratitude to Yitro for taking him in and giving him his daughter’s hand in marriage after he ran away from Egypt. He could not just say good-bye and leave, no matter how important the job was. This would be ungrateful. He first needed to go to Yitro and ask permission.
This is a model for all married couples to follow – the model of respect and gratitude to their parents and in-laws for all they’ve done.
Spouses
This might be the most important example of all.
So many spouses do not appreciate what the other spouse does for them.
A wife goes the grocery store, fills up the cart, goes to the cash, pulls out the credit card, and then brings it all home. Does she think about how the money got in the bank to cover that bill? Does she think about the tedious work, the pressure, the headaches, the long meetings, the traffic, the difficult people that need to be dealt with – all that the husband needs to go through in order to have that money deposited in the bank?
A husband comes home to a scrumptious dinner and happy, freshly-bathed children. Does he think about how all this happened? Does he think of the hours involved shopping, peeling, chopping, stirring, frying, setting the table, washing, drying and cleaning? Does he think of all the children’s temper tantrums, the chauffeuring back and forth, the running around, the errands, the homework, the bathing – all that the wife needs to go through so that he comes to a functional, happy household?
Too often, husbands and wives are like the people born on the mountaintop, figuring that this all kind of happens by itself, that it’s no big deal. They fail to sufficiently appreciate all the other did – and so when a mistake is made, they complain and get angry, just like Adam.
Business
Another, especially troubling, example is lack of gratitude in the business world.
Parashat Bereshit tells the story of Kayin and Hevel – the first murder in history. Kayin was jealous of his brother, and so he killed him.
This story is well-known, but the details of what happened are not. The Midrash Tanhuma teaches that Kayin attacked Hevel, and they wrestled. Hevel had Kayin pinned down to the ground, and Kayin then turned to Hevel and said, “You can’t do this. You can’t kill your brother.”
Hevel let him go – and Kayin then promptly killed him.
As painful as it is to say this, something similar happens not infrequently in our community.
A man – perhaps a young married fellow with little or no work experience – needs a job, and so a family friend brings him into his business and gives him work. He works for several years, gaining valuable knowledge and experience. His family grows and he needs a larger income than his salary gives him. So what does he do? He leaves to start his own enterprise. And he brings with him not only his knowledge and experience – but also some of his former boss’s customers and employees….
In the more severe cases, he also spreads rumors about his former boss’s business, in order to boost his new, competing enterprise.
Like Kayin, this selfish, ungrateful entrepreneur rises against the person who took care of him, who lifted him up when he was down.
How ungrateful!
How can this fellow not appreciate the person who brought him to the “mountaintop”? Does he not realize that he didn’t get there alone, that there was somebody who brought him to the point of being ready to open his own business?
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with going out on one’s own. Being hired by a company does not lock the employee up forever. But it should be done the right way, with gratitude and appreciation for the one who brought him to that point.
The Need to Feel Accomplished
Why does this happen? Why is it so hard for people to feel grateful, to give credit to those who helped them? Why can’t they see and appreciate what went into getting them to where they are?
The answer has to do with one of the most basic and important drives that we human beings have.
After Hashem created Adam and Havah, He told them to go “conquer the world.” He wants us to develop the world and make it better. And in order to make sure this would happen, He implanted within us a strong drive to succeed, to achieve, to accomplish. Every single one of us has natural ambition, an innate desire to feel that we’re accomplishing something significant. And this desire is so crucial, because it is what helps guarantee that we don’t waste our lives, and instead use our time here to achieve great things in the world.
But this desire poses a problem: it makes us reluctant to credit our accomplishments to anyone else.
We want to feel that we accomplished what we’ve accomplished all by ourselves. In order to satisfy the desire to feel accomplished, we have a very hard time acknowledging that other people played a vital role in our success. We want to feel that we’ve gotten here by ourselves.
This is why so many children resent their parents and in-laws, instead of appreciating them. In their desire to feel accomplished, they refuse to credit their parents and in-laws with working hard to raising them and enabling them to succeed. Getting angry at their parents allows them to look at their parents not as their most important asset in life, but as people who get in their way – so they can feel proud of their accomplishments.
The same is true of spouses. Like Adam, so many people blame their spouses for everything that goes wrong, instead of giving them credit for everything that goes right. Why? Because crediting their spouse diminishes from their sense of personal accomplishment.
This explains a peculiar – but oh so common – phenomenon: we tend to express the most gratitude to those who’ve done the least for us.
When the guy from the cleaners drops off our suit, we thank him profusely. When we see the mailman bringing the mail, we express appreciation. When somebody holds the door open for us, we politely thank him. We warmly thank the cashier at the store and the fellow at the gas station. But how often do husbands thank their wives for preparing Shabbat and holiday meals? How often do wives thank their husbands for working long hours to support the family? How often do people thank their parents for the years of hard work, or for making them a beautiful wedding?
Why is that?
The answer is that giving credit to the mailman, the cashier, or the stranger who held the door open for us does not threaten our sense of achievement. We can still feel successful and accomplished knowing that the mailman brings us our mail. But it’s harder to feel successful and accomplished knowing how much we owe our parents, our spouse, our in-laws, and so many other people in our lives without whom we would never have gotten anywhere. This is where the great challenge of gratitude is.
The Fallacy of the “Self-Made Person”
How do we overcome this? What can we do to make it easier for us to feel grateful?
At the very end of the Torah, in Parashat Vezot Haberachah, we read of Moshe Rabbenu’s death. One of the most fascinating aspects of this story is that the last words Hashem says to Moshe before his death are ושמה לא תעבור – “you will not cross over to there,” to the Land of Israel. Hashem showed Moshe the land before his death, and His last words were: “You aren’t going there.”
At first glance, this might sound cruel. But in truth, this is such a powerful lesson.
Hashem was telling Moshe – and all of us – that nobody completes his life mission alone. Moshe’s mission was to lead Beneh Yisrael from Egypt to the Land of Israel, but he would not complete it by himself. His student and successor, Yehoshua, finished the job. And that’s the way the world works.
We need to understand that we are expected to do the most we can – but also that we are never able to do anything alone. Hashem created the world in such a way that people need to work together and help each other. There is no shame whatsoever in sharing the credit for our accomplishments with other people. Not even Moshe Rabbenu, the most successful and accomplished person who ever lived, could finish the job by himself. We are supposed to accomplish together with others. We don’t need to take all the credit for ourselves.
Sometimes we hear people talk about a “self-made person.” But the truth is that there’s no such thing!!! Nobody is “self-made.” Not even Moshe Rabbenu. There is no sense in trying to fool ourselves into thinking we are “self-made.” That’s absurd! None of us got to where we are alone. We got here thanks to our parents, our siblings, our teachers, our community, our spouse, our in-laws…and the list goes on and on and on.
This is why Moshe Rabbenu’s name was משה – the name given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter who rescued him from the river when he was a baby, and said, מן המים משיתיהו – “I drew him from the water.” Whenever we mention Moshe’s name, we bring to mind the fact that he would never have gotten through infancy without the Egyptian woman who saved his life and raised him as her own child.
Moshe was not “self-made.” He would not have gotten anywhere without the people who helped him – his parents, Pharaoh’s daughter, his father-in-law, and many others.
We should not be afraid to give other people the credit they deserve for our successes. Nothing is diminished from our accomplishments by honestly recognizing those without whom we could not have achieved anything.
Recognizing Hashem
How important is gratitude in Jewish life?
The Torah commands that people from the nation of Amon may not convert and join our nation, because of their ancestors’ ingratitude.
Back when Beneh Yisrael left Egypt, the people of Amon did not offer any assistance, such as bringing food and water. The people of Amon descended from Lot – the nephew of Avraham Avinu, who was rescued from the city of Sedom before the city’s destruction, in Avraham’s merit. If not for Avraham, the founder of Amon would never have been born. This nation owed its existence to the ancestor of the Jewish Nation. But they refused to show gratitude – and so forever more, they are not permitted to join us.
The ability to feel and show gratitude is non-negotiable in Judaism. It’s one of the fundamental cornerstones of our faith.
Why? What makes gratitude so vital to Torah life?
If we cannot appreciate the role played by other people in our successes, then we cannot appreciate Hashem’s role in our successes. If we are not grateful to other people, then we won’t be grateful to Hashem. If we insist that we are “self-made,” that we got here alone, without other people’s help, then we will also feel that we got here without Hashem’s help.
This is one reason why many young people are giving up religion. Instead of recognizing and appreciating everything Hashem has given them, they are upset about what they don’t have, and then become disillusioned when they pray for what they want and don’t get it. Appreciation is so important, because without appreciating all our good fortune, we will see Hashem as the One who is denying us all that we want, instead of the One who is giving us all that we have.
We begin every morning of every day with the words מודה אני לפניך, expressing gratitude to Hashem. As soon as we start our day, we recognize that anything we are going to do that day is thanks to Hashem, who allowed us to wake up, who has given us life and given us everything we have. This is the way a Jew is supposed to live – with deep gratitude and appreciation for everything he has.
Let’s live with our eyes open, appreciating all those who helped bring us to the “mountaintop” where we now live, and recognizing that we didn’t get here alone – and that we aren’t supposed to get anywhere alone, but rather with the help of the people around us as well as, of course, our Creator.