The Whole Heart: Finding Gratitude in Both Grief and Joy

Rabbi Yoshi’s derash from Beach Shabbat, delivered on Shabbat Nachamu — the Sabbath of Comfort that always follows Tisha b’Av.

Beginning with a personal story from his own wedding thirty years ago, Rabbi Yoshi explores what it means to love God “b’chol levavcha” — with all of your heart — and why our tradition asks us to bless God not only in the good times, but in the painful ones too. Drawing on this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Vaetchanan, the Mishnah’s teaching on gratitude, and a hidden echo of the Book of Lamentations found in our daily prayers, this message speaks to the moment we’re living through — a “Golden Age” of American Jewish life now shadowed by rising antisemitism — and points toward Tu b’Av, the festival of love, just six days away.

🎥 Recorded at Stephen Wise Temple’s Beach Shabbat, Santa Monica

Transcript

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In just a few weeks, my wife Jacqueline and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage together. You can do better than that. There we go. There we go. That's right. I know it's hard to believe. Indeed, Jacqueline and I married in the late 1900s, 96 to be exact. At our wedding, we danced and celebrated with such joy. It was absolutely amazing. And at the end of the night, the videographer, and this is old school kids, old school videographer, like it was this giant thing with the huge battery pack. It was it was big. And the videographer came to us and asked if we had any words we wanted to share at the end of the evening. And we thanked our parents for putting on this beautiful party for us and all of our friends and loved ones for being there. And then we said a shahakianu, just kind of just kind of came out. And we said a shahianu, thanking God for bringing us to that moment in time. And then what we discovered just two months later gave us emotional and spiritual whiplash. Because after this joyous moment, we learned that the nagging cough that my mother developed soon after the wedding wasn't a cold, it was lung cancer. And then it was a few years later, after my mom passed away, that we found ourselves watching our wedding video again. And we realized something chilling when we got to the end of the video because we kind of forgotten that moment. But there we were saying the Shechyannu all those years before, giving thanks to God for arriving at that season. And we realized that the cancer that would ultimately take my mom's life at age 59 was already there. So we were saying thank you in the middle of this unfolding tragedy. And you know what? That's always the case. Maybe not in as dramatic a way, maybe not in as personal a way. But whenever we're saying Shahianu or whenever we're rejoicing, there is something unfolding somewhere that will cause us pain eventually. But here's the thing the reverse is also true. In bad times, something somewhere is unfolding that will bring us joy. And so the question I want us to think about tonight is can we hold both of these truths at once? And this Shabbat is really the time to think about that in our Jewish calendar. Because two nights ago, as we mentioned earlier on Wednesday evening, and then all day yesterday, we commemorated what is traditionally considered the saddest day in the Jewish year, at least for us as a community. Tishab Av, the ninth of the month of Av. But tomorrow we're going to hear words of comfort from the prophet Isaiah, which traditionally followed this day of sadness to bring consolation and relief. And Rabbi Stern's going to be teaching Spirit of Shabbat tomorrow, and he's going to touch on this briefly in the context of this moment, and we'll delve more deeply into Parashad Vetchanan, but we'll touch on that briefly. And then as part of the main study in Shabbat tomorrow services, we're going to look at that Torah portion that includes not just the recapitulation of the Ten Commandments, but also the words of Shema and Veahfta. This is the Torah portion that commands us to love God with all of our heart. In Hebrew, Bechol Levavcha. Now, the Torah could just say love God in your heart, or it could say, love God with your heart, but it says with all of your heart. And it also says it in a strange way, which I'll get to in a second. And I really want to focus in on this commandment that's in tomorrow's Torah portion. Somehow we're supposed to love God with our whole selves. And I think the secret is that gratitude isn't only for the moments when it comes easily. You know, you're sitting on the edge of the Pacific Ocean surrounded by family, friends, community. It's easy to say thank you. We have to find a way to give thanks, to be grateful, and even show that thanks when times are challenging. So what does it mean to love God? And what does it mean for us in terms of loving others? Now, our sages notice something curious in the Hebrew itself. It could have written the word in your heart just as Beliebcha in your heart with a single bet. And you have it actually in the Sidor, it's right there. You can look at it. But instead it says Bekol levavcha. And so there's two of those letter bets, as if the word itself has two hearts folded into it. And in the Mishnah in Brahot, chapter 9, it goes into that in great detail. And it uses this church, this verse from the Torah, Bekol Levavcha, to teach us something remarkable that relates to this Shabbat in particular. And I think it relates more broadly to what we're experiencing in our lives in this season. It says in the Mishnah, which is really strange. It says a person is obligated to bless God for bad things, just as you bless God for good things. And that's the two hearts folded into one word. One heart for the good times, dancing at the wedding, rejoicing at a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah, celebrating a baby naming, all of the happy times, a milestone birthday. That's one heart. But then there's the other heart for the painful times. Not just loving God when things are easy, but loving God and blessing God, with everything. And that's the whole challenge, really, of our lives. It's easy when it's obviously something to be giving thanks for, to give thanks. But that's not really gratitude when you think about it. That's just sort of noticing good fortune, which isn't not, you know, it's not nothing, but it's also, is that really what gratitude is? Real gratitude. I think the kindness verse is asking of us is the discipline of finding thanks and showing it, even in the middle of something hard. Gratitude for everything. Bekolvha means everything. So think about now this season that we find ourselves in in our Jewish community. We have lived through, and perhaps, I hope it's not true, but I think it is. I think we've seen the end of what many have called the golden age of American Judaism. A moment of remarkable safety, acceptance, flourishing, antisemitism at historic lows, Jewish life woven comfortably into American life, Israel not a polarizing issue, but something that was caused for bipartisan support. And we're living now through something much harder. Antisemitism rising again, our sense of safety shaken, real fear back in rooms where it hadn't been in decades. This week, the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel released a video on the eve of Tishaba Av that I think objectively, if you look at it, is incitement against Israel and all those who support Israel, which is the vast majority of Jews worldwide. So it's really incitement against Jews. And two days later, on the upper us on the upper west side of Manhattan, two men were stabbed by an attacker. The fear in the air right now is real. Tishabaab feels like now, not some distant memory. Can we love God? Can we bless God in the golden age? Of course. It's easy. We might forget to do so, but it's easy. Can we love God and bless God in these harder days, too? That's the question. That's the doubled heart. Not one love for comfort and a different love for Christ. It's one love, Bacholovavcha, big enough for both. Now, our tradition teaches us that the primary way we demonstrate our love for God is by how we treat the people in front of us and how we treat the world around us. That's the architecture of mitzvot, of the commandments. Love is not some private feeling we have toward heaven. That's not what it means to love God. Love is a public accounting, a demonstration of how we show our thanks in the good years and in the hard ones as well. But here's the thing that I think is beautiful. This lesson isn't just true this year. It's true every year because Parashat Vayethanan, with Vayahafta embedded inside of it, always falls on the Sabbath immediately after Tishab'av. The calendar is created and formed in such a way that that always happens. So without exception, this is the portion we read when we lift our heads from the fast, and that's no accident. Someone generations ago, some of the wise rabbis of days of old, set the cycle this way on purpose. And then a few days later, year after year, comes Tuba'v, the fifteenth day of the month of Av, which our sages called one of the two happiest days in the entire Jewish year. A day when, according to tradition, the daughters of Jerusalem danced in the vineyards in borrowed white garments, and they would find their besherd. They would find the person that they love. Same calendar every year, same tradition, same verse, really. The portion isn't read between those two days by coincidence. It is the bridge between these two things, built very thoughtfully, year after year. The reminder that the love commanded in the Shema is big enough to hold both of these things. The blessing we make through loss and the blessing we make through joy just six days later, these aren't two different things. One love, big enough for the whole heart. The golden age and rising antisemitism, the good and the painful, the range of what life brings us and what life asks us to carry. And I want to close with this. This isn't just what the calendar is carrying for us, it's embedded in our sidur every single day. In the morning, traditionally the first thing we say, mode ani or moda'ani, and then in the Modim prayer, which you might have prayed silently just a few moments ago, we say words that are really embedded in the book of Lamentations, which is so strange that we would say these words of gratitude that are drawn from the saddest book in the Hebrew Bible, the book we read on Tishaba Av. Because in the Amidah prayer we say, Hatov kilo chalu racha mecha, fahamrachem kilo tamu chasadecha. God, you are good, for your mercies never end. You are compassionate, for your kindness never ceases. What does it mean to say it never ends? It never ceases. It means it's happening always, even when we are in difficult times. And that is a direct echo of chapter three of the Book of Lamentations that says, the rabbis brilliantly take that verse and then subtly embed it in the prayer book. God's kindness has not ended, God's mercies are not spent. The very words we read at our lowest point, literally and figuratively, sitting on the floor on Tishab'av, mourning, those words are folded into the prayer we say traditionally three times a day to give thanks. Someone took the language of grief and stitched it into our gratitude, which I think in some ways is the whole answer to the question I open with. In good times and in bad times, too, can we see God's presence? Can we find the strength to say thank you? So the invitation this week and really always is hold both of these things. Bless God, however you understand God to be, whatever you understand the universe to be directing us towards, bless that force, even through what Tishaba Av asks us to carry. And then get ready. Because six days later we get to bless God, we get to bless the universe through joy, too. That is not spiritual whiplash. That's just a whole heart doing its work. Shabbat Shalom. Well, that's our episode. Thanks for listening to Search for Meaning. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe, and leave a review. It really helps others discover the podcast. And consider sharing Search for Meaning with a friend. They might appreciate the insights and inspiration found here. Special thanks to our editor Josh Sterling and our production coordinator Raz Husseini. Our theme song was composed by Maestro David Cates and myself, produced by Kenley Mattis, and features a vocal by cantor Josh Goldberg. Stay healthy, stay hopeful, and stay tuned.