THE T’FILAH: SECOND CLOSING BENEDICTION
HODA’AH: GRATITUDE
Rabbi Richard Sarason
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At the very beginning of our study of the T’filah, we noted that its three daily sections are often characterized as comprising: (1) praise, (2) petition, and (3) thanksgiving (and that the petitionary section is replaced on Shabbat, Festivals, and High Holy Days with a single benediction dealing with the sacred occasion). In the course of our study we have noted that the benedictions of praise in fact contain implicit petitions (we praise the God of the ancestors and thereby invoke God’s aid to their descendants; we praise the mighty God and thereby invoke God’s power to save us). We have also noted that only the second of the three concluding benedictions is an expression of gratitude; the other two in fact are petitions (for God’s acceptance of our worship and for God’s blessing of peace/well-being). Those structural observations bring us at last to a consideration of the benediction that expresses our gratitude to God.
The two words in the English language that cannot be spoken enough are “Thank you.” That pertains as well to our stance vis-à-vis God. The rabbinic tradition that we cited at the beginning of our study of the T’filah likens the person who concludes his or her prayer to a servant who has received from his master the gift that he has requested and now departs with an expression of gratitude (Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 34b). In fact, the gifts that are enumerated in this blessing are the ones that we often take most for granted—until we lose them: “our lives which are Your hand, our souls which are in Your care, Your miracles that we experience every day, and Your wondrous deeds and favors at every time of day: evening, morning, and noon.” These “daily miracles”—the so-called little things—in reality are the big things. In that recognition lies the heart of Jewish piety. Not only does Jewish tradition urge each of us to “set Adonai before me at all times,” in the words of Psalm 16:8, but also to say “Thank you” to God at all times (what else is the occasional b’rachah about?). It is not accidental that Chaim Stern, when pondering a rubric title for the brief daily morning benedictions (Birchot hashachar) in Gates of Prayer, chose the phrase Nissim b’chol yom (“Daily Miracles”) that derives from the Hoda’ah benediction; the themes and attitudes of both are identical.
It is worth pointing out that the first words of our benediction, Modim anachnu lach1are translated in Mishkan T’filah as “We acknowledge with thanks” (a variant on the UPB’s “We gratefully acknowledge”). The reason is that the verb l’hodot means both to thank and to acknowledge, and that the text continues: “. . .that You, Adonai, are our God and the God of our ancestors forever”—this is to be understood as a declaration of fact, hence an acknowledgment on the part of those who are praying.
There are two occasional insertions into this benediction. The first, during each of the eight days of Chanukah, is noted on our page: “On Chanukah, continue on page 556.” The second, for Purim, is not noted here because Purim can never fall on Shabbat (the Purim insertion, for a weekday, is found in Mishkan T’filah on p. 557). Chanukah and Purim are both post-biblical festivals (or, “post-Torah,” since the Book of Esther is, of course, biblical). They each celebrate what the tradition views to have been a miraculous divine salvation of the Jewish people, at the time of the Maccabees (the sons of the priest Matityahu/Mattathias) and at the time of Esther and Mordecai. Liturgically, these holidays are noted in the T’filah by including in the Hoda’ah benediction a specific expression of gratitude “for the miracles and for the redemption” of the Jews on these two occasions. In our own day, it has become customary in many Jewish circles to incorporate into this benediction on Yom HaAtzma’ut (Israel Independence Day) as well an expression of gratitude “for the miracles and for the redemption” of the Jewish people experienced through the founding of the State of Israel (Mishkan T‘filah, p. 555).
The Hoda’ah benediction in the T’filah is thus the quintessential liturgical expression of gratitude to God—both on special occasions and every day, since God’s miracles indeed are “with us daily, at all times—evening, morning, and noon.”
1Hebrew learners, please note: lach here is not the feminine inflected indirect object (as this form would be characterized in standard Biblical Hebrew), but the masculine inflected direct object of “Middle,” or Rabbinic Hebrew, which has been influenced by the forms of Aramaic. The same form also appears in Biblical Hebrew as a pausal (that is, at the end of a major syntactic unit of text).
Dr. Sarason is Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought and the Associate Editor of the Hebrew Union College Annual. He was ordained at HUC-JIR. His specialties are classical rabbinic literature, history of Judaism in late antiquity, Midrash and Liturgy.
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