Thanksgiving Message
Background
Yesterday we had our Thanksgiving festivities in Shalom Torah Academy. Over the course of the day I had the opportunity to discuss with a number of different groups of students why it is so important to ‘give thanks’ or as we say in Judaism to be ‘makir tov’ or to do Hakaras HaTov. I heard a number of different very thoughtful answers.
This activity prompted me to think- why, in fact, should someone be makir tov or recognize the good that others do for him? With the children we discussed the idea that it is a necessary behavior in order to encourage kind and generous behavior in society. Without Hakaras HaTov or recognizing the good that people do and reciprocating that good, most people would not bother doing kindnesses with each other.
While this is certainly true, I felt that there must be more. It cannot be that the entire reason to recognize the good that others do is only because I want to get further good in the future. In a similar vein, the basic law of morality- ‘do not steal from someone else because you do not want someone else to steal from you’- is certainly true and important to have the proper functioning of society, but this is not the entire reason to not steal. We can readily understand that to steal is bad and wrong even without any reciprocal response from those around us.
Question
Why is this true about being makir tov/ recognizing the good that people do for us? Why is it fundamentally good, right and proper for us to focus on and appreciate the good that people do for us?
And furthermore, why is it so important to reciprocate the good that others do for us?
Answer
The Ramchal in his famous work, the Mesillas Yesharim, in the third chapter, describes a scary reality that many people in the world find themselves in: an inability to identify right and wrong. Many people, perhaps most people, are unable to correctly identify good and evil. These people, the Ramchal writes, walk around in this world as one who is walking in the darkness- they confuse a beam for a person and a person for a beam. Similarly, these people confuse good for evil and evil for good.
What are the ramifications of this? They strengthen themselves and encourage others in doing evil and criticize and shun those who do good. To recognize good from evil, right from wrong, is therefore the first step and most basic and necessary attribute in being a successful person.
Hakaras HaTov or to be Makir Tov or to recognize good, we usually use to refer to being thankful. But more profoundly and more fundamentally it is to recognize good. It means to be able to identify good. To recognize the most basic good of all: the goodness that I personally have received and experienced from others.
As we know, the actions and behaviors that we do have a profound effect on us. As the great sages have taught us ‘a person is affected according to his actions.’ It is therefore necessary for us to not only recognize this most basic of goodness but rather to act on it as well. When we do act on it we are strengthening within ourselves our recognition of good while if we do NOT act on it we are strengthening within ourselves the character trait of ignoring the recognition of good.
It is therefore self-understood: if one cannot recognize the most basic, personal goodness- the good he personally receives- he is obviously not going to be able to recognize other good in the world. This will be someone who cannot decipher good from evil. This person will not be able to identify right from wrong. What are the ramifications? He will be someone who, as the Ramchal says, ‘strengthens himself and encourages others in bad actions.’
Lesson
So why is it so important to be ‘makir tov’ or recognize good? Because if we cannot then we will be unable to be good people.
Many people have observed that the character trait which is most commonly found amongst the pious talmidei chachamim and Rabbis is that of Hakaras HaTov or recognizing good. This is obviously true- as they not only recognize good, they act on it as well.
Have a wonderful vacation weekend
and an enjoyable Shabbos,
Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer
