To Make A Grown Man Cry

Here is a comment on my initial post (Say Thank You and Save A Life) about the power of expressing gratitude.  I thought it added an important insight worthy of reprinting it here.  It’s from George Roth: 

“When we lived in Kansas City, we joined Kehillat Israel, the largest orthodox congregation in the United States midwest. It boasted having more than l.000 members and its custom was to elect the board of directors on the basis of one board member for every ten congregants.

Regular monthly board meetings were usually heavily attended by some 50 to 60 men. This was in addition to Kehilath Israel’s senior Rabbi Maurice Solomon and his professional staff. I had served on this board for almost thirty years as well as chair of several important committees.

During his two year training for bar mitzvah, my son Clifford was often helped by Rabbi Solomon in his daily cheder sessions. He also received the Rabbi’s special coaching for the writing and language of his bar mitzvah speech, as did every twelve-year-old boy in the program.

The week following Clifford’s beautiful bar mitzvah in 1961, I dictated a brief “thank you” note to the rabbi to show our family’s appreciation for all his help in making Clifford’s Shabbat so meaningful.

At the very next board meeting, Rabbi Solomon requested permission to read a letter he had recently received. He then went on to quote from my letter, the same one that I had posted several weeks earlier.

With tears in his voice, Rabbi Solomon then went on to explain that in the fourteen years he had served the congregation, this was the first and only letter he had ever received from any of his congregants bearing the magic two words — “thank you.”

… and now back to me, Ian.  What I found so meaningful in this comment was two-fold.  First, of course, is the sad fact that we don’t say thank you enough.  Here is a man who worked with hundreds of children, yet only one family thought enough of his efforts to express gratitude for them.  While deplorable, I think I know the reason why – and it’s quite natural.  Since the Rabbi was simply doing his job, few people considered his actions extraordinary and worthy of any additional appreciation.  His salary is enough, right?  I think this attitude is faulty on two levels.  First, just because someone is ’simply’ doing his job and nothing more is no reason not to extend appreciation.  And it’s not just because ’simply doing one’s job’ is not so simple anymore.  Rather, it’s because the worker still invests his time and energy in the matter, even his soul to a certain extent, and payment is not a sufficient form of appreciation for that.  Moreover, even if he did NOT deserve any of the gratitude, the recipients of an act of goodness nevertheless NEED to express appreciation.  We learn this from the Priestly Blessings that are offered here in Israel every morning during prayer.  The Cohanim – Jewish Priests – ascend the bima and offer blessings to the community, not of their own volition but because they are commanded to do so.  And yet, even though they are commanded to do so — even though they MUST offer these blessings — members of the congregants always express gratitude to the Cohanim as they finish their blessings.  The Hasidim say it’s not because the Cohanim need to hear the thanks, nor is it because they may not continue offering the blessings if they don’t receive it (after all, they’re doing it because they have to), but rather because we in the congregation need to say thanks.  We need to feel appreciation.

Returning to the story of the Rabbi above, I would also like to mention a second reason why his tears moved me.  Here is a very important person, a Rabbi of a large synagogue, presiding over an important board of directors.  He no doubt was a man of great confidence and probably felt fulfilled in a whole host of arenas.  And yet, this one short note moved him.  Gratitude is not something big, but it is something special, and as such, it can improve anyone’s life.  We must never think that such and such a person doesn’t need to hear thanks, because he’s too important or must hear it all the time so why bother.  No one is above — and more importantly, no one is below — hearing that he or she made a difference in someone else’s life.  That, after all, is what makes our lives meaningful.