THE TEXT: “I acknowledge your gift and I thank you for it, living and eternal King, for You have returned my soul to me compassionately – abundant is your faithfulness.”
ARTSCROLL COMMENTARY: “A Jew should wake up with gratitude to God for having restored his faculties and with a lionlike resolve to serve his Creator. Before getting off the bed or commencing any other conversation or activity, he declares his gratitude” (3).
DWF COMMENTARY: I’m reminded of something my high school band teacher Mr. Williams used to tell me about practicing a musical excerpt: Some people think that they know the music when they can play all the notes without looking at the score. Others know that it’s not the same piece of music unless you get all of the rhythms right. Still others realize that one mustn’t underestimate the importance of tempo, dynamics, and proper tuning. The real test of whether someone knows a musical excerpt or not is first thing in the morning. If the person can play the excerpt perfectly immediately after waking up in the morning, before he even uses the bathroom, with the proper notes, rhythms, tempo, dynamics, and tuning, then and only then can he say that he knows the music.
I’m at least as sensitive to corny analogies as the next guy, but I’d be foolish to deny that I’m making one. I guess this just really doesn’t seem corny to me. According to Mr. Williams’ lesson, the disciplined musician practices his most challenging orchestral excerpt first thing in the morning in order to measure how well he really knows that music. I contend that the disciplined religious person practices his most challening religious exercise first thing in the morning, and that by doing so he enables himself to measure how well he really performs that exercise. As the Artscroll Siddur says, the Modeh Ani exercises gratitude.
But how does one measure the quality of one’s gratitude? Something in me dislikes this question. Measure gratitude? Isn’t it ungrateful to measure gratitude?
Gratitude is not as meaningful as it might be when it isn’t preceded by acknowledgment. When someone gives a gift that they labored to find or to make, the receiver’s gratitude doesn’t mean as much if he thanks the giver before he’s even acknowledged and appreciated what he’s been given. And yet, what if someone gives you a gift that you don’t want? What if the giver is notoriously inconsiderate in his gift selection? Wouldn’t it be better to thank him for giving you something, regardless of the gifts exact nature? It’s the thought that counts, right?
“It’s the thought that counts.” What does that cliche actually mean, anyway? Does it mean that what counts is the thought required to get some sort of gift for someone, or does it mean that what counts is the thought required to find a suitable gift for a particular individual? Arrggghh…
The reciter of the Modeh Ani thanks God (living and eternal King) for returning his soul to him. What is a soul? Is this gratitude equivalent to thanking God for giving us this life?
Does my questioning reveal that I’m ungrateful? As long as I continue saying the Modeh Ani every morning, I believe the answer is no. But I feel very certain about this: until I can articulate exactly what it is that I’m thanking God for when I say the Modeh Ani, I won’t be practicing the highest possible form of gratitude. In order to be deeply grateful for God’s gifts, I have to know exactly what those gifts are and I have to understand their significance.
Then again, maybe I should consider the possibility that God is a notoriously inconsiderate gift-giver, and maybe I should consider the possiblity that I’m not thanking God for the quality of the life that He returns to me in the morning, but rather for the very fact that He gives me some kind of life, that He is thoughtful enough to give some kind of gift, even though he might not have given me a gift that I would consider suitable to my particular temperament.
The Artscroll Siddur says that in the Modeh Ani, the Jew expresses “gratitude to his Creator for having restored his faculties…before getting off the bed.” Look. I’m not just getting scatologocial for kicks. But if I’m supposed to say the Modeh Ani before I go to the bathroom, then how can I know that God has in fact restored my faculties to me? Shouldn’t I test out my faculties to see if they’re still functioning before I thank God for restoring them? I wouldn’t thank God for enabling me shoot lasers out of my eyeballs because so far I can’t seem to do that. Why should I thank God for restoring a faculty when I’m not sure that that faculty has in fact been restored. If I’m still in bed, then I don’t even know if I can still walk. I think the Artscroll must be misguided somehow. The Modeh Ani can’t be about thanking God for restoring our faculties to us.
Hmm. Just talked to Malakhel about my Modeh Ani question, “What does the Modeh Ani mean?” in the beit midrash. He said that there are two great mysteries in Talmudic discussions about the Modeh Ani. One is the meaning of the word shuv, a verb meaning return and about one thousand other things depending on context. The other is the word neshamah, meaning soul or breath. But, finally, according to Malakhel, the Modeh Ani is about thanking God for restoring to us our ability to perform mitzvot. It is impossible for a person to perform mitzvot (to love God and follow in his ways) during sleep. So we thank God first thing in the morning for restoring to us our faculty of loving God.
I think of “faculties” in this context as meaning mental faculties, or at least the ability to discern wakefulness. That in itself is enough to thank God for. When you were asleep, you were in a state of quasi-death from which you can never be certain you will be restored, and the moment you realize that you have been, you acknowledge that God has restored you to “life.” We have other blessings for the other “system check” steps of waking up.