COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

From the Cyber Rav--  Rabbi Rafi Rank
rafirank@mjc.org

I’ve been asking people what they are grateful for this Thanksgiving, and many have been hard-pressed to vocalize their gratitude with specifics.  For those of you still searching for some ideas, I offer you the following pathetically incomplete list of 100 of my favorite things.  Here goes:

1. Your spouse
2. Your children
3. The people you shmooze with at shul
4. A Far Side Cartoon
5. The greeting of your dog
6. Kittens sitting in a box
7. Goldfish
8. Gefilte fish
9. An everything bagel
10. Times Square lit up at night
11. Driving the length of the old Route 66
12. Long rumbling freight Trains
13. The genius of the Wright brothers
14. A clever pun--even if it makes you groan
15. A glass of water with ice cubes
16. A joke with a punch line in Yiddish
17. A full moon sitting on the horizon
18. Growing a Vegetable Gardens
19. Vacation
20. Ice cream cones with chocolate sprinkles
21. The Sunday New York Times
22. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel
23. 30 Rock
24. The Simpsons
25. Musical Theater
26. Old American Folksongs
27. The NY Philharmonic
28. Long biographies 
29. Wandering through YouTube
30. Hybrid cars
31. 3-day weekends
32. Figure skaters that do triple axels
33. Juggling: especially lit torches--in a dark room
34. Gymnastics at the Olympics
35. Marching bands
36. Sitting in a hot sauna
37. Fireworks on the 4th of July
38. Space Shuttles
39. Israeli pre-schoolers speaking Hebrew
40. Finding a dollar bill in the street
41. Science fiction novels
42. Watching an eclipse of the sun
43. Discovering God
44. The ability to give Tzedakah 
45. Women wearing those wire-mesh kippot
46. Colorful tallitot
47. A chavruta--that is, a friend to study Torah with
48. Sitting in front of the fire in February
49. Alliteration
50. Barbecues
51. A bowl of hot oatmeal in the morning
52. Landing in Israel for the first time, and the second and the third times too
53. Ignoring the phone on Shabbat
54. Jumping into a pile of autumn leaves
55. Listening to a loud thunderstorm beneath the covers
56. Watching cream invade and then swirl around a cup of coffee
57. Jogging in the early morning
58. Mozart
59. Dancing the Horah at weddings
60. Anticipating Michelle Obama's next fashion statement
61. Snow-capped mountains
62. Flying above the clouds
63. Hot air balloons on a cloudless day
64. A thick quilt on a King-size bed
65. The Beatles’ Sergeant Peppers’ album
66. Jane Goodall's work with primates
67. Beethoven's 9 Symphonies
68. Standing next to a Picasso painting
69. Wandering through the Museum Of Modern Art
70. Dinosaur Skeletons 
71. Archaeological digs
72. A snowstorm on a school day
73. Stand-up with Robin WIlliams
74. A Yogi Berra quote
75. Super-bowl Sunday
76. Fine-point pens
77. Old Coca Cola bottles
78. When the Dow goes up
79. When the Ball goes down
80. Swimming in the ocean
81. Covering your brother with sand on the shore
82. Losing weight
83. Old men playing chess in the park
84. Meeting a  friend for coffee
85. Those posters of dogs playing Poker
86. Steve Jobs’ ingenuity
87. Bill Gates' philanthropy
88. Golda Meir's chutzpah
89. Oprah 's creativity
90. Budding leaves in the spring
91. Any Joni Mitchell song
92. My Cousin Vinnie
93. Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins
94. The smell of baking challah
95. The Long Island Sound 
96. Jones Beach
97. Afternoon naps
98. Discovering a truth
99. Making up
100. A wet kiss from your grandchild

Todah La’El—Thank you, God, for the sights, smells, tastes, and feels of all that we encounter through the day, and thank you for the intangibles which are felt only via the heart.