Gratitude

(35) And she conceived again, and bore a son; and she said: ‘This time will I praise the LORD.’ Therefore she called his name Judah; and she left off bearing.

(12) If he offers it for thanksgiving, he shall offer together with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes with oil mixed in, unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of choice flour with oil mixed in, well soaked. (13) This offering, with cakes of leavened bread added, he shall offer along with his thanksgiving sacrifice of well-being. (14) Out of this he shall offer one of each kind as a gift to the LORD; it shall go to the priest who dashes the blood of the offering of well-being. (15) And the flesh of his thanksgiving sacrifice of well-being shall be eaten on the day that it is offered; none of it shall be set aside until morning.

Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav:

Four people need to offer Thanksgiving: Those who travel across the sea, who cross the wilderness, who were sick and recovered, and were imprisoned and released. ...

The Gemara asks: What blessing does he recite?

Rav Yehuda said: Blessed is…Who bestows acts of loving-kindness.

Abaye said: And he must offer thanks before ten people, as it is written in the same chapter: “Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people and praise Him in the assembly of the elders” (Psalms 107:32), and congregation indicates a group of at least ten.

(1) The thanksgiving offering was brought from five se'im [specific unit of volume] of flour of the Jerusalem measure, which is ... twenty issaron, ten of which for leavened bread and ten for unleavened bread. Ten for the leavened [meant that] each loaf [was made from] a whole issaron [of flour]. The ten for the unleavened bread - and in the unleavened bread [there were] three varieties: loaves, wafers and deep-fried dumplings - therefore there were three and a third issaron for each variety, three loaves for every issaron.

We gratefully thank You, for You, O Lord our God, are our fathers' God for all eternity, our Rock, our Shield of salvation generation to generation. We thank You and recount Your praise for our lives. We trust our lives into Your loving hand. Our souls are in Your custody and Your miracles are with us every day and Your wonders and goodness are with us at all times: evening, morning and noon. You are good, for Your mercies never fail us, and the Compassionate One, for Your loving kindness never ceases; forever we have placed our hope in You. ​​​​​​​

(1) I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.

(2) Remember the long way that the LORD your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that He might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts: whether you would keep His commandments or not. (3) He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the LORD decrees...

(6) Therefore keep the commandments of the LORD your God: walk in His ways and revere Him. (7) For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; (8) a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; (9) a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper.

(10) When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

(11) Take care lest you forget the LORD your God and fail to keep His commandments, His rules, and His laws, which I enjoin upon you today. (12) When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, (13) and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, (14) beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the LORD your God—who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage; (15) who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its seraph serpents and scorpions, a parched land with no water in it, who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock; (16) who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers had never known, in order to test you by hardships only to benefit you in the end— (17) and you say to yourselves, “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.” (18) Remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to get wealth, in fulfillment of the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers, as is still the case.

(7) Rabbi Pinchas, Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Yochanan [said] in the name of Rabbi Menachem from Gallia: In the time to come, all sacrifices will be annulled - but the sacrifice of thanksgiving will not be annulled. All prayers will be annulled, but the prayer of gratitude will not be annulled. This accords with what is written [Jeremiah 33:11]: "The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say 'Give thanks to the LORD of hosts' etc." - this is the prayer of gratitude. "Those who bring [the sacrifice of] thanksgiving to the House of the LORD": this is the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Thus David said: "I owe You vows and will offer you thanksgivings" [Psalms 56:13] - not "thanksgiving," but "thanksgivings," [indicating both] the thanksgiving prayer and the prayer of gratitude.

When the Prayer Leader reaches the Modim Prayer [during the repetition of the Amidah] and bows, the congregation must also bow and say their own prayer of thanks that also begins with "Modim". The reason being that it is not customary for a servant to give thanks to his master by way of an agent. Rather, every person must accept the yoke of Heaven with his own utterance. And, if he tries to do so by way of an agent, this is not a complete acceptance, for he could always contradict the agent, saying he never sent him.

By contrast, other prayers are requests, and one can make a claim to his needs by way of an agent, for one would not contradict someone who is doing something beneficial for him.