Modeh Ani: Don't Wait to Say Thank You - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

[Music] what is the first thing that we do in the morning according to the shelter now for the very first thing that everybody does when he wakes up is he says mo daddy now does anybody know where this money prayer comes from if you look for the source of this prayer you won't find it in the kamarra you won't find it in the Tanakh you won't find it anyway in the beginnings of Jewish history you'll find it actually in the 1500s what's so special about this prayer is that I think it speaks about the idea of ultimately what Judaism is about what we are about is when we invest in ourselves you know this prayer wasn't at econo of the rabbi's the rabbi's didn't come in the times of the Gemara times of the Hasek and i said i could hola and say you need to get up and the first thing you need to do is thank Hashem it developed that's why it's not part of of the earlier text so in the madonna prayer itself we see the idea that we waking up being given the gift of life the natural thing to do is to thank our sham for yeah of course today we're told to do it but we still need to tap into where this prayer comes from and what its essence isn't try to tap into that a little bit and the ideas like this when you have a king so the king is the boss and we do what we're told like a job and if you do exactly what you're told and you do it well so you're a great worker you're the best but our relationship regime is not only about the job he's not only our King he's our father we talked about having this intimate relationship with Hashem Hashem loves us and we are meant to develop within us it's love for him when you two people love each other it's not about what am I supposed to do what am I told you to imagine a married couple they go for a Samaritan device and the counselor says to the husband you need to tell your wife that you love her it's not enough that you love her and that you feel it and you think it you have to show it to her and you have to say it there he's shy guy doesn't know what he means like well what should I say what does that mean what should I say question from your heart you can say what you feel like saying not what I tell you if I tell you that three times did I tell her I love you so you think that that's that's what it's all about if that guy will go to his wife and three times a day like he's told say I love you that's not really gonna fix the situation because that's not gonna be coming from him is not gonna be an expression from his at this essence from his heart so it's true that we're told we wanna get up in the morning we they say mm well Danny we have to understand what we're really being told is that we have to appreciate the Machine gives us this tremendous gift of life and he gives us the opportunity in this world to connect with him and to be with him and he comes and he leaves all the Harper worlds to come and be with us in this world and we have to appreciate that and as a result of appreciation of that we are brand-new each morning because I Shane makes us new and he comes to share our life with us we say thank you I shan't forgiving me back my soul your faithfulness is eternal now I heard a beautiful story from a rabbi where he himself seems to have understood exactly what this prayer is about and on his own he did this every morning he gets up like we all do when we wash our hands and we say Muldowney but he said that he likes to add a personal prayer when he's finished saying mo Danny hashem please give me a brother then i should serve you well today unbelievable beautiful words that come from the heart when i heard that i was blown away because that's what mow down is really all about the idea of not waiting a moment to say thank you to our sham because really we say that prayer before we wash our hands when where our hands are still impure so it's like we don't even want to wait until we wash our hands to become pure to say the actual Brucker while we're impure we want to say right away Madani it's like a spontaneous expressions of the heart and this rabbi also spontaneously from his heart decided that he wants to ask a chamfer the greatest Bravo you can ask that he should serve him well now we're gonna of course hear this story and maybe want to add this to our prayer whether you do or don't the point is really to add that mindset we have to be a partner with Hashem like husband wife a friend it has to be genuine and it has to be from our heart you