As Thanksgiving approaches, many of us feel the annual pressure to be grateful on command. We sit around tables, share familiar foods, and, as is often the custom, someone asks each person to say what they’re thankful for. Some answer with sincerity. Others answer with what they wish they felt. And some feel nothing at all and quietly wonder if something is wrong with them.
I want to say clearly: gratitude is not supposed to be an emotion that arrives on cue. Gratitude is a practice, something we build, return to, and re-enter, especially when we don’t feel it naturally.
Judaism has known this for millennia. Behavioral science is finally catching up.
The wisdom that came first
In Jewish tradition, we don’t wait for the feeling of gratitude to arise, we practice gratitude first and allow the feeling to follow.
The very first words of the day in Jewish liturgy, said upon awakening are Modeh Ani, which means, “I give thanks.” Not “I feel thankful.” Not “today is great.” Just, “I give thanks.”
We do this before coffee, before emails, before the news, before we remember what hurts or what we fear, and before we even stand up out of bed.
Judaism teaches that gratitude begins not as emotion, but as orientation, a way of remembering that life is a gift we did not earn and cannot control. In psychological terms, the prayer Modeh Ani is what we call a cognitive primer, a small, intentional framing that shifts mental state before stress and habit can take over. It sets the tone of the day. This isn’t just spiritual poetry; it’s neurobiology.
Your brain takes the shape of what you repeat
Neuroscience has a saying: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” In other words, whatever we rehearse — resentment, anxiety, hope, compassion — becomes easier to access the next time.
Studies in positive psychology show that expressing gratitude regularly alters brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum, regions that influence attention, decision-making, and emotional balance.
Over time, people who practice gratitude report they experience less rumination, lower nightly stress and better sleep. They also have greater resilience under hardship and more meaningful interpersonal connections.
Remarkably, this occurs even when the person didn’t feel grateful at the start. In fact, many of the most impactful gratitude interventions are done without emotional motivation. The repetition is what changes the emotional baseline, not the other way around.
Judaism built this into daily life long before neuroscience mapped the circuits.
Thanksgiving as an invitation, not a performance
So, when Thanksgiving comes and we gather around our tables, we have a choice. We can go around and make gratitude a performance, an exercise in showcasing how “blessed” we are, even if internally we are exhausted, anxious, overwhelmed, or grieving. Or we can treat gratitude the way our tradition and science suggest: as a gentle, repeatable practice that creates psychological spaciousness and connection.
Here is a simple, Jewish, psychological Thanksgiving shift:
Instead of saying, “tell us what you’re thankful for,” try “what sustained you this year?” or “who helped you when things were difficult?”
This moves gratitude away from a scoreboard of blessings and toward acknowledgment and relationship, which is where gratitude actually lives. Because gratitude goes beyond the blessings we have in our lives. More importantly, it is about recognizing that we are not alone.
The neuroscience of belonging
One of the strongest predictors of psychological health is perceived social support — the experience of belonging and being connected and accepted. Judaism encodes this belonging structurally, since we pray in community, we celebrate in community, and we mourn in community. Even at the Passover seder, the narrative tells us, “it is our story, not my story.”
Our memories, our joys, our losses — none of these are meant to be carried alone. Gratitude, when practiced together, strengthens this sense of connectedness. And, social connectedness is one of the most protective factors for sleep regulation, immune system function, emotional stability, and living a long life.
We do not practice gratitude to feel good. We practice gratitude to remember we are held by others. We are part of a family and a community.
When gratitude feels out of reach
For some people, this year has been profoundly difficult. There has been grief, loneliness, fractured relationships, fear, and fatigue. If gratitude feels impossible, here is the most Jewish response: start smaller.
Instead of: “I am grateful for my life,” try: “I am grateful for this breath.”
Instead of: “I am grateful for everything I have,” try: “I am grateful that I was sustained enough to be here today.”
This aligns with the ancient blessing Shehecheyanu — “who has kept us alive and brought us to this season.” Not everything is sweet. But we are here. And that is enough to begin.
A Thanksgiving blessing for all of us
As we gather, I offer this reflection in the spirit of our shared heritage:
May this season not be about performing gratitude, but about gently returning to it.
May we practice noticing the small things that sustain us: the breath, the meal, the conversation, the moment of quiet.
May we remember that gratitude is not the conclusion of joy, it is the doorway to it.
And may this year’s Thanksgiving table be a place where we feel not pressure to be grateful, but permission to be ourselves and be human.
Rabbi Bruce D. Forman, PhD practices psychology in Weston, specializing in behavioral sleep medicine. He is the author of the forthcoming book “For God’s Sake Go to Sleep: Insights About Sleep from Jewish Tradition & Modern Science.”
