Here’s a strange paradox of Jewish life: The words we probably recite more often than any other Hebrew prayer are ones we sing without thinking about. We rarely explore the deeper meaning of the Shehecheyanu prayer, although we say it at almost every Jewish celebration, gala and lifecycle event.

So let’s slow down and ponder the ancient words our sages designated to show our thankfulness.

In this prayer are three clusters of words we use to articulate the nuances of our gratitude. We say Shehecheyanu, “who enlivens us,” then Ve-kiyamanu, “who helps us to stand upright and to endure.” The third and final phrase is Ve-higgiyanu la-zman ha-zeh, “who brings us to this occasion.”

What are we communicating when we summon those three particular phrases as our distinctive way of expressing the inner workings of thanks? After all, we could have just said, “thanks!”

Why these specific words?

The word Shehecheyanu (“to enliven us” or “to give us life”) assumes that life is not static, that the enlivening is gifted at every moment, and that the process of life is, not surprisingly, a living process. It is so easy to take for granted that we have awareness, that we have breath, that we have consciousness, and to forget that these attributes are an ongoing gift.

In English, our very language reduces them to possessions: we have life, we have breath. But that is a distortion; they are not things we own but core attributes of what living life entails. We become particularly aware of this dynamic, evanescent quality in those moments of crisis (an illness, a tragedy, a loss), when we are told that life or health is finite, and we are forced to confront that finitude.

The gift of having life is the gift of identity that spills into a future beyond our reach, an emergence. It consists of consciousness and dynamism, of knowing that none of us are defined by who we have been; that each of us can remake ourselves, that hope and belonging reach beyond the grave. And in that realization that we have a chance to become closer approximations of who we might yet be, who we want to become.

Alfred North Whitehead, the mathematician and founder of process philosophy, speaks about the “creative advance into novelty.” No two moments are the same. We are not the same, moment from moment.

The point of that constant evolving into becoming is that we can sculpt ourselves anew. In doing so, we do not achieve that re-creation alone. We fashion that renewal in the lives of our broader communities and in all the people around us, and as a yearning for the Holy One.

Ve-kiyyamanu. What does it mean to be standing up, to be resolute, to be resilient? It means there’s an interconnectedness about us—that we stand because others help us to rise. We are able to persist because others are working with us and by us to keep us going. There is a web of relationship in which we live and breathe and have our being. And that web is itself a living dynamic, a changing thing. How blessed are we to be part of a community of people that extends back across the millennia and around the world. The unity of the Jewish people is surely among the most fractious unities of any imaginable. But it holds, doesn’t it? We yell at each other. We scream at each other. We protest each other. Each political opinion is abysmal when compared to our own.

And yet, we’re there for each other. In that standing together, we stand woven into an ancient tapestry of living Torah—a tradition of wisdom forged by our God and our ancestors in each new age, continuous and novel. We are given our opportunity to internalize that eternal, sustaining love, and to move it forward and to shine it onto a needy world.

And then finally, Ve-higgiyanu la-zman ha-zeh, who brings us to this time. This moment has never before existed. Every moment is new with possibility, with opportunity, and yes, with challenges. But we dare not do anything other than what our ancestors have done time and time again. With each new challenge, we rise. We fight. We struggle. We innovate and persevere. We know that our faith is both timely and of eternity. We will be there if we stand now for what we need to—if we represent the best of our Torah and our traditions. May we appreciate the life that infuses us, and allows us to become and to experience and to nurture and to love.

May we, in this moment, summon the resolve to be able to reach out, and support and sustain one another. And may we, in the novelty of this moment, not flag from the work we are called and privileged to do.

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