In this week’s parsha, VaYetze, when our foremother Leah gave birth to her fourth son, she named him “Yehuda.” This name comes from the Hebrew word l’hodot, to give thanks. “This time I will thank Hashem,” Leah declared. (29:35).
The Sages (Brachos 7b) make a remarkable comment on Leah’s thanks: “From the creation of the world until Leah’s time, no one ever thanked Hashem.”
Clearly, there were others who gave thanks prior to Leah. For instance, Malchi Tzedek thanked Hashem following Avraham’s victory over the foreign kings (Bereishis 14:20), and Avraham Avinu instructed his guests to thank the One God after he’d feed them. (Sotah 10b).
Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, a prominent Rabbi in Israel, teaches that her thanks for Yehuda aroused within her a deeper sense of gratitude for all the good she had received throughout her life. She thanked Hashem for having merited to marry Yaakov Avinu (despite the hardships of sharing him with Rachel), for meriting her first three sons (despite the hardships of child-rearing), and felt that all that had happened to her throughout her life had come from Him (despite the challenges she faced in life.)
While it could be natural to give thinks in response to a positive experience, Leah introduced the level of having a constant “attitude of gratitude” while riding the waves of life. If Rebbe Nachman said, “serve God with Joy, always!,” perhaps Leah would say: ‘serve God with gratitude, always.”
Leah had a very difficult life, to the extent that the Torah says she had soft eyes to which our sages comment that she’d often cry. Yet, she reached the level of blessing Hashem for the bad in the same way that he blesses Him for the good (Brachot 54a).
2020 has been a particularly difficult year and almost without exception, our Thanksgiving gathering will reflect this. Some will be alone and most will be unable to celebrate in ways they are accustomed to. So we look to Leah as a model of gratitude and thanksgiving in all aspects of life, even when they seem less than ideal. May we all merit to develp a constant “attitude of gratitude!”