Jewish law dictates the moments when we may interrupt our recitation of the shema.
Besides times of danger or greeting a king, we must respond amen to prayers of kedusha, holiness.
Yet, there is one prayer outside the holiness canon that we also must break from the shema, and that is the Modim prayer, a prayer of Thanksgiving.
The idea of giving thanks is so ingrained in our tradition that we must recognize this fact even if it takes us away for a second from the declaration of our faith, the shema.
A religious person is not defined by fluency in prayer, but by being a receiver of God’s blessings.
The first word we say in the morning is Modeh—thanks. And three times a day we say the modim prayer, Thank You God, the God of our ancestors and the God of all of us. The modim prayer concludes, “Val nisecha shebchol Yom Imanu”: For all your miracles everyday with our with us, evening, morning and every day.
If the Rabbis tell us we can stop saying the shema to give thanks, even more so on this Thanksgiving, take time to do the same. We need to more than ever.
