Entering the Season of Gratitude

By Rabbi Stephanie Kennedy

November 3, 2025 • 12 Heshvan 5786

As the light shifts and the air cools, we find ourselves entering across the threshold of November — a season that invites us into gratitude. In Jewish tradition, we call this practice Hakarat HaTov, the deliberate act of recognizing the good. Not the superficial kind of thankfulness we can muster on command, but a quieter, harder kind: the kind that notices the glimmer of goodness even when the world feels heavy.

Hakarat HaTov asks something more of us, to pause long enough to see what is beautiful and true amid all that is complicated. The kindness of a friend who reaches out. The laughter that breaks through the tension. The light that spills through the trees when we need it most. These are not small things; they are lifelines.

And yes, it’s not an easy time. Many of us are carrying grief, worry, or exhaustion. Gratitude doesn’t erase any of that, but it can hold it and soften it. It can remind us that joy and sorrow often walk hand in hand, and that noticing the good is a quiet act of resistance in a world that so often invites despair.

As Thanksgiving nears, we remember that gratitude is most powerful when it’s honest. When it makes space for the complexity of this day and the painful history it carries for Native peoples, even as we give thanks for the blessings that sustain us.

May we speak our gratitude aloud, again and again: to the people who love us, to this community that steadies us, and to the Source of Life.