God loves the world so much that He gave us:
- Butterflies
- Waterfalls
- Sunsets
- Mountains (for viewing, climbing, photographing, rappelling, and contemplating)
- Ladybugs
- Horses (to carry us)
- Donkeys (to carry our stuff)
- Cool breezes
- Sweat glands
- Sunshine (and just enough of it to warm the planet without burning it up)
- Photosynthesis
- Soil microbes
- Praying mantises (not only do they eat aphids, but they look amazing)
- Tropical fish
- More varieties of tropical fish
- Even more varieties of tropical fish
- Forests
- Rainbows
- Gravity
- Grass
- Poignancy
- Laughter
- The color blue (not to mention fuchsia and chartreuse)
- Wildflowers (in all of their hundreds of thousands of varieties)
- Our immune system (which works even when we don’t)
- Strawberries
- Beating hearts (the ultimate perpetual motion machine)
- Hair (which some don’t appreciate until they lose it)
- Salvia (imagine swallowing a cracker without it)
- Moonlight
- Moss
- Herbs (which teach us that every weed can heal)
- Snow (in all its various forms: flakes, drifts, men, and caps on mountains)
- Physical pain (which alerts us when something is wrong)
- Opposable thumbs
- Two 127,000,000-pixel cameras positioned in the front of our heads (our eyes)
- Eyelids
- Oceans
- Waves (for swimming, surfing, painting, and proving the ephemeralness of sand castles)
- Buttercups
- Petunias (which are bigger and more colorful than buttercups)
- Irises and orchids (which are more intricately shaped)
- Jasmine and wisteria (with their divine fragrance)
- Roses (which need no commentary)
- Taste buds
- Mangoes
- Salmon (and their example of swimming upstream)
- Cotton
- Giant sequoia trees
- Silk (this product of lowly worms should humble us)
- The Grand Canyon (should humble us even more)
- Our liver (which performs over 500 functions and manufactures more than 1,000 different chemicals)
- DNA
- Chocolate (need I say more?)
- Lizards (which eat mosquitoes)
- Mosquitoes (I’m not sure why)
- Asparagus
- Songbirds
- The hairs in our noses (an under-appreciated gift if ever there was one)
- Parrots
- Coffee beans
- Giraffes (and the special valve in their necks which enable them to bend to drink water and then straighten up without blacking out from the pressure change)
- Our circulatory system (which reaches every one of the three trillion cells in our body, and which knows exactly what to deliver to every one of them, putting the postal system to shame)
- Dolphins
- Cashmere (who would have thought to put something so exquisite on the underbelly of Mongolian goats?)
- Peacocks
- Our digestive system (which knows what to do with pizza)
- The sound of crickets
- The silence of cats
- Our sense of smell (and thousands of different fragrances to titillate it, from peonies to roasted coffee, from freshly-mowed grass to freshly-baked bread)
- Lightening
- Cows (without which we would not have ice cream)
- Rain
- Feet (with their intricate shock absorbers)
- Apples (in their perfect packaging)
- Stars (for romance, navigating, astronomy, and a sense of how big is big)
- Shooting stars
- Seed pods (meditate for 60 seconds on this one)
- Grass with little pellets we can grind and make into bread and cake (wheat)
- Elephants
- Rivers
- Ears (which can distinguish the difference in tone between sincere and insincere)
- Teeth (custom-made to suit every species on the planet)
- Swans
- Babies (including the smell and softness of newborns)
- Skin
- The human brain (which has more connections than the New York City telephone system)
- Sleep (He didn’t make enough of it)
- Illness (yes, even illness)
- Our stomachs (with their 36,000,000 acid-producing glands which digest a steak but don’t touch the stomach’s own lining)
- Smiles
- Cell division
- Several million other features of our own bodies which we will never notice or appreciate
- Love
God loves the Jewish people so much that He gave us:
- The Torah, with its myriad mitzvot, which are
- A way to act out our gratitude for all of the above
- A disclosure of what He really wants from us, so we’ll know
- 613 ways to bond with Him on His terms
- A fool-proof path to our own spiritual perfection
- The blueprint of creation
- A way to fix the world and ourselves
- A Kabalistic system which we can use and benefit from without understanding how it works
- The Jewish people’s marriage contract with God
- A peephole into the Mind of God
- A clear list of His expectations of us
- An inexhaustible well of wisdom
- An eternal testimony to His love for us
The Torah is a more precious gift than everything listed in Part One combined, because when we accept the gift of Torah, we receive the Giver Himself.
(21) Sheila Lewis, June 7, 2011 1:56 PM
thanks for visual beauty of Shavuot meditation
this was a lovely inspiration. I teach Jewish meditation at JCC in New York City and will think of it tonight. Chag Sameach, sheilaklewis@gmail.com
(20) , June 14, 2010 3:10 PM
v.v.v.v.v.good
(19) Anne Lanzarone, May 28, 2009 2:19 PM
God loves the world so much he gave us
I am forever grateful I was born a Jew! Thank G-d for his messengers! Like I have always said Jews take absolutely nothing for granted. We just finished celebrating the existence of the sun. May Hashem continue to bless you for sharing with us. Let us marvel today in our joyous receiving of the Torah. Happy Shavous! May I allude to one spelling mistake-salvia instead of saliva. Salvia is a flower with in all its beauty is Hashem's creation in addition to saliva!
(18) JJ Levin, June 11, 2008 12:46 PM
What about DOGS?
What ABout DOGS?
(17) a senior citizen college student, June 6, 2008 11:01 PM
Wow!
Awesome lists, both #1 and most important, #2. Yes, we go through life taking all tooooooo much for granted, don''t we? We all need to stop "and smell the roses" more often, each day in fact. How about grass? The amazing botanical components of grass are mind boggling, and just think how important a simple blade of grass is to our entire economy ( no beef if cows didn''t eat grass/hay), etc etc. Like you, I get "mind boggled" every day as I see the myriad of His creations and contemplate the wonder of it all. Thanks so much for sharing your insights and astute observations. May the Almighty continue to give you fresh insight and the ability to share with others.
(16) Miryam, June 15, 2005 12:00 AM
Great!
Mrs. Rigler, I always enjoy everything you write, it's great!!!
(15) Merlock, June 13, 2005 12:00 AM
Wonderful!
Thank you, Ms. Rigler, for this wonderful list! I laughed out loud when I saw it; it really goes to show how much God has done for us! I'm going to send some of this to my brother (who's an atheist and probably won't care); thanks again, God bless and happy Shavuot!
(14) Anonymous, June 9, 2005 12:00 AM
Beautiful!
Thanks for reminding that there is so much to be grateful for!
(13) Yonah, June 4, 2003 12:00 AM
Beautiful
(12) Anonymous, June 4, 2003 12:00 AM
Awesome!
Oh my gosh! So perfectly expressed! I especially like the second list. I have been pondering, no struggling with these issues of late, and not for the first time.
Thank you.
(11) Aliza Jane Howard, June 3, 2003 12:00 AM
A simple, childlike article to penetrate deep into our hearts and minds.
I enjoyed this article. A refreshing and simple testimony of how blessed we are to become sensitive to God's world and his gifts - a vision we acquire through Torah.
(10) nancey@basintravel.com, June 3, 2003 12:00 AM
I really love this article>Wow!! Good stuff to ponder and pass on to others!!!
(9) Charles H. Gluckman, June 3, 2003 12:00 AM
Blessed is He
He has given us life and Torah. Life to love Him and others. Torah to show us how to love Him and others.
(8) Raphaël from Paris, June 3, 2003 12:00 AM
Please pray for my mother
Dear Sara,
Dear readers,
Could you please pray for the Refua Shelema of my mother :
Rosine Shoshana bat Sarah
Thank you very much to all of you. G-od bless you all.
Raphaël
(7) Michael, June 3, 2003 12:00 AM
Lightning Bugs (Fireflies)
You forgot to mention those marvelous nighttime insects...they are coming out here real soon...sometimes they light up in a unison or chorus, and if we could only hear their sympony, it would be glorious. Enjoyed your insightful article.
(6) Anonymous, June 2, 2003 12:00 AM
Additions to the list
Add to the first list:
Aish.com and
Sara Yoheved Rigler
(5) Penny, June 2, 2003 12:00 AM
May I add one more GREAT GIFT that Hashem gave the world?
Sara Yocheved Rigler (Leib-Yaakov,Pliah, and Yisrael too).
(4) Lorraine Uveges, June 2, 2003 12:00 AM
TORAH, the most precious gift.....
We are indeed a blessed "People"
(3) Severino Enopena, June 1, 2003 12:00 AM
What would life be without it
Great philosophies may have developed with some inspiration to search for the Divine and the sublime in human existence, but nothing compares to the Divine revealing himself in the Torah.
(2) Adam Neira, June 1, 2003 12:00 AM
Butterflies...
Do you know about butterflies ?
Butterflies are beautiful, fragile and strong.
When a butterfly flaps it's wings it affects all the other air currents around the world.
We are all butterflies...
(1) Anonymous, June 1, 2003 12:00 AM
Being Exquisite
Dear Ms Rigler;
What a thing of profoud Beauty is your text. It is deeply moving, and surely reflects another of G-d's Blessings, a Loving and Beautiful nature.
Otillia