There’s so much to be grateful for that it’s sometimes hard to figure out exactly where to start. It’s easy to take for granted all that we can imagine, all that’s within the realm of possibility, all that we can achieve, and we start to think that these achievements belong to us – that what we accomplish is done merely through our own hard work and our own special talents.

I pick up a phone and, with a few pushed buttons, I can speak almost instantly with someone in Jerusalem. I can sit in a video conference room and have a face-to-face meeting with people in China and Brazil and England, all at once. How is it possible? How is it that I get to accomplish such wonders? Well, it’s because people far wiser than me figured out how to lay fiber optic cable under the ocean and put satellites in orbit that carry electronic pulses that somehow coalesce into meaningful sounds and images. An amazing system at my fingertips – it makes me a miracle worker, every day.

I pray to God, to the Ribbono shel Olam – the Master of the Universe – I have the chutzpah to think that because I sing a few songs, say a few prayers, meditate a little – that I can address the Divine and that it reaches to the heights – to the depths… how is this possible?

Eloheinu v’Elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu -- My God and God of my fathers and mothers – we recite in our prayers. It’s because people before us put up the satellites. Abraham laid the first fiber optic cable to God. Moses led a ragtag ensemble for 40 years – 40 years of hit-and-miss wandering in the desert – to get to Sinai and send up the first satellite. The groundwork was done for us, the lines of communication were laid by people not so sophisticated as us, not so clever and deep – but who cared with all their hearts and focused with all their lives.

I thank them all, for giving me the opportunity to create moments and to reach for clarity, and I thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One of Blessing, for allowing me to walk this miraculous path every day and, once in a while, to actually become aware that I’m walking it.

Steve Klaper, June 2009