The next berakhah of Shemoneh Esrei, the center of the closing berakhos about gratitude is Modim.

In this post we will look at the meaning of the opening word, “Modim“, but it’s not the only post I expect to write about the berakhah.

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Hashem divided Benei Yisrael up into shevatim, and gave each sheivet its own territory, and each even had its own Sanhedrin serving under the main one in the Beis haMiqdash. It seems the plan was for each sheivet to develop its own culture and its own approach to avodas Hashem. Of those approaches, only one survived to build the Second Beis haMiqdash – Yehudah. 10 shevatim were lost during the exile to assimilation. And by the time Purim happens, even a Benjaminite like Mordechai is called a Yehudi, a survivor of the Kingdom of Judea, or as we put it in English today – a Jew. (Esther 2:5, “אִ֣ישׁ יְהוּדִ֔י הָיָ֖ה בְּשׁוּשַׁ֣ן הַבִּירָ֑ה וּשְׁמ֣וֹ מָרְדֳּכַ֗י בֶּ֣ן יָאִ֧יר בֶּן־שִׁמְעִ֛י בֶּן־קִ֖ישׁ אִ֥ישׁ יְמִינִֽי:”)

Yehudah, in turn, was named by Leah to commemorate her gratitude for having a fourth son, “הַפַּ֨עַם֙ אֹודֶ֣ה אֶת־ה֔’ עַל־כֵּ֛ן קָרְאָ֥ה שְׁמֹ֖ו יְהוּדָ֑ה – ‘This time I will thank G-d’; therefore, she called his name ‘Yehudah’.” (Bereishis 29:35)

The root “hoda’ah” had two meanings in Tanakh: thanks (e.g. “todah“), and confession (as in “vidui“). And while Yehudah was named for gratitude, confession plays a large role in his life — whether confessing to the court in the matter of Tamar, confessing to Yoseif about the sale, or even his descendent David’s teshuvah after the incident with Bas-Sheva.

Rav Hutner (Pachad Yitzchaq, maamar 2) points out the common theme between the two is that both acknowledge our own incompleteness, that we are part of something bigger. And that explains a third usage dating from Mishnaic Hebrew, “hakol modim — they all agree”. A statement that I am not alone in asserting something, a larger group does.

Of all the paths to Torah that the shevatim developed, when it came time to rebuild the Jewish People and our nature ever since, is Juda-ism — a religion in which hoda’ah is fundamental.

R Hutner continues that we can tell which implication is which by looking at the preposition being used. We give thanks to someone, the usual phrase is “Modeh al“, and when confessing the preposition would be “Modeh she-“. Here, in “Modim anakhnu Lakh ShaAtah“, we see both. Rather than “only” speak of gratitude, Modim emphasizes that common ground.

“I acknowledge my incompleteness to You, that You are…” That I receive from You my needs. That I need You to provide them.

And so Modim is not “only” an expression of thanks to our Creator, it is also the Jew’s central means of connecting to Him.