Chanuka Musings part 2

continued from previous post

 

So I thought about it a lot on Shabbos, the day before erev Chanuka, and concluded as follows.  When we say V'Al Ha'Nissim, the section ends with the words, "and they established these eight days of Chanuka to thank and praise Your great name."

 

There are many themes to Chanuka, many important ideas, but the reason we have this yom tov is "to thank and praise" Hashem.

 

So I decided that I must focus directly on thanking and praising Hashem.  How would I go about it?

 

I wrote about gratitude here and here.  Over Chanuka I've been reviewing my list, adding some more, keeping my focus on gratitude.  As for praise, I've been paying special attention to the pesukei d'zimra, which are all about praise of Hashem, particularly Ashrei.  There is a book in English which explains Ashrei according Malbim's explanation and at the end of the book it summarizes it all.  I've been looking at the summary when I daven Ashrei in the morning.

 

So far, so good.