Question

Hello Rabbi. Lately I’ve been wondering about the need to thank God for life and for every breath, etc. After all, in a certain sense we were born into the world against our will—or more precisely, there was no “against” and no “our will,” because we simply weren’t asked about it. If so, why should I thank God for bringing me down into the world and basically—if one can put it that way—not abusing me? If my life were to go in such a way that things were not good for me in this world, and all the more so if I were to suffer, there would be a claim against the Creator over my very existence. And really, logic would suggest that I should breathe at every moment and that things should be good for me at every moment, just as I am obligated to care for my children and they don’t need to thank me for not choking them to death, because it is a fairly trivial thing that I let them live after I am the one who breathed life into them. So why should I feel a need for gratitude for the fact that I live day by day? Isn’t that self-evident anyway?