NUM270 In addition to being the right thing to do, gratitude is also a prerequisite for happiness [I am grateful to Dennis Prager for this insight.] Consider the mindset of a grateful person: "Look what Sam did for me; he really likes me. Look how Susan helped me; she really cares about me." At the very moment that we cultivate the feeling of gratitude, we also cultivate a feeling of being loved. Conversely, what is the mindset of an ungrateful person? "The only reason Sam helped me is to make sure I'll reciprocate when he needs me. Susan spoke to so-and-so on my behalf so that she can ask me to do something for her." An ungrateful person reveals not only a suspicious and mean-spirited disposition, but how profoundly unloved she feels. Ungrateful people cannot imagine that others care enough about them to be generous with no thought of quid pro quo. Think of people you regard as ungrateful. You will quickly realize that not one of them is a happy person. How could they be, living in a world which they see as loveless and friendless? Then think of those people you know who express gratitude even for small favors. Aren't the people who come to mind among the happier people you know? The emotions most often expressed by the Israelites in the desert were annoyance and ingratitude. Thus, although God supplies them daily with food, the Israelites, angered by their diet's monotony, complain, "We have come to loathe this miserable food" [this verse]. When the demagogue Korach tries to stir up rebellion against Moses, most of the people refused to take sides between Moses--who has devoted his life to helping them--and his rival. The Talmud (Avoda Zara 5a) depicts Moses as calling the Israelites "ungrateful ones, children of ungrateful ones." As is the fate of ingrates--the Israelites--despite having witnessed more of God's glory and miracles than any nation before or since (the revelation at Sinai, the crossing of the Red Sea, the daily provision of manna)--seem, throughout their sojourn in the desert, to be petulant, untrusting, and unhappy.