Dawn breaks at about 5 a.m. on Thursday, July 13, 2000. I am in a private room at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, Mass., gazing through the north-facing window at the almost imperceptibly brightening sky.

The night before, my wife had set upon the sill a basket of sunflowers, roses, daisies, lilies, irises and cornflowers. The arrangement now stands in ghostly dull gray silhouette.

I lie musing in my hospital bed – thankful for feeling so strong, so vital, less than 72 hours after my surgery, thankful for all those men and women who have worked so hard to give me back my strength. I find myself uttering the words of a traditional Hebrew prayer: “Modeh ani l’fanecha…I give thanks to You, living and enduring King, Who with compassion has restored my life. How great is Your faithfulness!”

As I am reciting the final two Hebrew words, rabbah emunatecha (How great is Your faithfulness!), enough light is now flowing into the northern sky to transform the gray floral silhouette into a blaze of color, punctuated by four smiling yellow sunflowers with brown centers.

It seems at this moment as if God is saying to me and to all those caring for me, “Hineni! Here I am! You have come to My place, a place where men and women are doing My work – day in, day out.”

My left hip was replaced on July 10, 2000; my right hip was replaced on December 18 of that same year. As it turns out, both my surgeries – keineinhora – have been wondrously successful.

I thank God every day for the gift of being able to walk, swim and ride my bike. I feel like a man who was dragged prematurely into old age but has been given an unexpected reprieve.

I understand now, in the depths of my being. those words that used to puzzle me from “My Back Pages,” the old Bob Dylan song: “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

We here in the Rhode Island Jewish community, along with our co-religionists throughout the world, find ourselves in the middle of the month of Elul, the month of introspection and preparation for the High Holy Days.

This year, Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on Friday evening, Sept. 18. Now is a time for turning into ourselves to discover ways to make this coming year of 5770 a better one for all of us.

Ever since that first hospitalization for hip replacement surgery nine years ago, I have tried to preserve that intense sense of gratitude that served as the vital core of my recovery. That experience has convinced me that an attitude of gratitude carries within it enormous healing power.

As we move hand in hand as a community towards our Yamim Nora’im, our Days of Awe, may we renew our commitment to saying “thank you” and “thank You!” – day in and day out.

Rabbi Jim Rosenberg can be reached at rabbiemeritus@templehabonim.org.