Modeh Ani (I give thanks) is a short prayer of twelve Hebrew words said on waking, before rising from bed and before the ritual washing of the hands, thanking God for restoring the soul to the body after sleep and expressing trust in his faithfulness. Sleep was understood in the tradition as a small taste of death, the soul departing and being returned each morning, and the prayer greets the renewal of life and consciousness with immediate gratitude. Because it contains no name of God, it may be said before the hands are washed, which is why it stands first in the day, ahead of the fuller morning blessings. Of relatively late, early modern origin, it has become one of the first prayers taught to Jewish children and a near-universal part of the observant Jew's day, turning the ordinary act of waking into an occasion of thanks and framing each new day as a gift restored by God.
The prayer's absence from any surviving text before the early modern period, when it first appears in a printed compendium of Jewish customs, distinguishes it from most Jewish morning liturgy, much of which draws on Talmudic-era formulas; Modeh Ani instead entered practice from the more informal, continuously evolving layer of personal devotional custom, which is part of why some earlier halakhic authorities do not mention it at all despite discussing morning prayer in detail. Its structure turns on a specific requirement in Jewish law that God's name not be pronounced before the ritual washing of the hands on waking; because the Hebrew text substitutes descriptive titles, King, living and enduring, for any restricted name, it could be recited immediately, letting it become the very first religious act of the day.