How can I
repay Adonai for all God’s bounties to me?
~Psalm
116:12
This year we celebrate
a holiday that will never come around again in any of our lifetimes: Thanksgivukkah! Alright, we all know that is no more than a
very silly American notion.*
Nevertheless, it has led me to think very seriously on how the holidays
of Chanukah & Thanksgiving intersect beyond Manischewitz-Brined
Turkey!
There are many aspects that both
holidays share: the family gathering, the remembrance of historical moments,
distinctive food traditions. Most
holidays, however, share these basic aspects. Chanukah and Thanksgiving differ
in many ways as well: Thanksgiving is a celebration of ecumenicalism; Chanukah recalls
our fight against assimilation.
Thanksgiving is a late autumn holiday, meant to mark the bounty of our
harvest; Chanukah is an early winter holiday, reminding us to appreciate the
light that permeates even our darkest days.
Thanksgiving comes with handprint turkeys; Chanukah comes with
fire. For very good reasons, we tend to
parallel Thanksgiving to the Pilgrimage Holidays: Passover, Shavuot, and – in
particular – Sukkot, as these three are the “thanks for the harvest” holidays
in the Jewish year cycle (and because the founding fathers modeled Thanksgiving
after Sukkot!). But Chanukah? How does military victory and an oil miracle
and gambling connect to Thanksgiving?
For over 2000 years
Chanukah has been marked by more than candles and oily food and rejoicing;
Chanukah has been marked by Hallel. The Hallel Psalms (psalms
113-118)
are the collection of psalms that express our praise and thanksgiving to God. [Just
for the record, Chanukah is the only non-pilgrimage holiday upon
which we recite the full Hallel.] Every Chanukah we recite Hallel to
thank God for the great miracle that happened in the Land of Israel – a miracle
that all of the children of Israel share together.
Adonai is
mindful of us. God will bless us.
~Psalm
115:12
At most Thanksgiving
celebrations—across the nation—there is a moment when the people around the
table shift their focus from the bounty of goodness heaped upon their plates to
the bounty of goodness that fills their lives.
We say “thank you” for family and friends, for health and well-being,
for success and plenty. We encourage our
children to look beyond what they assume they should have, to truly appreciate
all that they are fortunate to have. We
take time to count our blessings from the biggest to the smallest. But, to whom do we thank? Sure, we thank the
cooks for the love and care that they have taken to bring us this wonderful
meal. Perhaps we thank our parents for
teaching us, our children for inspiring us, our friends for supporting us. We may thank – in absentia – people who we work
with, people who have provided us with something we value, random people that
crossed our paths both literally and figuratively. These are all good people to thank. Please, this year, at your Thanksgiving
table, say “thank you” to or for all of these people.
Then, in honor of
Chanukah, remember Hallel and take a moment to say “thank you” to God. You do not have to believe that God is the
source of every blessing in your life.
You do not have to believe in any classical notion of God, at all. All I ask is that you be open to a world in
which human effort is not the end all.
Be open to a universe infused by the divine presence. Be open to your life with the Infinite.
Praise Adonai
for God is good, God’s steadfast love is eternal.
~Psalm
118:1 & 29
When, through the act
of giving thanks, we connect to something beyond ourselves we become more than
merely ourselves. When an individual
thanks all of the people that touches his or her life, that individual find
that he or she is family, community, society.
When we include God in our
thanks, we find that we are universal – we are infinite.
This Thanksgivukkah,
connect to your family, your community, your society.
Invite God to your
Thanksgiving-Chanukah celebration this year.
Connect to all the families, all the communities, all the societies;
connect to the infinite.
Praise
Adonai, all you nations; extol God, all you peoples, for great is God’s
steadfast love toward us; Adonai’s faithfulness endures forever. Halleluyah!
~Psalm
117
*Just
for the record, Thanksgiving and Chanukah overlap every few years; the
uniqueness of this year is that the first day of Chanukah is directly on
Thanksgiving. Because we begin lighting
our candles the evening before, I would argue that, in reality, a more interesting
overlap is on years when Chanukah begins on Friday and, therefore, we are
lighting the first candle at our Thanksgiving meal!
