This article appeared in the Nov. 17, 2005, Jewish Advocate.

Jewish officials sound themes of gratitude and obligation

SUSIE DAVIDSON

Not every holiday has universal appeal, and certainly, among Jews, many secular holidays are not practiced or even accepted. Thanksgiving, however, seems to appeal to everyone. It’s hard to find anything not to like about a gathering of relatives and friends with delicious, homey foods, or a day off on a Thursday, or even the start of the season for the shop-minded. It’s a time of relaxation, for sharing of stories, a chance to catch up, and indeed, to take a final easy breath before the hectic holiday season.

While the Pilgrims are usually associated with Thanksgiving, the concept is older than one might think. In fact, scholars say, the Pilgrims patterned their observances after the practices of the ancient Israelites. According to the online resource Jewish Outreach Institute, the Pilgrims of New Salem, Massachusetts were so moved by the stories of the Israelites that they thought of America as their Zion and New Salem as their Jerusalem.

Following their forty years in the desert, the Israelites first celebrated a harvest festival. According to the Bible, they were to bring the first wheat and barley of their harvest, as a sacrifice of appreciation for their bounty, to the Temple in Jerusalem. Following this sacrifice, they could then partake of the fruits of their labor. The Torah also also called for an in-gathering of the Jewish people, who would make a pilgrimage to the sacred site.

The holidays of Sukkos and Shavuos are also food-and-gathering oriented. “The holiday of Thanksgiving has its roots in the Jewish pilgrim festival of Sukkos,” states Rabbi Mark A. Golub of Congregation Agudas Achim-Ezrath Israel in Malden, “which thanks G-d annually for the bounties we reap from the harvests of life.”

Rabbi Ephraim Greenberg of B’nai Moshe of Brighton explained further: “President Abraham Lincoln’s idea of a national day of Thanksgiving, after a long and bloody civil war, was inspired by his reading of the Bible,” he said. “His model was Sukkos, and the resemblance still can be seen in the symbols of the foods of Sukkos and Thanksgiving.”

But what could be thanked for, after a long and bloody slaughter, he wondered. Through recent readings, including the new biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Greenberg learned that Lincoln envisioned a much more profound purpose for Thanksgiving: “He captured a phrase from a biblical poet who wrote a psalm that has been part of the classic Jewish morning prayer service for thousands of years (the Raichis Chachmah Yirat Adonai or Hashem, which is often translated as “the beginning of wisdom is awe and wonder of the beauty of G-d’s creation”).

On Shavuos, which commemorates the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, lesser-fuss dairy foods recall a time when pots had not yet been koshered in accordance with new Kashrut laws. We also pray for trees, as fruit trees were judged at that time on their future yields.

For Rabbi Tom Alpert of Ohabei Shalom in Brookline, the Thanksgiving holiday, intrinsically bound up with a far larger sense of obligation and gratitude, goes way beyond stuff-yourself-into-oblivion and party-hearty.

“Every day is a miracle, and there can never be enough opportunities to thank G-d for these miracles,” says Alpert. “Thanksgiving provides us with a special occasion to do so.” Not only are we thankful for all that G-d has given us, he observed, but especially, as Jews in America, we are thankful that we live in a land that enables us to participate fully as citizens. “Thanksgiving also reminds us that with gratitude comes obligation: we have to do whatever we can to repair not only our world but our country, to help America live up to its best ideals.”

“The Jewish people have much to be thankful for at every Thanksgiving season,” concurs Golub. “We who but six decades ago were ground under the Nazi boot and whose national homeland is constantly under siege fully realize the advantages of living in a free nation.”

Dean Solomon, a psychiatrist and board chair of Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe in Brighton, often inventories feelings that are associated with events. “From a Jewish standpoint, however,” he said, “I believe that making a thanksgiving offering or blessing is a mitzvah we are obligated to, when we escape a danger. We recognize that we have been dealt with generously, even if we feel that it is more than we merit.”

The holiday also offers a chance to rise above usually reactive emotions. For Solomon, Thanksgiving can balance the guilty response, allowing us instead to feel appreciated, fortunate and perhaps generous. “Some in the Jewish literature have suggested that it is better to make a gift to tzedakah than to make a feast of thanksgiving,” he said, while noting that it need not be either/or. “Tending to the needs of the community can be done as well, or perhaps better, from a sense of graciousness as from a sense of guilt.”

Appreciation for freedom was a commonly expressed theme. “The freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution - to contribute to the welfare and defense of this wonderful land, to pray and worship openly, to vote in every election, to gain higher education, to have access to any profession and career, to speak our minds without censure, to be citizens - are gifts always to be cherished,” said Golub. “For all these gifts, of liberty and justice for every citizen regardless of race, creed or national origin, we give thanks on this and every day of Thanksgiving,” he said.

“Mankind, in his time and ours, is largely driven by the urgency, real or imagined, of needs and wants, the drive for self-aggrandizement and control, often fueled by corrosive and often brutal judgmentalism, and rejection of others who get in our way,” noted Greenberg, who added that our daily newspapers demonstrate this well.

Mankind, he continued, could enhance his life, lessen the pain that man himself introduces into G-d’s creation, and also fulfill G-d’s intention for the man that G-d created, if he understood better and practiced the art of Thanksgiving. As he noted, “Lincoln understood, as his words and acts clearly show, that to live a life of Thanksgiving, rooted in the biblical concept of awe of the wonder and beauty of creation, could change the world.”