Every American schoolchild knows the history of Thanksgiving. Our children are taught that Thanksgiving is a holiday that began in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, when, after surviving their first brutal winter amidst disease and starvation, the Pilgrims expressed thanks to G-d for a bountiful harvest. The local Indians, who taught them how to grow corn, hunt turkey, and avoid poisonous plants in their new world, were invited to join the Pilgrims in their feast.
Although feasts to offer thanks were held throughout the 1600s and 1700s, it was not until 1863 that President Lincoln formally established the holiday at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent speaker and editor, who became known as the “Mother of Thanksgiving.” Since that time, Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a national holiday on the last Thursday of November.
In the secular world, Thanksgiving is a big deal. For weeks ahead of time, cooks worry about what they are going to make and how many people they will serve, and magazines are filled with turkey and pumpkin recipes. Thanksgiving is a day when families get together and (hopefully) enjoy each other’s company. After all, they did not just finish a whole month of holidays as we did.
In our community, our preschool children come home with pictures of Indians and turkeys, and all the day schools have off at least part of Thanksgiving weekend. Yet, although most children are home and their parents are off from work, not every family celebrates Thanksgiving with a turkey and all the trimmings. I have always wondered why. Is Thanksgiving a happy American holiday to thank Hashem for our blessings? Or is it somehow not “kosher”?
Celebrate? Yes or No?
Chana, who grew up in a religious home in New York, says that her family always celebrated Thanksgiving. “We used it as an opportunity to feel grateful to the United States of America for being a country where we feel safe and welcome,” she said.
Thanksgiving is also a time when members of the frum community who have non-religious relatives can get together with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins and relive the traditions of their childhood. It is one occasion when it doesn’t matter if you are Orthodox, traditional, unaffiliated, or not even Jewish. Without the restrictions of Shabbos and Yom Tov, everyone can drive, everyone can carry, no one has to sleep over – and the hostess only has to prepare one meal (albeit a big one).
Some families would not think of celebrating Thanksgiving. As one woman explained, “I have absolutely no desire to have another holiday that involves cooking and serving a big meal. We have plenty of opportunities for that in our own Jewish calendar.”
My brother, a kiruv rabbi at NYU in New York, agrees. “I once called the mother of one of my Hebrew school students the night before Thanksgiving to talk to her about sending her children to our summer camp, and she was absolutely incredulous. She said, ‘How can you call now? Don’t you know I’m cooking for 12 people tomorrow?’ It occurred to me that for non-Jews and secular Jews, Thanksgiving is like erev Shabbos for us,” concludes my brother. “Although it happens just once a year, it is very overwhelming! Let’s hear it for the Jewish mothers who make Shabbos every week!”
“Ricki” has a different take: “I have heard people getting upset that some frum people celebrate Thanksgiving. It is fine to celebrate, and it is fine not to celebrate, but if you choose not to celebrate, don’t make it into a “frumkeit” reason,” she said with some bitterness. “It is not a holiday that is rooted in the church; it is an American holiday. Nobody would say that it is not frum to watch Fourth of July fireworks. Same with Thanksgiving. If you are that frum, don’t buy Halloween candy at 50% off in Target because it is from a holiday rooted in pagan practices. Then you can feel extra frum while you eat your turkey!”
Thanksgiving and Halacha
Ricki is not completely accurate. There actually are halachic issues involved. I was fascinated to learn that whether or not to celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey and a big meal has generated a lot of discussion among Torah scholars for the past few generations. While some poskim believe that Thanksgiving is a secular American holiday with no religious connotations, and therefore can be celebrated, others maintain that its origins are religious, and it is thus forbidden to celebrate. Even if the origins of Thanksgiving are not religious, some hold that it should not be celebrated because of the prohibition of “Uvechukoseihem lo seleichu,” mentioned in Vayikra about not following the ways of other nations. These differing opinions may account for the different practices that are seen in our community.
Thanks and Thanksgiving
Of course, we can’t have an article on Thanksgiving without talking about what it means to give thanks. It is always appropriate to express our thanks to Hashem for what we have. In her article, “Beyond Just Deserts: A Recipe of Thanksgiving” on the Aish.com website, Sara Yocheved Rigler wrote about working with orphan children in Calcutta and the meaning of gratefulness. Mrs. Rigler describes the attitude of the girls in the orphanage who were extremely poor, meaning they had few possessions, no home, no family, and no money. Yet strangely enough, they did not see themselves as poor.
When asked to describe themselves, they saw themselves as average. Mrs. Rigler could not understand how they could not see how poor they were. These girls did not even have a bed; they slept two to a mattress on the floor. All their worldly possessions did not fill even one shoebox!
It was only 10 years later that Mrs. Rigler came to an understanding of the philosophy of those girls. While in Israel she learned that Leah, the wife of the Patriarch Yaakov, waited until her fourth son to use the name Yehuda, which means thanks.
Why was she more grateful for her fourth son than her first, second, or third? Because she knew that Yaakov would have 12 sons. He had four wives, so when Leah had her fourth son, she realized that she would have more than her share, more than she deserved.
As Mrs. Rigler explains, “Gratitude is not a function of how much we have but rather of how much we have relative to how much we feel we deserve.” The orphans in Calcutta felt average because they felt they had what was due to them. True gratefulness, Mrs. Rigler explains, encompasses four elements: recognizing the good that you possess; acknowledging that it is a gift, not something you deserve; identifying the source of the gift; and expressing your thanks.
It is certain that, whether your family celebrates Thanksgiving or not, learning to be thankful and expressing your thanks always has value, even if it does not involve a turkey.
Watch your Words
by Devora Schor
As I was writing this article, my son-in-law mentioned that my father used to give a shiur in Ner Yisrael on the day before Thanksgiving. I was able to get a tape of one of those lectures, and it made me smile. I doubt whether anyone else has approached the concept of Thanksgiving from this perspective.
My father does not address any of the halachic discussions that I mentioned above. In fact, he says at the beginning of the shiur that there are many things worse than celebrating Thanksgiving as a day of giving thanks and getting together with family.
The main point of the shiur was that that using the word “thanksgiving” cheapens the language. We call it Thanksgiving, but, actually, it is just a day to take off from work, see family, eat turkey, and plan for the sales that will start that evening. Calling it Thanksgiving and not really using the day to thank G-d harms us.
My father gives many examples about how important language is and how important it is to be honest in the way we talk and the way we think. Consider the person who works in a store and says “Have a nice day” but doesn’t care if his customer has a nice day, and the person who signs his emails with “best wishes” but is really lying. What about the store that advertises that they have the best pizza in town? Did they go around and check everybody else’s pizza? Then there is the cruise with entertainment by chazanim, delicious food, and other luxuries. The advertisement talks about the kavana of the chazanim while they are singing. A cruise is for entertainment, not for kavana. In other words, call a spade a spade.
There is value in making sure that your words are honest and in being honest even with yourself. My father mentions many other thoughts about how we let dishonest words pass by and do not even realize that they are dishonest. What a unique way to look at Thanksgiving!
