FROM “ROCK OF AGES” to PLYMOUTH ROCK THERE IS SO MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR!

What a display at HOME DEPOT! A WALL of Giant Turkey Fryers accompanied by gallon containers of CRSICO!  Normally, I would have just walked by but “WAIT” I said to myself.  Could it be?  Would this be the best way for my family to celebrate the convergence of Thanksgiving and Hanukah? I had a momentary vision of Deep Fried Turkey sharing the sideboard with potato latkes (or sweet potato latkes!). The Festival of Oil suddenly took on a new meaning!  And then I snapped out of it.

How wonderful to have Hanukah arrive so “early” on the secular calendar, running head on into Thanksgiving! Our Thanksgivakah tables will be decorated with dreidels, menorahs, and a traditional fall cornucopia. Think of it as Blue and White meets Orange and Brown.  Malka Stewart meets Martha Stewart.  

How wonderfully refreshing it will be this year not to hear the term  “The December Dilemma,” as Hanukah and Christmas traditionally “butt heads” every year, bringing about children’s books with titles like “It isn’t the Jewish Christmas.” Hebrew Schools are strong on the Judah Maccabee beats the Syrian Greeks and rededicates the Temple in Jerusalem.  They are a little weak on the other part of the story, the fight against Jewish assimilation into the Greek lifestyle that had seduced so many Jews of the time.  Maybe that message strikes a little too close to home!

 But it is November, and this year, finally, Baruch Hashem (bless God) we finally have the RIGHT convergence of holidays!  Thanksgiving, a festival of religious freedom combined with Hanukah, a festival of religious freedom!  I wish we could schedule the holidays to coincide every year!  Imagine a tradition of going around the dinner table and alternating one Jewish thing you are thankful for with one American thing you are thankful for!

The Pilgrims, those men, women and children who survived their first year, and who celebrated the first Thanksgiving, drew their strength from their strong religious convictions and a belief in God. Even after their first year of hardship in the new land, and the loss of friends and family members, they sat down to thank God for their survival, and for the ability to practice their religion as they saw fit. In a spirit of peace and rededication they sat down to a meal modeled after the biblical Festival of Booths, Sukkot.

As you sit around your Thanksgiving/Hanukah table, make sure to reflect on the theme of Religious Freedom.  The Pilgrims paved the way so that our grandparents and great grandparents would have a safe haven where they could be Jewish without persecution.

Yes, the Pilgrims’ voyaged on the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock, so that our families could, over the  course of the next three hundred years, come to America on a later boat.