Who’s Sitting At Your Thanksgiving Table This Year? Bethel Interfaith Thanksgiving Service – November 25, 2015
Who’s
Sitting At Your Thanksgiving Table This Year?
Bethel
Interfaith Thanksgiving Service – November 25, 2015
Cantor
Penny Kessler
About
20 years ago, I volunteered to help create and edit a school newspaper at
Johnson School. At the organizing meeting in early-November, one parent
suggested that we hold off until “after the holidays.” I was baffled. I soon
realized that I was focusing on the Jewish calendar, while everyone else was
headed into the months’ long marathon that is the Christmas season. For Jews
however, the holiday marathon of 4 major festivals over the course of 24 days,
had just ended, and I was finally able to take a deep breath as I took down our
family sukkah as we ended our marathon of fall festivals. Right, I thought;
we’ll wait until after THOSE holidays. Aha.
Many here may recognize Sukkot as
“Tabernacles.” Every year Jews – including my family – erect sukkot, temporary
hut-type structures that replicate the way our Biblical ancestors would erect
temporary dwellings in the fields as they went out for the final harvest. We
spend 8 days hanging out in our sukkot. Depending on the weather, we eat meals
in the sukkah; some hearty folk even sleep in them. For Jews, decorating the
sukkah is the equivalent of Christians’ decorating their Christmas trees, only
we decorate with samples of the season, fall flowers, fruits, and vegetables.
Sukkot
is a fascinating festival. The essence of Sukkot, exemplified by the
impermanence of the building itself, is awareness that life is fragile. Material
things offer only the illusion of protection. God is the ultimate protector of
our spiritual and physical lives. Material things are essentially immaterial;
one good, strong wind can take down any sense of security. One nasty wind or
rainstorm shuts down performing the obligation of hanging out in the sukkah.
You
probably didn’t come here to learn about a Jewish holiday. But it’s important
for this reason: Legend has it that the first Thanksgiving in the United States
was a religious homage to the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish festival of Sukkot. You
see, before they headed out to the new world, the pilgrims, victims of
religious persecution, had spent significant time in Holland with the Sephardic
Jews who lived there. These were the Jews who, just a little over 100 years
before, had been thrown out of the countries in the Iberian Peninsula in the
wake of the Spanish Inquisition. When the time came for these Christian
wanderers to acknowledge the Source (with a capital S) of their having survived
the miserable winter, we are taught that they looked to the Jewish Fall harvest
festival of Sukkot.
While
Thanksgiving as we know it today is all about indulging in the world’s
abundance, and Sukkot is the opposite, Sukkot and our Thanksgiving are
existentially intertwined. All Jewish holidays embrace openly thanking God for
something – freedom, the gift of the Torah, miracles and wonders – Sukkot is
the granddaddy of giving thanks. Just like the first Thanksgiving in New
England, we express huge gratitude that the final harvest has come in, no small
potatoes (so to speak) when you’re living in a less-than-friendly agricultural
environment that exists in a life-and-death struggle with the weather.
Thanking
God requires way more than lip service and a well-brined turkey. It requires
action, doing something with our gratitude.
So we open our doors and our hearts. Guests
are a hallmark of Sukkot, and there are at least seven, none of whom will
actually either respond to the Evite or show up. They are some of our Biblical
ancestors, chosen by tradition based on the values they represented. They are
some of the answers to the eternal quiz question, “If you could have dinner
with anyone, alive or dead, whom would you invite?”
Opening our homes to guests – or
traveling to family or friends – is a hallmark of Thanksgiving as well. I bet
that some of you grownups play a game of who’s-got-more-guests-coming-this-year
than your friends. The more guests, the merrier.
And so here’s my suggested invite list
for this year. It’s based on those ancestral values. There are no special menus
required. They’ll sit wherever you place them. And don’t worry; they can sit at
more than one table at a time. [1]
1. First
let’s welcome love and kindness. Our mutual Scriptures are chock loaded with
love, God’s and ours, however you define your deity. When Cousin Tilly decides
that dessert is the time to go all political, toss her a kind glance and smile.
There’ll be stories to tell about these dinners in years to come, and a little
kindness never hurt anyone. While we’re at it, let’s put fear into the corner
for tomorrow. Especially in these troubled times when it’s hard to figure out
who’s a friend and who’s an enemy, and some people are determined to lump every
stranger into the enemy camp, fear – which is not in and of itself a bad thing
– is causing people of good will to make some pretty awful decisions. Really,
people, we can do better than that; we must. We are all of us strangers in a
stranger land, right? Let fear come to your table, but please don’t give it any
protein.
2. Second
seat: some restraint and personal strength. A decade ago or so there was an
article in our local paper that stated that the only sin on Thanksgiving is not
having enough food. No, friends – the only sin is obsessing about not having
enough food when homeless shelters are bursting at the seams and food pantries
are barren. Please know that there is a day after Thanksgiving, and there is no
such thing as a perfect meal. Just ask Julia Child.
3. On
their right is beauty and Truth with a capital T. Truth as in (updating Mr.
Jefferson as I’m sure he would have done if he were asked) “We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all humans are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” If that’s not beauty, I don’t know
what is.
4. Next
to Truth sits eternality through God’s holy words. Many of the religions
represented here tonight believe – insist – on a world beyond death, not to
mention a belief that there is a greater spiritual Truth than we can ever
recognize in our limited capacity. We are not the be-all and end-all of this
world.
5. One
of the greatest characters in the Bible is Aaron, Moses’ brother. Dating
myself, Aaron’s the Biblical version of Deanna Troi, the Star Trek empath. He’s
the peacemaker, the one who is able to pull disparate groups together. For the
one who is receptive to divine splendor, we are all created in God’s image. Surely
Aaron deserves to sit at our table; let’s sit at his right hand and learn from
him.
6. The
6th guest is holiness. All of us have some holiness inside, and it’s
our job, especially at this time of openly recognizing and talking about our
many bounties, to recognize the holy inside each of us. Even Uncle Murray, the
one who gets drunk each year and bellows unspeakably awful things when he’s had
too much to drink … even Uncle Murray is holy. Someone should keep him away
from the liquor cabinet, but not your table (and take away his car keys no
matter how belligerent he gets).
7. Finally,
let’s welcome the establishment of Heaven on earth. No matter what you call the
higher power you look to for your source of strength and blessing, let’s agree
for at least tomorrow that we are all working for the same goal: to make the
world a better place.
This
Thanksgiving, while we say “hurrah for the pumpkin pie,” let’s also say, God
bless this magnificent experiment known as the United States.”
Happy
Thanksgiving.
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