By Rabbi Ben Kamin
OCEANSIDE, California — These are the days of division and fear. Let there be the relief of Thanksgiving this Thursday!
Thanksgiving is a day when heaven yields some relief from our earthly concerns, when Americans of all faiths sit at one spiritual table with many of the same trimmings and family customs. Thanksgiving liberates us from specific theological claims and allows us to contemplate the common creed of gratitude. In a way, it’s the only pure holiday. It is neither Republican nor Democrat; it is the greater America of all creeds and philosophies.
We celebrate Thanksgiving as a uniquely inclusive American moment of community faith. It is an untainted day, a blessed coda just prior to the commercial frenzy of Christmas and Hanukkah.
We are all seated at the table with one God. Let Thanksgiving soften our divisions.
Every other day of the past year was tinged with electoral tensions and spiritual divisiveness. This holiday mitigates the fundamentalism that seeps into too much of the great American faiths, creating a sense of exclusion that divides our children and obviates the exemplary spirit of togetherness shown by Native Americans to the new pilgrims back in 1621.
If this day offers warm bread for empty bellies and cold turkey from social coercion, then our children are well served and our country is morally redirected. Social service is stronger than hate.
Young people think a lot about God, and they tend to view institutions with some skepticism. Perhaps they are more convinced of adult hypocrisy in this category than in almost any other. Dealing with fears that were unimaginable when we were in high school a generation or two ago, these kids are generally unimpressed with any obsessive claims that one religion may hold against another.
This Thanksgiving, after that election, we should talk to our children about the meaning of social justice. They hear a lot from religious zealots in school, on television and across the Internet. They have heard politicians systemically spew contempt. They certainly view the carnage of religiously-driven zeal on their aggregate media. Thanksgiving is one of those rare days when we actually gather as families, and it is worth noting that every American family fortunate enough to have a table and some bread is pretty much saying the same prayers.
This is the shared Thanksgiving epiphany—the gospel of gratitude. Gratitude for family, friends, gentle stories, and common sense.
Thanksgiving allows all the religions to share inclusive spiritual nourishment. Soon enough, some of our children will return to college, the homeless will return to lonely desperation, and many of us will regress to the mercantile madness of the December holidays. Jewish parents will fret again about the proliferation of Christmas symbols and images while both Jews and Christians will forget to infuse the subsequent holidays with the ethical symmetry that Thanksgiving gives us for now.
Jews: remember what you feel today when you light the Hanukkah lights—this year coming in conjunction with Christmas. Christians: recall today’s spiritual equity when you light the candles of the Advent wreath. At Thanksgiving, there are no politics and there is one religion—benevolence.
So can’t we all join hands at such an American table?
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Rabbi Kamin is an author and freelance writer based in Oceanside, California. He may be contacted via ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com