Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

by Stan Schroeder

Thanksgiving is a traditional American holiday. Certainly, living in the United States we have much for which to be thankful. Judaism has a tradition of giving thanks for our many blessings. Perhaps the most familiar occasion is after meals, particularly meals in which bread is eaten. The blessings are called Birkat Hamazon in Hebrew, literally "Blessing on Nourishment". In English they are called “Grace After Meals.”

There are four blessings:

The first blessing, which is a blessing of thanks for the food was, according to tradition, composed by Moses in gratitude for the manna which the Jews ate in the wilderness during the Exodus from Egypt.

The second blessing, which is a blessing of thanks for the Land of Israel, is attributed to Joshua after he led the Jewish people into Israel.

The third blessing, which concerns Jerusalem, is ascribed to David (who established the capital in Jerusalem) and Solomon (who built the Temple in Jerusalem).

The fourth blessing, a blessing of thanks for God's goodness, was written by Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh.

Perhaps these four blessings can be a guide for our Thanksgiving thanks. Giving thanks for food can be extended to being thankful for all the things in our lives that nourish us physically and spiritually. Giving thanks for the Land of Israel leads to our appreciation that the State of Israel was created as a Jewish state in our lifetime. Now there is a country where Jews throughout the world are welcome in times of trouble. Giving thanks for Jerusalem reminds us that since the Six Day War of 1967, Jerusalem, with our holy sites, has been under Israeli control. Our holy places in the Old City, destroyed by the Jordanians, have been restored. This year, June 5 on Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) we celebrated the 57th anniversary of this momentous victory.

 And, finally, giving thanks for God's goodness is a form of saying to ourselves that we must be the ones to extend goodness to people throughout the world. We must set an example of living by Jewish values. Participating in Congregation Shir Ami services, events, and mitzvah projects is a significant step in the right direction.

See my poem A Thanksgiving Prayer in the right-hand column.

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Board Meeting Dvar Torah (October 2, 2019)
By Owen Delman

“Blind obedience without the restraint of reason or morality is dangerous.”

“Abraham should not be honored for willing to kill his child because of a command from God.”

“The key word is blind — this is the stuff of fanatics and terrorists.”

These are some of the concepts regarding the Akedah discussion today. There are rabbis who refuse to include the Akedah in their Rosh Hashanah services because the concept is unacceptable. They reject any of the interpretations which attempt to justify the basic premise of God commanding a sacrifice. Given the holocaust with the murderers using as a defense that they were “just following orders” (an example of ‘blind obedience’) they condemn the whole concept.

Bringing it into our present day, they say if there had been a trial of Abraham he would have used the defense of “God ordered me to do it” and that this is quite similar to the defense stated by the assassins of Yitzhak Rabin who claimed that to give any part of Israel back would be a denial of God’s plan for Israel.

So how should do we deal it?

In Stan’s Torah study group we often hear the refrain “but that can’t be true” or “but that doesn’t fit with something in another part of the bible.” The questioner gets reminded that these are stories, parables used for teaching concepts.

After services yesterday, (where I had posited a number of theories of what the Akedah meant) a friend came up to me and asked me which one was the correct interpretation.

I asked him with which one he felt most comfortable because there is no one answer.

The Bible is not history, not an accurate accounting of past events

Let me stop for a moment: I’ve studied history and literature. Let me explain the differences.  History is a written account of past events based on the author’s examination of events and documents to back up his conclusions. Literature is a creation of an author perhaps based on fact or wholly conceived by the author. The Akedah is a story in the Torah meant as a lesson; a piece of literature. In the study of literature it is accepted that it is less important what the author meant as opposed to what the reader sees in the work — how it affects him. There is no correct answer, only how the viewer is affected by the piece.

Once a piece of art (literature, painting, sculpture, etc.) is given to the world, it matters little what the artist meant. What is important is how it is perceived and how it affects the contemporary viewer.

When you understand the Akedah for what it is to our day, to us, it becomes much more understandable. Those rabbis who won’t even allow the Akedah to be part of their Rosh Hashanah story may be missing a wonderful teaching lesson for the sake of political correctness.