Thanksgiving part 1

This Thursday, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving; when all Americans are called upon to enter their houses of worship, and give thanks for the abundance that G-d has bestowed upon our country. In practice, few houses of worship have special Thanksgiving services. Most people observe the day as a time to gather with friends and family around a turkey dinner, with many other traditional foods. Many give thanks, but many just eat and watch sporting events on television. In recent years, there has arisen much questioning about this holiday, as it commemorates the Pilgrims, a group of Puritans; Englishmen who felt that Queen Elizabeth's reformation of the English Church had not gone nearly far enough. Later kings were even worse. They arrived in Massachusetts in 1620 (they had been told they were being brought to Virginia) at the beginning of a cold, harsh winter. Many did not survive. Those who did, did so with the help of local Native Americans who provided them with food. When the harvest came in the following year, they made a celebration of thanksgiving, based on the Biblical harvest festival; Sukkkot. They were joined by some Natives. In the ensuing years, they killled many of the Natives, while enslaving the others. We usually see the Pilogrims as champions of religious liberty. In fact, they only championed their own religious liberty. They were intolerant of people of other religions, including other Protestants. As a result, many Americans today refuse to celebrate Thanksgiving. The fact is, however, that the Pilgrim story is NOT the basis for this holiday. Rather, Abraham Lincoln, during the dark days of the Civil War, instituted a day of thanks for what we DO have, despite the violence and killing around us. (There had been sporadic, local holiday observances before and after). It became an official legal holiday only in the twentieth century. For a while, there were even partisan difference in the date of the holiday, leading for a time to separate Republican and Democratic Thanksgivings. (Canada observes it in October). But as much as Thanksgiving is a subject of dispute between Americans, it is a huge controversy in the Orthodox Jewish community; with some rabbis saying that it is a mitzvah to observe this day of thanks together with all Americans, and others saying that it is totally forbidden. (I am in the former camp). What are the issues for and against? That will be the topic of my next post.