With Thanksgiving approaching, this week’s Daily Kavanot will focus upon Jewish themes of gratitude that may help inform the contemporary Thanksgiving celebration.
“Blessed is the Divine who fashioned humanity in wisdom, creating its pathways so intricately that should one of them fail, we could not stand before Your throne of glory.”
—Asher Yatzar prayer, Shaharit (morning) service
Although Thanksgiving originates from the feast shared between the Puritans and the Wampanoag in 1621, Thanksgiving did not become a national festival until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln, following years of lobbying by writer and magazine editor Sarah Hale, issued a proclamation establishing the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving.
Hale hoped that gratitude could serve as a unifying force among members of the Union, some of whom had become discouraged by two years of Civil War. She wrote:
“Everything that contributes to bind us in one vast empire together, to quicken the sympathy that makes us feel from the icy North to the sunny South that we are one family, each a member of a great and free Nation, not merely the unit of a remote locality, is worthy of being cherished. We have sought to reawaken and increase this sympathy, believing that the fine filaments of the affections are stronger than laws to keep the Union of our States sacred in the hearts of our people … We believe our Thanksgiving Day, if fixed and perpetuated, will be a great and sanctifying promoter of this national spirit.”
Hale steadfastly believed that by remembering our shared blessings, we become more keenly aware of our shared history and shared fortunes. The ancient rabbis concurred, setting aside the earliest portion of the morning service for prayers of gratitude, even for blessings as seemingly banal as circulation and digestion, as described in the asher yatzar prayer.
By expressing thanks for the daily miracles that illuminate our lives—from our bodies, to our spirits, to freedom, clothing, and more—Judaism reminds us just how similar we are to our fellow human beings and just how equally deserving we and they are of Divine blessing. This Thanksgiving, how will we use our expression of gratitude to connect with others?
—Rabbi Josh Knobel