The Benefits of a Thanksgiving Apart©Rabbi David Baum, Parashat Toledot 2020
I saw an interesting post from my friend Rabbi Menachem Creditor - Happy Thanksgiving, Remember: A Zoom Thanksgiving is better than an ICU Channukah - stay safe, stay home, this holiday season that we can share the next one.
Although, for many, a Thanksgiving without your crazy uncle might be a blessing this year, because what’s Thanksgiving without a good fight between family.
Remember the movie Avalon? There was a scene where the family is about to sit down for a Thanksgiving meal and they are waiting for Uncle Gabriel who is late every year, and the debate happens – should we wait for Gabriel to cut the turkey? Every year, they wait, but this year the kids were more antsy than usual and they said, “Ok, we are cutting the turkey without him!” They are eating, he comes in, and says the famous words, “You cut the turkey without me!” Then immediately Uncle Gabriel storms out. “That’s it, I’m leaving and I’m never coming again. Now that you are rich in the suburbs, you have changed. In Avalon, the old neighborhood, we waited until every relative is there until we eat!” And like that, the family is fractured.
Family tensions during the holidays are a part of almost all religions. Judith Johnson, an interfaith minister, wrote the following about these family fights:
“Below the surface of many family holiday gatherings are mini-dramas playing out, contemporary grudges and resentments and unresolved childhood issues. Nothing hurts with such emotional depth as these familial battles. For the tender-hearted, this can be a psychological minefield while self-righteous bullies reign unchallenged. Many silently suffer through these events while dutifully and unconsciously assuming their childhood role as the family black sheep or underdog. Those in secondary roles are often either complicit or oblivious, leaving the underdog to fend for his or herself.”
It seems like our country, and many families, are at this moment. It is why having a 'cooling' period might be a good thing.
In fact, our parashah this week, Toledot, Esau says the following after Jacob steals the blessing from their father Isaac:
Genesis 27:41:
Now Esau harbored a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him, and Esau said to himself, “Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob.”
Jacob runs away, and the two do not meet for a long time.
Conflict is natural between brothers, and families, and as much as we revel in the Uncle Gabriel stories, our hearts yearn for reconciliation.
Many of us were told the origin story of Thanksgiving in grade school, when the Pilgrims and Native Americans came together to share their bounty and eat a meal together.
President George Washington indeed created the holiday, but it never really took. Governors of states all set their own Thanksgiving dates, in November and December - no one could get on the same page.
The true father of the Thanksgiving holiday that we enjoy today as a national holiday was Abraham Lincoln who declared, on October 3, 1863: “I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
It was a day that expanded what gratitude meant. He said it was a day to ask God to take care of the widows, orphans, and mourners as a result of the Civil War that was still raging. He asked all Americans, on this day, to pray to God to heal our wounds, and bring us together.
On November 19, just seven days before the new national holiday was to be celebrated, President Abraham Lincoln delivered arguably the greatest, and shortest speech, in American history, the Gettysburg address, where he asked the country to recognize a rebirth of freedom. But more than anything, it was a call to unity and healing, on the blood-soaked grounds where brother fought brother.
The war was still raging, but President Lincoln could see that unity would be victorious - he knew that brothers who fought one another on battlefields would one day sit together at a meal.
This battle of brothers brings me back to Jacob, and Esau, and their Thanksgiving reunion in next week’s parashah. In Genesis chapter 33, brothers who were at odds for most of their lives, came together. Jacob did not know how this reunion would go; in fact, he split his family in two just in case he did have to go to war. But when they saw each other, the book of Genesis reports: "Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept.”
Jacob tried to give his older brother gifts, but Esau refused them.
Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; let what you have remain yours.”
But Jacob said, “No, I pray you; if you would do me this favor, accept from me this gift; for to see your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably.
And Esau accepted his gift.
It is one of my favorite stories in the Bible - it teaches us that gratitude is more than the physical harvest, but the emotional harvest, it’s about sharing our gifts with one another, and accepting those gifts.
Our Sages of blessed memory taught us that Jacob and Esau were not just individuals, but fathers of nations - Jacob was the father of the Jewish people, and Esau becomes the ancestors of Christianity.*
Coming together is not easy. Brothers can be enemies - they can do terrible things to each other, which we see over and over in the book of Genesis. But brothers and sisters can also see God’s face in each other.
I pray for us all when we see our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters who are at odds with each other, who have fought for their ideals, to see what Jacob saw in Esau’s face after he received his brother favorably: for to see your face is like seeing the face of God.
I know we may not be at the same meal in person this Thanksgiving, but spending a couple of moments looking at our faces on Zoom might be a good start.
Perhaps this is the greatest gift we can give to each other, the gift that President Lincoln wished for Americans on October 3, 1863; to recognize the face of God in each other.
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