By Rivy Poupko Kletenik ,
JTNews Columnist
Dear Rivy,
Let’s talk about those who are adamantly against Thanksgivukkah. Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving — it’s American and its celebration marks an adaptation into American society. Hanukkah is Hanukkah — it’s a festival that celebrates the distinction between Jews and the prevailing culture.
There has to be more than a “menurkey” — the menorah in the shape of a turkey — to this confluence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. Obviously, there are shared themes and values of both festivals. Both involve struggles for religious freedom. Both are gatherings of giving thanks and expressing gratitude, maybe even a similar derivation from the Biblical harvest holiday of Sukkot. Hanukkah, according to some, was a postponement of the celebration of Sukkot due to the war. And the American holiday of Thanksgiving, an autumnal harvest festival, itself has roots in the ancient holiday of Sukkot.
So what’s the “big idea” here? All of these notions seem superficial and exceedingly banal. A once-in-79,000-years phenomenon must have something a bit more to it, no?
Thanksgivukkah! Welcome to the 21st century’s most distinctive synergistic phenomenon. Cheers to our most favorite portmanteau neologism of the year. Agreed, there has to be more here than an opportunity for fusion cuisine such as sweet potato bourbon noodle kugel or roasted brussels sprouts with pastrami and pickled onions. Is there something here other than the much-too-professed platitudes? Something more substantial than the colossal spectacle of kitsch? More than the fine opportunities for spoof such as a giant dreidel in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, or the hysterically funny parody of a faux scary movie trailer, or the compelling anti-Thanksgivukkuh anthem now featured on YouTube? I think so.
In a word, the “big idea” here is, wait for it: Sanctuary. It links these seemingly disparate holidays. Let’s see what happens when we think “sanctuary” in response to Hanukkah and Thanksgiving.
First, a definition of sanctuary, our chosen “lens” into this Thanksgivikkuh exploration.
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a safe haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety.
First up? Hanukkah. After all, it does predate Thanksgiving by about 1,400 years. The Book of the Maccabees I and II both discuss the purification of the Temple after its desecration by the Greco-Syrians, as does this prayer “Al Hanisim.”
For Yourself you made a great and holy name in Your world, and for your people Israel you worked a great victory and salvation as this very day. Thereafter, Your children came to the Holy of Holies of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified the site of Your Holiness, and kindled lights in the courtyards of Your Sanctuary; and they established these eight days of Hanukkah to express thanks praise to Your great Name.
The temple of old, the Bet Hamikdash, is at the center of the Maccabean revolt. Its being defiled is a key impetus to the start of the struggle against the invaders.
What of this Temple and what of is its significance?
The initial command to the Israelites in the desert to construct a mishkan, sanctuary, is found in the Book of Shemoth: “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.”
A lofty idea, indeed. The Temple is a potent symbol for our people. It reminds us that God can be drawn down to earth and that a people can unite and build a community with God at its center. This sanctuary is significant to our people. Though we live 1,944 years later, without the Temple we have rejiggered our ancient Jerusalemite Temple idea into the concept of many synagogues, and houses of worship, some even called temples.
In what way is this very Jewish notion of sanctuary connected to Thanksgiving? The key may be a passage tucked away in the Book of Kings I, which describes a scene shortly after the death of King David. His deathbed wish is that his son Solomon be the heir apparent. The pretender to the throne, his brother Adonijahu, grabs on to the horns of the altar to be protected from Solomon’s retribution. Ah, sanctuary in the sanctuary. This is a function of the Temple as sanctuary, as in protection or safe haven. It’s a precursor to the notion that refuge is often sought in churches and monasteries.
This idea of refuge leads us to the notion of America serving as a land that offers sanctuary — to the pilgrims, Puritans, and subsequent generations afterward, including my own family. America, for many of its citizens, is not only the land of opportunity, it is the land of refuge not unlike the Temple, which also offers refuge. This country that gave our families sanctuary.
Consider this from George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation:
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Remarkably, these themes of sanctuary, freedom, and even Greece come together in the celebrated poem, “The New Colossus” by Jewish poet Emma Lazarus — read it again for the first time!
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Notice Lazarus’s images of light — they resonate in this particular conversation around Hanukkah. A fine reading for your Thanksgivukkah celebration.
Now back to the “big idea” of sanctuary and its relationship to our grappling with this rare, chance coming together of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. Sanctuary is the idea of sacred protection. The physical structure imbued with the otherworldliness of the holy, provides mental, emotional and physical sanctuary to those seeking protection. It stands as a powerful symbol of God’s immanence; indeed, sanctuary.
This blessed country, for so many of our ancestors, has done something comparable for those seeking shelter from the terrors of other places and other times. Sanctuary and sanctuary. The sanctuary for the Maccabees was worth fighting for, as is the freedom America offers. Is life and identity complicated on these shores? Yes. But, on this particular day let us give thanks.
Rivy Poupko Kletenik is an internationally renowned educator and Head of School at the Seattle Hebrew Academy. If you have a question that’s been tickling your brain, send Rivy an e-mail at [email protected].