When you think of Thanksgiving, you probably think of Pilgrims fresh off the Mayflower or a national holiday unique to the United States, but could this holiday of gratitude actually have a Jewish connection?
What was the real first Thanksgiving?
The classic story about the origin of Thanksgiving says that the Pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving after Native Americans helped them grow corn and catch fish when they landed in Massachusetts in 1621, saving them from starvation. The festival supposedly lasted three days, and both pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated.
It turns out, though, that accounts of the celebration described it as a harvest festival and not as a day of Thanksgiving. The colonist’s first Thanksgiving was recorded a few years later after rain finally began to fall after a drought.
It turns out that the Pilgrims’ festival wasn’t even the first day of Thanksgiving in the Americas. Many Europeans held a Thanksgiving feast when they landed in America in the 1500s and 1600s, predating the now-iconic harvest festival.
These days of Thanksgiving were held periodically over the century and a half and in 1789 George Washington, the president of the relatively newly formed United States, declared a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for the success of the American Revolution.
Several other presidents issued similar proclamations until President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November a national holiday of Thanksgiving, establishing the holiday more or less as we know it today. While his declaration still focused on the religious aspect of Thanksgiving, the holiday eventually turned into a mostly secular and non-denominational holiday.
However, European settlers in the Americas weren’t the first to hold days of Thanksgiving, so where did they get the idea from?
The Jewish connection
Most religions have some form of Thanksgiving celebration, but the Pilgrims’ harvest festival probably had at least some Jewish roots.
The Pilgrims were traditionalist Christians who were knowledgeable of the Old Testament, the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible). When they finally neared America after months at sea, the first thing they did was recite Psalm 100, which begins, “A Psalm of thanksgiving…” and Psalm 107, which begins, “Praise the Lord, for He is good…”
William Bradford, the leader of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, was knowledgeable in Hebrew. His history of the dissident group starts with a Hebrew-English dictionary. When he led the Pilgrims in Psalms 100 and 107, the Bible he used even included a note detailing how the Jews would say Psalm 107 when they were saved from trouble.
It’s worth noting that the “First Thanksgiving” wasn’t a day of Thanksgiving though, it was a harvest festival. It turns out that Bradford could have found an example for his harvest festival straight from the Tanakh: Sukkot.
The holiday of Sukkot is well known today for the huts Jews eat and sleep in for a week and the lulav and etrog, which are shaken during prayers, but originally a significant focus of Sukkot was giving thanks for the harvest, which was brought in around that time of year.
One of the names of Sukkot in the Torah is Chag Ha’Asif (the Festival of Ingathering [of the harvest]). It seems no actual harvest took place at that time of year in the Land of Israel, since most local produce is harvested in the spring and earlier in the summer. Instead, everything harvested from the spring and summer was gathered in and fully processed right around Sukkot.
Sukkot isn’t the only harvest festival which may have influenced the character of Thanksgiving though. Sarah Josepha Hale, a poet who made it her mission from 1846-1863 to convince Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving as a national holiday, compared Thanksgiving to another Jewish harvest festival: Shavuot (which she referred to as Pentecost).
“The noble annual feast day of our Thanksgiving resembles, in some respects, the Feast of Pentecost, which was, in fact, the yearly season of Thanksgiving with the Jews,” Hale wrote in her appeals to the public. “All sects and creeds who take the Bible as their rule of faith and morals could unite in such a festival. The Jews, also, who find the direct command for a feast at the ingathering of harvest, would gladly join in this Thanksgiving.”
On Shavuot, Jews used to bring a special offering called Bikkurim – the first fruits of their harvest – to the Temple in Jerusalem as thanks to God for the harvest. The holiday is referred to as Chag Ha’Katzir (the Festival of Reaping) and Yom HaBikkurim (the Day of First-Fruits).
Jews also celebrated days of Thanksgiving throughout the generations, and offering thanks is central to Jewish tradition.
The Torah (Leviticus 7) presents the option for Jews to bring a thanksgiving offering in the Temple as thanks to God after exiting a distressful or risky situation, such as traveling at sea or falling ill.
The Talmud (Berakhot 54b) relates that seafarers, travelers in the desert, people who recovered from an illness, and someone freed from prison are required to offer thanks to God with a thanks-offering and a special blessing.
The Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 9) – a collection of stories used to interpret and elaborate on the Tanakh – says that in the future, all the offerings in the Temple will be abolished, except for the thanks offering, and all the prayers will be abolished, except for the thanksgiving prayer.
Maimonides (known as the “Rambam” in Hebrew) – one of the foremost of Jewish law and philosophy in the Middle Ages – wrote about a holiday somewhat similar to Thanksgiving. Maimonides was born in Spain but had to flee to Morocco and then to Acre, in modern-day Israel, after the rulers in Spain started forcing everyone to either convert to Islam or die.
On his way to Acre, a storm hit his boat and almost sank it. When he finally arrived in Acre safely, he declared a day of “rejoicing and celebration and of giving gifts to the poor” and instructed his family and his descendants to celebrate that day every year.
Despite its possible Jewish roots, American Jews have a complicated relationship with Thanksgiving
American Jews have been somewhat split on how they should commemorate Thanksgiving, or even if they should commemorate it at all.
For many American Jews, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to take part in an American tradition that also overlaps with many Jewish values. It also is an opportunity to show gratitude for the relative safety and acceptance Jews have experienced in America since its founding.
Central Synagogue, a Reform synagogue in New York City, held an interfaith Thanksgiving Service this year and has organized Thanksgiving seders in the past.
For Orthodox Jews, some religious leaders have questioned if they can commemorate Thanksgiving at all. The controversy stems from a verse in Leviticus that prohibits following the “ways of Egypt.” The verse is generally interpreted as prohibiting following certain practices of Gentiles.
There is an age-old debate about what exactly qualifies as prohibited practices of the Gentiles, which only makes the question surrounding Thanksgiving more confusing.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, two central leaders of Modern Orthodox American Jewry in the 20th century, ruled that it was permitted for Jews to mark Thanksgiving since it is not a religious holiday (Although Rabbi Feinstein noted that Jews should be careful not to turn Thanksgiving into an annual celebration that’s too similar to a festival).
Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner disagreed, however, ruling that Jews should distance themselves from customs like Thanksgiving as he saw it as a specifically non-Jewish holiday.
In general, the majority opinion among Modern Orthodox Jews is that marking Thanksgiving is permitted, although more stringent Orthodox Jews tend not to celebrate the holiday.
