Thanksgiving has deep Jewish roots and is a reminder of an important lesson

Thanksgiving connects America’s founding communicative with the Jewish communicative of a radical who fled oppression, crossed the waters and gave acknowledgment upon reaching a promised land. The nexus betwixt the Pilgrims and the Israelites is not conscionable metaphorical; it is literal. The aboriginal Puritans saw themselves arsenic a caller Israel. They work the Hebrew Bible arsenic a guide. In sermons and diaries, Puritans described England arsenic Egypt, the Atlantic arsenic the Red Sea and America arsenic Canaan.

That fusion of Jewish biblical communicative and American destiny shaped the motivation instauration of this country. Benjamin Franklin adjacent projected that the Great Seal picture "Moses lifting up his wand and dividing the Red Sea," with Pharaoh’s service drowning down him. America was a continuation of the Israelite story.

So erstwhile antisemites mock Jewish "chosenness" arsenic arrogance oregon conspiracy, they onslaught the precise biblical thought that helped signifier America’s content successful motivation intent and exceptionalism.

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Nick Fuentes says "Zionist Jews" power politics. Candace Owens warns of "Zionist influence" successful American institutions and media, repeating the aged prevarication that Jews question domination.

Chosenness ne'er meant superiority. It meant motivation responsibility, a covenant to unrecorded by a higher standard. The Pilgrims and the founders shared that belief. They saw America arsenic a caller Israel, chosen not for privilege, but for purpose. To twist that perfect into accusation is to misunderstand some Judaism and America.

When the Pilgrims landed, Governor William Bradford wrote in Of Plymouth Plantation that they "fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them implicit the immense and furious ocean," echoing Deuteronomy. Thanksgiving was calved from that religion — a corporate enactment of gratitude for liberty received, not seized.

But, the communicative that inspired America’s founding is being distorted. Christian nationalists twist the thought of a "chosen nation" into a story of radical destiny and exclusion. Their mentation of the Promised Land belongs lone to those who look, pray, oregon ballot similar them. On the acold left, activists recast some the American communicative and the communicative of modern Israel arsenic 1 of assemblage theft. Thanksgiving becomes an juncture to cull the American and Jewish quests for freedom.

Both distortions miss the truth. The Exodus teaches that state indispensable beryllium grounded successful faith, gratitude and justice.

Jewish leaders person agelong recognized this. The Rebbe said Thanksgiving shares a spiritual kinship with Judaism. He adjacent called it a Yom Tov, a time of joy. To beryllium a Jew, Yehudi, means to springiness thanks. Gratitude, successful Hebrew (hodaa), besides means acknowledgment — the humility to spot beyond oneself. That humility erstwhile agreed this country.

In the Torah, the Israelites did not convey God due to the fact that they were comfortable; they thanked Him due to the fact that they had survived. The Pilgrims did the same. Half their colony died that archetypal winter. Their acknowledgment were not for abundance, but for Providence.

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That shared Jewish and American tone shows that gratitude is the antidote to hatred. When we springiness thanks, we affirm our dependence connected thing greater than people oregon ideology. When we hide to thank, we statesman to invent enemies.

Thanksgiving is much than a taste holiday. It is simply a cure for what divides us. Jews, Christians, believers, and skeptics should retrieve that America’s opening was not astir powerfulness but astir thanks. Its founders saw themselves arsenic Israel reborn, not Rome restored. Our unity was erstwhile rooted not successful uniformity but successful humility earlier thing greater.

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I felt that information precocious erstwhile I visited the oldest synagogue successful America, the Touro Synagogue successful Newport, Rhode Island. On the partition hangs George Washington’s 1790 missive to the congregation: "May the children of the banal of Abraham who dwell successful this onshore proceed to merit and bask the bully volition of the different inhabitants; portion each 1 shall beryllium successful information nether his ain vine and fig tree, and determination shall beryllium nary to marque him afraid."

Washington was not conscionable reassuring a tiny Jewish community. He was defining the American promise. Gratitude, not power, secures freedom. Thanksgiving reminds america that liberty endures lone erstwhile we retrieve to springiness acknowledgment for it.