Thanksgiving reflections

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  It's not exactly Jewish-- but not exactly NOT Jewish either.  I mean, what could be more Jewish about a holiday where we celebrate a difficult time that we survived, followed by a huge meal where we say thank you for all that we have?  I know the story of Thanksgiving is about Pilgrims and Native Americans and may not be quite as idyllic as the children's legend goes.  But I did read this year that the Pilgrims based their celebration of Thanksgiving on Sukkot, Judaism's own Fall Harvest holiday.

This year we were with my in-laws for the holiday.  I definitely missed my parents and extended family down in the DC-area, but felt thankful and moved by how this year I really did feel like my husband's family was with MY family too. We're very lucky to have that relationship.  My daughter Lena was more interested in playing with her grandparents than her parents (lucky us!) so I got to take naps and even read a book.  Thank you Nana and Papa!!  I also felt thankful just for the down time spent with my husband and daughter.

We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey and sweet potatoes (though no marshmallows on the sweet potatoes, isn't that the best part????). The chocolate cake that my mother-in-law picked out with me in mind made up for the missing marshmallows though.  :)

We began the meal with the Jewish prayer called the Shehecheyanu, a prayer you say when you are just thankful for being where you are and for what life and God have brought you.  It translates basically like this:

Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, 

For giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this season.

I love this prayer.  We say it at the big, "wow" moments in life, like when we get married, or when a baby is born, or at the beginning of holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Hannukah.  In my family, we also say this blessing to appreciate the smaller moments, like when our whole family is together again for dinner, when we see a beautiful rainbow (though there's another, specific blessing for that too), or any time we're particularly moved by something happening to us and want to pause and say thank you to God for enabling us to be in that place and time.  Sometimes when I'm singing to Lena during that sooooo sweet time at night before bed, I'll sing this blessing to Debbie Friedman's Havdalah melody (try it, it works!) and she joins me on the "lai-lai" section.

So much to say thank you for... this Thanksgiving and at all seasons.