Thanksgivukkah – American and Jewish holidays coinciding in 2013

 OK, we’ve been saying that “the Jewish holy days are very, very early this year.”  Well, Hanukkah is no exception!  It will fall on Thanksgiving, with the first candle being lit on Wednesday evening, November 27, and the second candle on Thursday evening at your Thanksgiving dinner!  You can Google “Thanksgivukkah” for detailed explanations of why, for the first and only time in our lives, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving will overlap, and for funny Youtube songs combining the two holiday traditions.

Calendar experts describe this as the first such occurrence. Although the holidays would have fallen on the same date in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln would not formally establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday until 1863.

 

I saw a few cute ideas for cards and Hanukkah menorahs online. Imagine a drawing or a clay model of a turkey with eight tail feathers, and an extra space for the shamash, helper candle, on top of the turkey’s head, or on a taller tail feather. This would serve as a Thanksgiving decoration or as a Hanukkiah (Hanukkah menorah with 9 branches) if made in a fire-proof material.

 

It looks like the next time people will sit at a Thanksgiving dinner and light the Hanukkah candles will be on the evening of November 27, 2070.  I hope that the children now alive who will be present at that next combined holiday celebration will be able to give thanks for improved cooperation between nations, a highly developed system of renewable energy methods, and a sense of interconnectedness among people in their communities. But some experts, like Jewish physicist and calendar expert Jonathan Mizrahi, say it won’t repeat itself until 79,811. 

Either way, for most of us, Thanksgivukkah will be a once-in-a-lifetime event.  I am thinking about that as I prepare to participate in our annual Interfaith Thanksgiving service along with clergy from about a dozen churches and spiritual centers in Sedona. The theme this year is “Gratitude in Action” with special readings offered by all the participating religious institutions. 

It occurs to me that both Thanksgiving and Hanukkah share not only themes of freedom from oppression and gratitude, but a deeper historical source:  the Festival of Sukkot!  The Pilgrims were devout Protestants who read the Hebrew Bible and knew about the harvest festival of Sukkot in the fall.  They patterned the first Thanksgiving in some way after that holiday of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest.  And the Maccabees and their followers out fighting in the hills couldn’t celebrate Sukkot, considered “The” Holiday at that time, and so celebrated it a couple of months later as a week-long rededication ceremony of the Temple in Jerusalem after their victory over the Greek-Syrian army.

Let us each make a special blessing at our Thanksgiving/Hanukkah dinner on Thursday, November 28, as well as enjoying the fun of serving that turkey with a side of potato latkes, and spinning those dreidles this Thanksgivukkah!