If you think about it, Thanksgiving, or ‘T-giving’ as I have taken to calling it in the past month, while not strictly a Jewish holiday, sure seems like one—the food, the guilt, the family and things associated with each—add up to a pretty Jew-y holiday tradition. And this year my family’s celebration seemed especially so. My nuclear family recently moved to the Jersey suburbs of NYC, and because so much of my family lives in or around the Big Apple, naturally this is where we go with even more regularity than before the big move for various family gatherings. And this leads to a lot of eatin’ and a lot of shmoozin’ during any family gathering, in the city with largest Jewish population in the world besides Tel Aviv.
At this year’s Thanksgiving, rather than the traditional generic, English-language ‘thankfulness’-themed reading, poem, or go-around-the-table-and-say-what-you’re-thankful-for exercise, we said a Shehekianu. Then I tried to wow the crowd assembled with a clever pun on the Hebrew word “Hodu”, a homonym alternatively translated as either “give thanks” or “turkey”. Few laughed. Conversation turned naturally towards work and studies and I had to explain to various stymied relatives why I am taking humanities classes rather than something practical, like organic chemistry.
Afterward we drove up to Westchester County (it was completely dark outside by 4:45pm, this is my least favorite thing about the winter months on the East Coast) to pick up our new puppy, who by democratic vote was named Amir (currently a very popular name for boys in Israel). We had to drive to Westchester because this is where the family that was giving us the puppy was staying for Thanksgiving. It took us a while to leave because my mom and the father of the family who gave us the puppy got into a serious Jewish-geography session, and many of the guests decided to join in. Turns out the dad plans to send his kids to the liberal Jewish camp where my siblings and I ‘grew up’, as we like to say these days.
On Friday night my parents hosted their synagogue’s roving Shabbat services in our house (the so-called ‘Taste of Shabbat’ experience), followed by Thanksgiving-leftovers Shabbat dinner. More Jews, more eatin’ and shmoozin’. Throughout the weekend I read Richard Elliot Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible? as preparation for a final paper for my Hebrew class.
This is getting a little ridiculous. I have a feeling that some wise BT rabbi has some sagely advice for the young person who exclaims, “nu, my life, it’s becoming so Jewish!”, something along the lines of “This is because your life is and has always been so Jewish, you’re just waking up to this reality as you get older.” Now I don’t know if I buy the Nefesh Yehudi concept so much as I just like hanging out with yidden.
