America's Thanksgiving holiday began in 1621 and can trace its roots back to the Hebrew Festival of the Booths (Sukkot) that celebrated the harvest with a feast of thanksgiving as described in Leviticus [16:15].
Festival of Sukkot in the Bible
Thanksgiving for the Hebrews is described in the 16th chapter of the Book of Leviticus in which God commands the ancient Israelites to observe the Feast of the Booths---in Hebrew, Sukkot, "to rejoice before Adonai your God" at the time of the fall harvest [16.11]. Writing in InterfaithFamily newsletter, Rabbi Elias Lieberman, explains that, "In the Jewish tradition, the Festival of Sukkot is a joyous occasion to give thanks and praise to the Source of Creation for the bounty we enjoy." During this time, Jews erect a sukkah, a harvest booth, in which they eat their meals.
The Sukkat or Harvest Booth
The sukkah is a temporary structure, hung with fruits and symbols of the harvest season in which they eat their meals and sometime sleep during the festival. Its roof is thinly covered with branches, admitting sunlight, starlight, wind and rain, a reminder that the precariousness of existence in the face of the forces of nature. The sukkah is also a powerful reminder of the many reasons for all to feel grateful to God, not the least of which includes that during the other 51 weeks of the year blessings that there is a solid roof on homes, clothes to wear, and food to eat.
The Pilgrims and Reminders from the Bible
The Pilgrims shared tthe first Thanksgiving with Native America Indians in 1621 with three days of feasting in spite of often contending with illness, meager rations, disappointed hopes, and death. The hard winter before the first Thanksgiving had restricted some settlements to daily rations of food per person per day which was five kernels of corn. In memory of those times, some settlers put five kernels of corn on each plate at their first Thanksgiving feast.
The thread that runs from the Israelites in the wilderness to that of the Pilgrims and the harsh years they experienced while striving to put down roots in a new land. The Pilgrims were people of great faith, who like the Israelites about whom they had read in the Bible, were people of great faith who believed themselves to be sustained by God's mercy an beneficence. That they should rejoice and give thanks at harvest time was as natural for the Pilgrims as it was for the ancient Israelites.
Rabbi Lieberman believes that "Thanksgiving and Sukkot come as a reminder that there is far more to be grateful for in this world than a bounteous crop. Both of these holidays encourage all to stop and acknowledge the manifold blessings God bestows upon us each and every day."
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