To Bird or Not to Bird

.. or "Is Thanksgiving Kosher?"

Why don't your Chassidic friends celebrate Thanksgiving, I've been asked. The answer is rooted in Leviticus 18:3 "You shall not walk in their statutes, would be one reason given (sez the former Hebrew school teacher). On another plane, the answer would be, "We have our own holidays - why add a goyish one?". Anything that causes us to intermingle is not a good thing, particularly if there is a possibility of eating (heaven forfend) something trayf. Yet another aspect is that it makes us less distinctive - something by and large not held to be a good thing, although the first generations of Jewish immigrants would mostly have begged to differ!

I'm giving the religious reason that some Orthodox and most Chassidic Jews don't celebrate Thanksgiving. Their response: "We have a Jewish holiday of Thanksgiving - Sukkot. And we say a special thanksgiving blessing on every new item we wear, fruit we eat and holiday that we are permitted to celebrate. "

It needs to be noted that this opinion is one of several in the observant community. Other Orthodox scholars, including Rav Joseph Soleveitchik, permitted and encouraged Jews to celebrate Thanksgiving based on the following arguments and conditions: a) it is a secular holiday and b) does not require or include religious practices (the same concept applies to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day). Secular holidays can be celebrated as long as a) they are not celebrated with people who integrate religious worship in them; b) the celebration does not appear to others as a religious ceremony, according to Jewish law and c) all dietary and religious laws are observed. We are, as a people, historically chary of anybody thinking, heaven forbid, that we've been converted. See Rabbi Michael Broyde's site for a further discussion of this and other opinions on the holiday.

But a big part of being American means that you get to pick what holidays you personally celebrate, even if the mail doesn't get delivered that day. And as that famous Jew, John F. Kennedy put it: "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." Gratitude and appreciation are values we should express daily, not just once a year over a dead bird.