Ok, now its your turn to get creative. With thanks to many contributors on the Hava Nashira listserv (Hava Nashira is the awesome annual event for Jewish song leaders), the Dreidle song has a Thanksgivakkah twist this year. Here are some of my favorites from the verses that were submitted (along with attributions). Please add yours via the comments section. Best contribution will receive a prize! (you are also competing with those participating on the B’nai Shalom Facebook Page)
Happy Thanksgivakkah everyone!
I have a little dreidel
I made it out of clay
And when it’s dry and ready
It will be Thanksgiving Day. ( Morah Arlene Isserles)
Oh Dreidle, Turkey, Dreidle,
I’m *ready* for today,
Oh Dreidle, Turkey, Dreidle,
Let’s eat and then we’ll play! (Morah Wendy Zohar)
Tonight’s Thanksgivakkah offering comes to you from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. They know how to mix it up just right in their Chemistry lab. Enjoy! (and click the button on the top right of the video screen at the end to see their incredible video of a Robot lighting a menorah, produced a couple of years back.
Not everyone fits around the Thanksgivakkah table, and not everyone is physically close enough to be together this holiday season. Then there are those who are not well enough, and others who may find themselves working to serve the needs of others on this day. But we can still stay connected. You may have left it too late to mail a card, but the Union for Reform Judaism has put together a Thanksgivakkah e-card site (and some just Hanukkah options too) so you easily send a message to someone to tell them that you are thinking of them. Check it out here!
Just in case the conversation starts to wane during your Thanksgivakkah dinner, here’s some simple fun that will keep everyone entertained for a little while – Thanksgivakkah Bingo! Play with chocolate gelt – the winner gets the lot!
Last weekend, at our Spiritual Journey Group at Congregation B’nai Shalom, someone reflected on the need to impart the kind of values that are important to use to our kids at this time of year. If we say or do nothing, they are likely to simply pick up and absorb the dominant narratives that they hear around them. And how often, after the holiday season, does the conversation among kids turn to the question of ‘what did you get?’. One of the values that we want to impart might better be reflected in a question that I’d love to hear our children asking: ‘What did you give?’
This year, the Jewish Teen Funders Network has come up with a wonderful list of ideas to provide us all, and especially our children, with the opportunity to both give and nurture gratitude for eight nights. What better way to blend the spirit of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah?
I think my blog readers and congregants should know the lengths I went to in preparing this weeklong countdown. I had to sit through a great many truly awful parodies, corny videos, and other ear-curdling experiences in order to the find the truly delightful, entertaining, and musically pleasurable experiences worthy of your attention. This one is just plain ‘nice’. Good voices, neat mash-up and melody of some holiday standards. For your listening pleasure:
I’ve come across many online offerings with recipe suggestions that bring together the best of Thanksgiving with the traditions of Hanukkah. But this link takes you to one of the most extensive offerings that left me with my mouth watering. Let me know if you try any of them, and which ones get the most thumbs up. The idea of mixing holiday food traditions leave you squeamish? Just remember that just about every food tradition we have for Hanukkah is of central European or eastern European origin: latkes, donuts … none of these were prescribed by the Maccabees, or even by the Rabbis of the Talmud. So mix and merge this Thanksgivakkah at your dinner table – it’s totally kosher. But Turkey for eight nights? Maybe not.
If you’ve not heard the news by now, you’ve either cleverly managed to avoid all media (especially but not exclusively Jewish media) for the past month, or perhaps you live in one of the 194 countries of the world that don’t observe Thanksgiving. But… if you live in the USA, chances are that by now you are aware that this year Hanukkah will fall on Thanskgiving. This is something that it has never done in your or my lifetime before, and something that it will never do again in our lifetimes. In fact, it won’t happen again for over 70,000 years. And, this being the case, here in America we know a thing or two about taking full commercial advantage of any and every holiday, so there’s double the fun to be had when two holidays fall together in this unique way. If you’ve not already placed your orders, it might be a bit late in the day to get your Menurkey (see above), or order your t-shirts, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had this year, and many have gone to great lengths to produce creative videos, inspirational menus, kid-friendly activities, and meaningful giving opportunities to make this year’s Thanksgivakkah a year to remember.
Each day in the lead-up to the first night of Hanukkah (Wednesday night, November 27th – Erev Thanksgiving), with the exception of Shabbat, I’ll be posting some of my favorite online finds from this year on my blog, corresponding with a special week of postings on Congregation B’nai Shalom’s Facebook page. If you are on Facebook, please ‘like’ us and share your comments, reactions, (and we’ll be looking for your creative input in the coming days too) on our page and on this blog. Today’s posting features rare footage – from whence doth Thanksgivakkah cometh? Watch below:
I love telling the story of Chanukah. Like so many of our Jewish holidays, it is a wonderful and fascinating study in how rituals and myth and religious experiences come to be. As we begin our exploration of this holiday, we might think that there is a story that is told, born out of a historical experience, recorded for us in the Books of Maccabees. We celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian-Greek empire in taking back control of Jerusalem and re-dedicating their holy Temple, which had been desecrated through a previous re-dedication to the Greek god, Zeus. The Books of Maccabees never quite made it into the official canon of Jewish Holy books, and the Rabbis reasons for that were partly a matter of dates but mainly a matter of politics. That’s a longer story, but the result for us is that, while many Jews know the basic story of Chanukah, almost none have read the ‘original’ in the Books of Maccabees themselves. The story to be found there (and I’m not going to give the game away) is somewhat different from the folk version that most of us have had passed down to us through the ages. For a detailed review of the historical evolution of Chanukah, take a look at the essays at myjewishlearning.com
One of the things that is often not emphasized in the folk re-telling of the story is the inner conflict between Jews about the extent to which Greek culture – Hellenism – could appropriately be absorbed into Jewish life, culture and practice. The Maccabees, it seems, may have been zealous to an extreme in their distaste for Hellenism, while there were plenty of Jews in Jerusalem and beyond who embraced Hellenism and sought ways to maintain their Jewish faith and practice but in a way that enabled them to fully participate in the culture that was unfolding around them. (see here for a longer essay on this).
Today, we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, and a miracle of light. But, if the Maccabees represented the anti-assimilationist, anti-Hellenist stance, what are we to make of the way we celebrate Chanukah today? We sing Maoz Tzur to a melody taken from a medieval German marching tune. We eat latkes and donuts – neither of which are ‘native’ to the Middle East, but represent a claiming of central European food traditions onto which we add a Jewish layer by connecting them to the miracle of the oil. We play dreidle – an ancient gambling game that can be traced back as far as 11th century England, and probably made its way into Jewish life in the 13th or 14th century in Germany. We added our own set of 4 letters to remember the Chanukah story (Nes Gadol Hayah Sham – a great miracle happened there).
And this year we see so many new Chanukah songs and videos that engage and delight us, all of which borrow in style and, more often, in actual tune, from the secular pop music world. I’ve posted some of my favorites from this year below.
So… did the Maccabees really win? Or have we Jews been ‘Going Greek’ ever since? I believe that what we see is true of the way we have absorbed the richness of so many cultures through food, music, rituals and games is, in fact, simply a truth about being human. This is what we do. Its not ‘good’ or ‘bad’… it just ‘is’. And the miracle is that we’ve been doing it since the very first generation of Jews and yet, while the Greek, Babylonian and Roman empires (and many more since) have come and gone, we are still here. Not in spite of our constant adaptations to the world around us and the cultures we come into contact with but precisely because of them. Well – that’s what I believe. Feel free to pitch in and add your thoughts in the comments section below. Happy Chanukah!
