Thanksgivings

Skaneatles Community House in Autumn

This Sunday we will celebrate the Biblical Thanksgiving (according to Deuteronomy 26). It shares many surprising similarities with our current American tradition.

Just like our American tradition, Biblical Thanksgiving does not have solid historical roots.

     The American Thanksgiving has flimsy historical grounding. Early European colonists did celebrate Harvest Home, but as such it took place much earlier in the season, just like it is customary in Europe. Colonists were not dressed in those black and white costumes, that was for them a dress for church and not for a joyful festival. They did not eat turkey but venison and they would hardly recognize most of our traditional thanksgiving dishes. All these aspects were designed as part of national mythology in the Victorian Era. The same is true about a Biblical Thanksgiving which also had very little historical grounding and we will touch upon it.

 

Just like our American tradition, Biblical Thanksgiving was created for political/ideological reasons.

    American Thanksgiving in its current form has been designed to inspire cohesive spirit in difficult and dark times of the Civil War. (Have you noticed that the media never forget to report how our soldiers also celebrate?) Many aspects of a Thanksgiving celebration betray its historical origins. The story about Pilgrims and Indians, the location of the story, depictions of ancient dresses, even traditional thanksgiving recipes and order of dishes did not correspond with historical reality, but were an idealized projection - how people in the 1860s in the Union part of the Nation visualized the early colonists and their feasts. Similarly ideological purpose can be observed in Biblical Thanksgiving and we will touch upon it. 

But regardless of all these falsifications, American Thanksgiving just like the Biblical Thanksgiving has an important underlying message.

    Most of what we tell about Thanksgiving and what we eat on Thanksgiving and what we do on Thanksgiving was cooked by national ideology. But underneath all of it is an undeniable reality of a nation of migrants - some refugees, some economic migrants, some opportunists, some idealists, but almost all of us (unless you are 100% Native American) relatively recent newcomers. And this message is also true about the Biblical Thanksgiving. It might be historical fiction, but the powerful message of the Biblical Thanksgiving was clear - it was a feast of migrants and refugees.

Join us, migrants and refugees, in Thanks Giving.