The Spiritual Secret of Thanksgiving

Okay, so some of you asked if I'm celebrating Thanksgiving. And the answer is, personally, I'm not going to like eat a turkey or turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and all that stuff, but Thanksgiving is a great holiday for those who wish to observe it. And uh it's very much aligned with the principles of the Torah. And Thanksgiving is great. I I just I don't personally observe it. I've enough holidays to observe, but uh definitely I'm a supporter of Thanksgiving. A fan of Thanksgiving. Get it? Like I don't personally do it, but I'm definitely a fan. And I I want to talk a little bit about what's so cool about Thanksgiving. It's in the name itself, Thanksgiving. Giving thanks. [sighs] So, I want to explain a little bit about giving thanks. I don't want to talk about gratitude so much, which is a very important concept, but I want to talk about something a little bit deeper theologically. Why would you even be grateful in the first place? The implication is to be grateful to God, you have to believe that God has done something. Now, of course, if you believe in God, you believe he's done something. No, not necessarily. Well, let me be more specific. You may believe he once did something, but you know what have you done for me lately, so to speak? I want to explain the difference between the theists and the deists. Theism is the belief in a god who intervenes, who is active, who answers prayer, who is involved in this world now, as opposed to what dismis the belief that yes, the world was created by God, but it's sometimes it's compared to like the watch maker who creates the watch or makes the watch and winds it up and just lets it go. So the rules of nature, so to speak, were um designed by God and it's all put into place by God. But now he's not actively involved and therefore there's no such thing as divine intervention. Uh there would be no reason to beseech God because he's not really like actively involved anymore. He made it. It has divine origin, but like he's done. He's on the golf course now. He's retired. Don't bother him. So that's dism. From the founding fathers, you find that some were theists, some were deists. Thanksgiving is a very theistic, inherently theistic holiday and idea. uh the 1789 proclamation from [snorts] George Washington that established the whole idea of thanksgiving is inherently theistic in in its language. It it it talks about thanking God for his his many favors and beseeching God. It's talking about a God who is involved. He's done something for you. you want to express your gratitude for it. Um, this is the idea of divine providence. By the way, there's a town in uh Rhode Island or a city called uh Providence. Who do you think named it? Were theists who uh you know they were they were Puritans. I think it was Roger Williams who gave it that name. So the the Puritans were were were theists and George Washington's Thanksgiving I mean you could debate whether Washington himself was a theist or a theist. George uh Thomas Jefferson for instance by contrast certainly was a deist. So you can debate was George Washington himself a theist or a theist? I don't know. I'm not a historian but the Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation was certainly theistic. Okay. The reason I want to talk about this is because it's an important concept to recognize that this country has a history of theism. And it's sort of baked into the culture of America. And it's a it's an important distinction, not only belief. Obviously, belief is a cornerstone of the American political system and and American culture. But like I said, you can believe that there's a God. God made the world. God had his rules set into place. And not just the the laws of nature. You can even believe God has certain moral laws and that you have to keep those laws because God who designed the world would obviously know the best way to live and so you keep his laws. But there's nothing active or or dynamic going on anymore. It's like the rules are set into to motion and that's it. Theism is the belief and that's what Thanksgiving is really expressing is our alignment with theism that it's an ongoing relationship that we are in a dialogue and a conversation with a living God who is interested in creation and interested in what we do and has an opinion about what we do and you know obviously a Dist ic approach to life as opposed to a theistic approach to life is going to have many many differences. But you know just just one of them is the whole concept of the aforementioned divine providence which we we call in in Jewish thought hashkah. We translate hashkahus as divine providence but literally that's not the translation. The translation literally sounds a little bit clumsy in English. Maybe just because we're not used to it, but the the literal translation of is individualized supervision, which is a wonderful term. It doesn't have such a slick sound to it, but it's a wonderful concept. Individualized supervision. So that means that when Hashem, God Almighty, is overseeing creation, actively overseeing creation, [snorts] it's not just in general like what's going to be the gross national product of uh the United States this year. It's down to the detail of like this guy on this day with this business deal is going to make this amount of money to the penny and that God Almighty, the infinite one, has an opinion about that and that that is orchestrated. Now, why should that mean anything to you? Well, if you're that guy [laughter] and you're out there working and you're wondering if you're just sort of in this chaotic void and trying to make a living, or do you believe that everything is guided, everything is orchestrated, and that you're going to make exactly to the penny what you need to make today, and what what you need to make tomorrow will be tomorrow, and the next day will be the next day. It's a totally different approach to uh to life. I'll tell you a story. Um it's actually about my ancestor, the Megala Amukis, who was the rabbi in the town of Krakow. So they say that at one point he was going to leave Krakow. He had a an offer for another rebbitic position and then um he he didn't. and they pressed why he decided to stay and he said because of a court case that you know a rabbitic court case that I presided over. They asked him what it was. He says well uh it was a court case between a rich man and a uh bagel seller. The background was so the rich man and the bagel seller came to me and the rich man says I made a contract an oral contract with uh the bagel seller and he breached the contract. So what was the nature of the contract? So they told the story. The rich man got into a conversation with the bagel seller about some Torah scholarship and he realized that the bagel seller was actually a Torah scholar. So the rich man said to the Torah scholar, the bagel seller Torah scholar. He said, "You know, it's a shame for you to sell bagels. You're a real Torah scholar. You should be studying full-time. I'm wealthy. I I will support you. You'll study all day. Study Torah all day. and I will pay you a stipend and uh we will share in the merit of your Torah study. So they made a deal and it went on for a while, few weeks, maybe months. But one day the rich man is walking down the street and he sees the bagel seller standing on the corner selling bagels. He says, "What? Why? Why are you selling bagels?" He says, "I went back to my old job." He's like, "What? What about the money I'm supposed to pay you?" He says, "Don't pay me. I don't want you to pay me. Like, keep your money." He said, "No, no. We have a deal. I want to pay you and I want you to study and we'll share in the merit of your Torah study." The guy says, "I don't want your money and I'm going to sell bagels." So, he dragged him to the rabbitic court to the Magala Mukes who was presiding over the rabbitic court. And the rich guy says, "I want the guy to continue studying Torah full-time and take my money. He won't take my money." And the the the guy says, "That's correct. I want to sell bagels and I'm not not going to take his money anymore and that's it. So the Maggala case says to u the bagel seller you got to explain yourself here like what's what's the problem? Why don't you want to take the money? He says listen I had a talk with my wife. [gasps] I was talking to my wife and I was saying, you know, when I used to sell bagels every day, I would get out there and it have to wonder, you know, what's going to happen? How am I going to make my living today? Like, what miracle is going to happen where I'll sell enough bagels to bring home the money I need to support my family? And uh I was constantly in a mode of just I was praying and I was hoping and I was I really had to work on my on my reliance on God just to have the confidence to go out there and to do that every day. Then [clears throat] this guy gave me this stipend and yeah, I was studying Torah all day, but I I hate to say I wasn't thinking about God as much because I knew I had a stipend. I knew the money was taken care of. And you know, I just felt like I'd grown apart from God. And so I spoke to my wife and she said, "Yeah, I I see it in you, too." And I told her, "I want to go back to selling bagels." Cuz then, [laughter] you know, it forced me to be very, very active in my relationship with God. She said, "I agree with you. Go back to the bagel selling." And uh so the Megalamokas decided in favor of the bagel seller. says listen this guy he feels more connected to God when he doesn't know how his living is going to come to him on a given day so uh you can't get him you can't get him between him and God so that was the decision so that Malamoka said that in a place where even the bagel seller his number one priority is not financial security but having a dynamic living active relationship with God in such a place that's where I want to live so that's why he stayed made in Krakow that's famous story but the point is that theism is this belief that we are in this dynamic relationship. [sighs] I want to share with you an observation that I made that really took me many years for the penny to drop and to get clarity about it. And that is when the laavereb would speak about teaching the world about faith in God. Very often the Reb would speak about the responsibility of the Jewish people as a light unto the nations to teach faith to the entire world to all of the nations. And obviously when we teach faith to all the nations, it's a little bit different than like teaching Torah to to Jews where you're teaching them observance of rituals that are specifically Jewish, which only are obligated upon Jews. But then there's the entire world. I mean, every member of humanity is obligated to believe in God and to serve God. uh not to like do the specifically Jewish rituals but to to serve God and to believe in God. And it's interesting I noticed when the when the Reb would speak publicly, he would always speak in Yiddish, but his Yiddish was interspersed with a lot of Hebrew and al also some Aramaic because the Talmud is in Aramaic. Um there was a term Hebrew that the Reb would use every time I noticed this. every time that ever would speak about talking about faith to the world like on a on a global platform to the the non-Jewish world and it's a actually it's a rather like long term and it's a term to describe God which I never noticed that I've been using this term to describe God in any other context and that is Fore! Foreign! Foreign! means the creator of the world. Means and its director. Those are two concepts. The creator of the world. He and its director. It finally clicked with me that the Reb was implicitly addressing the entire disism theism debate that it's not enough that God is bum the creator of the world he has to also be maniggoy its director and the spoke about thanksgiving and about the importance that the founding fathers attributed to a belief in God's favors and providence and that it's not just that God created the world and set it up and left it, but that God continues to be involved and that our moral choices are very much part of an ongoing active relationship. So it occurred to me that that this expression, the creator of the world and its director, speaks to that idea that God is not just the creator, he's also the director. Creator and director. Creator could mean he created it, but now he's moved on. Director means he has not moved on. He is engaged in this project called creation and he's interested and concerned with what his creations do and that's a very very important concept. You know faith is not monolithic. There are different I mean theology unfortunately there's a little social commentary but in today's day and age people are so generally so ignorant about theology that they think it just means believing in God. [laughter] The world's libraries are full of theological debates. There are so many nuances within what faith means. I mean the truth is for the majority of history most scholarship was about theology. You can historically all of the centers of higher learning were primarily based on the study of theology or dedicated to the study of theology. So there's a lot of nuance within theology. It's not just do you believe or you don't believe. Within belief, there are different flavors and styles of belief. And it's so important that we understand that the belief that the Torah espouses and the belief that the founding fathers held and which is part of the the the the the lifeblood of America is the belief in an actively involved God. A God who is engaged and concerned, who listens to prayer, who answers prayer, and who directs every detail of our lives. And so that there's no aspect of our life which is truly mundane or uh outside of the realm of morality because ultimately everything is part of our relationship with God. Like King Solomon in his wisdom said, "You should know God in all of your ways." Meaning, not just in overtly religious aspects of your life, but in all of your ways is an opportunity. I mean, in in your eating and drinking and your sleeping and and you're working, every aspect of life is an opportunity to know God because God is actively involved in in everything. Okay. Happy Thanksgiving. Eat some uh turkey for me. Tell me how your turkey was. Put it tell me in the comments what you uh [laughter] who who made the best pumpkin pie at your Thanksgiving meal.