Thanksgiving: the American Sukkot?

Nov 19, 2007 08:06

Many Americans, upon seeing a decorated sukkah for the first time, remark on how much the sukkah (and the holiday generally) reminds them of Thanksgiving. This may not be entirely coincidental: I was taught that our American pilgrims, who originated the Thanksgiving holiday, borrowed the idea from Sukkot.

The pilgrims were deeply religious people. When they were trying to find a way to express their thanks for their survival and for the harvest, they looked to the Bible for an appropriate way of celebrating and found Sukkot. This is not the standard story taught in public schools today (that a Thanksgiving holiday is an English custom that the Pilgrims brought over), but the Sukkot explanation of Thanksgiving fits better with the meticulous research of Mayflower historian Caleb Johnson, who believes that the original Thanksgiving was a harvest festival (as is Sukkot), that it was observed in October (as Sukkot usually is), and that Pilgrims would not have celebrated a holiday that was not in the Bible (but Sukkot is in the Bible).

A simple conclusion is that the earliest Thanksgivings were Sukkot especially considering that Christmas was not observed because the birth of Messiah would have been understood to have been on Sukkot, in a sukkah (the manger).

The History channel wrote, "The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston..."

A good way of defying the political priests of today is to observe Sukkot at thanksgiving and move Christmas back on the calendar to sukkot!

Sukkot will begin on the following days on the American calendar:

September 27, 2007 (Jewish Year 5768)
October 14, 2008 (Jewish Year 5769)
October 3, 2009 (Jewish Year 5770)
September 23, 2010 (Jewish year 5771)
October 13, 2011 (Jewish year 5772)

http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday5.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/holiday5.html
http://kristinamh.blogspot.com/2005/12/christmas-and-pilgrims.html