Bennett: Thanksgiving Owes Much to Its Jewish Roots

When most people think about the Bible’s influence on Thanksgiving, scriptural admonitions about giving thanks and being grateful come to mind.

There’s no doubt that’s very much a part of our reason for making a special day of it.

And of course, we recognize the impact of the Pilgrims’ spiritual roots on those early, historic times of giving thanks for their survival and first harvests in a new land.

However, let's examine the idea that Thanksgiving’s biblical roots may go back much further than that, to a different time of pilgrimage among God’s people.

Early settlers in North America had nothing on the journey of the children of Israel, who wandered in the desert for 40 years before reaching their new home in the Promised Land.

And while the Pilgrims recognized God’s hand in their survival, it was much more literal for the Hebrews who survived on manna sent directly from God when there were no other food sources available.

This is why this writer sees much more the influence from the Jewish celebration of the festival of Sukkot on our American holiday of Thanksgiving.

Sukkot, which is Hebrew for "booths," celebrates the harvest and commemorates the protection God provided the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt, when they lived in tents, or "booths."

It reflects both God’s salvation in removing them from slavery and his provision for their needs during the time of wandering.

Sukkot is a holiday not only of thanksgiving for survival but also for harvest.

In Leviticus 23:40, the people are instructed to "to take branches from luxuriant trees . . .  and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days."

This practice of building the sukkah from items grown in the ground is a symbol of the dual nature of the festival, which, like other Jewish holidays, has both religious and historical significance.

The timing of the festival coincides with the harvest of grapes, olives and many other crops in Israel, as well as the period during which the rains begin, signaling the next fertile planting season.

It is this second aspect of the festival of Sukkot that this writer believes may have inspired not only the timing of our Thanksgiving here in the U.S., but also many aspects of our own traditions.

What many people may not realize is that the Pilgrims who first celebrated Thanksgiving in the New World had lived for a time among Jewish people. In the early 1600s, both groups settled for a few years in religiously tolerant Holland in order to escape persecution.

The Pilgrims may have only lived alongside the Jews for a short while, but definitely long enough to have observed several Jewish festivals.

They may have taken many ideas from the Sukkot celebrations they observed when planning their own inaugural Thanksgiving.

While our modern Thanksgiving may not resemble the Jewish harvest festival as closely as it once did, the first Thanksgiving meal in 1621 had many similarities.

The meal was eaten outdoors, which would correspond to the Sukkot tradition of dining outside in the sukkah.

The Pilgrims welcomed their Native American friends and neighbors to join in the celebration, also mirroring Sukkot’s tradition of welcoming others in.

The first Thanksgiving was reported to have lasted several days — anywhere from three to seven — once again showing similarity to the Jewish festival, which is commanded in Scripture to be observed for seven days.

Finally, the Thanksgiving symbol of plenty, the cornucopia, is shaped very much like the Jewish shofar, the horn that is blown during the holiday preceding Sukkot.

One of the main similarities we retain is the food.

Sukkot is an autumnal harvest holiday, so the food served is seasonal in nature and inspired by the bounty of the harvest. This is also very similar to the American tradition of Thanksgiving, both in those early years, and still today.

Perhaps most importantly, we hold in common the God to whom we give thanks for our blessings and abundance.

From Leviticus through Revelation, we are admonished to "give thanks to the Lord," or given examples of the faithful who did so with both great joy and reverence.

I will be thinking about the thousands of years of biblical influence on our celebration of Thanksgiving as I sit down at the table this year and express my own gratitude for the many ways in which the Bible has impacted culture — something we celebrate daily at the Museum of the Bible.

Shannon Bennett is chief marketing officer of Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the museum team, Shannon spent four years in Jerusalem, Israel, where she served as director of educational resources at the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. While in Israel, Shannon also received her MA in Jewish civilization from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.