Thanksgiving Confluence of Events

One of my third graders raised her hand in class during a Sunday School discussion about the connections between Thanksgiving and Judaism and proclaimed that she was thankful that God split the sea. Profound. She understood that she couldn’t be sitting in suburban Chicago learning about being Jewish without that event in “her” history. This seemingly obvious point is consistently overlooked in the typical list of thanks that is uttered around my family’s thanksgiving meal. We always list being thankful for shelter, family, friends, health, education and food because those are critical items and we’re hungry and no one is interested in humoring my parent’s seemingly silly ritual. Maybe what we shouldn’t take for granted are the choices we’ve made, the geopolitical circumstances that have allowed us achieve success, and the decisions our ancestors made in reaction to situations they faced allowing us to sit around a beautiful dining room table and eat a thoroughly cooked turkey procured from the freezer section of the grocery store with no hunting or plucking involved. It’s a terrifying idea that the choices we make today influence not only our own future but also the current humanity and the future. Perhaps this is an oversimplification of life into a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, but I believe our decisions have an impact on the future, after all one match can start a forest fire one doctor can cure a disease. So on this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for both the choices I have consciously or unconsciously made and those decisions of my particular predecessors and the larger worldly forces that have allowed me to reach this day with delicious canned cranberries. Inspired by my wise third grader, I am thankful not only that God split the sea, but for all of the events that have transpired because of it landing me where I am today. I am truly blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving!