Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Friends,

For many of us, the planning, cooking, and serving of the Thanksgiving meal is one of the most important and memorable parts of the celebration.  Recipes passed down through the years.  Family members with their own “specialties” that they always bring. Stories from Thanksgiving meals past related to this food or that.

At my family’s Thanksgiving table, our path as a family can be partially traced by my mother’s stuffing recipe. It has evolved as our family has changed and grown. When I was a little girl, my mom’s famous stuffing had bacon and copious butter in it. It was, frankly,  delicious.  But concerns about guests who kept kosher and health considerations accounted for the first changes. Cutting out the bacon was swift. The butter was a slower process; it reduced a little bit year and year until its absence could be felt. When I became a vegetarian at age 12, the chicken broth was replaced with vegetable broth.  Over the years, white bread was traded out for wheat, fresh herbs replaced dried ones, and so on.  It’s still my mom’s famous stuffing, and it’s still delicious, but very little of today’s version is the same as the version in, say, 1975 or 1985.  The stuffing mirrors my family itself.  We’re the same loving family today as we were back in the day, even if my grandparents’ and great aunt’s chairs have been replaced by my children’s.
 
The Mishneh Torah, written by Moses Maimonides in the 12th century, explains that each person should say 100 blessings each day.  Lengthy treatises have been written about what those 100 blessings are.  For centuries, scholars have composed different lists of proscribed blessings that each person should repeat verbatim.  I fear that these scholars, caught up in the minutia of listing blessings and prayers, miss Maimonides' central point. Simply put, we should strive to live lives of gratitude.   We should push ourselves to notice the good in our lives continually.   It’s not blessings, but gratitude, which is key. Each day should be seen as a Thanksgiving.  

Now, I would venture to say it’s impossible to agree on 100 blessings shared among us.  Your blessings are different from mine; your gratitude is different from mine.  And your Thanksgiving may be very different from mine. Gratitude constantly evolves. In fact, I know that my sense of gratitude had changed over time, perhaps something like a beloved family recipe changing and adapting.  

I have a challenge for you this week: Spend some time thinking, really thinking, about the blessings in your life.  What are you grateful for?   Strive for one hundred, but don’t let a number distract you.  Perhaps make it a family affair.  Could everybody around the Thanksgiving table contribute a few blessings to the list? I’ve attached a blank list to make it straightforward.  Hint: Save the list for next year.  How have your family’s blessings evolved, changed, and grown?

May your Thanksgiving be full and your gratitude be large.  Happy Thanksgiving!


All the best,
Debbie
Rabbi Debbie Cohen