After an un-yomtov (an unbirthday for a Jew who’s unreborn) Thanksgiving,
and seeing what I thought was yet another Maureen Dowd NYT column,
I’m looking forward, two years later, to enjoy another.
Doubtlessly Ms. Dowd will, once more redoubling, vent
against the undoomed doubled US President,
pouring her prophetically predictable
scorn against a man who’s unindictable.
What profiteth it any journalist to write
so many words against a man they can’t indict?
But the column had been written by her witty brother,
and didn’t bother me because, just like his sister’s, it was hardly solemn.
I hope that Maureen pardons this old turkey-poet, post-un-yomtov most forgiving …
as I believe the world should be to Israel,
compelled to kill so many human shields
above the tunnels where Hamas terrorists
were, and continue to be, hiding,
remembering on Thanksgiving
the far too many Jews,
who as calamities in these killing fields
helped save the world’s lone Jewish state
from woe its foes are thanklessly still woe-betiding,
while in the United States
Jews who are religiously observant
now celebrate the fact that it supports
both God and Israel,
of both a most obedient servant.
On 11/27/24, erev Thanksgiving 2024, I wondered whether Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and the Rov, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, were correct when identifying Thanksgiving as a secular holiday when reading a message that Abraham Socher, the editor of Jewish Review of Books, had published:
There is an interesting discussion among twentieth-century American halakhic authorities about whether one should really celebrate Thanksgiving, though none of them seemed to have worried that it would lead to underage mixed dancing on the bimah. Their concern was the prohibition against following the ritual practices of non-Jews (chukkot ha-goyim). Rav Moshe Feinstein thought it was ok because it was a national celebration that was not based on religious beliefs (he might’ve had second thoughts if he had studied the lyrics of “We Gather Together,” though he wouldn’t have objected to its picture of Divine Providence).
I read the following information in Wikipedia:
“We Gather Together” is a Christian hymn of Dutch origin written in 1597 by Adrianus Valerius as “Wilt heden nu treden” to celebrate the Dutch victory over Spanish forces in the Battle of Turnhout. It was originally set to a Dutch folk tune. In the United States, it is popularly associated with Thanksgiving Day and is often sung at family meals and at religious services on that day.
Since “We Gather Together” is popularly associated with Thanksgiving Day and is often sung at family meals and at religious services on that day, I wonder whether identification of Thanksgiving as a secular holiday may be mistaken.
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
