A Note from Reb Zalman
Dear Friends:
Thanksgiving is just about here.
Many of us will have a festive meal.
But the important part is that at this dinner we should invite some needy people so that we might feed them.
It is also important before Birkhat Hamazon, the grace after meals, to count our blessings and to give thanks to God.
Based on the model that we have for Hanukkah and Purim I have written an insert prayer to include both in the Amidah as well as in the Birkhat Hamazon and I offer this as a suggestion for your Thanksgiving celebration. (CLICK HERE FOR A COPY)
Blessings,
Reb Zalman Hiyyah Schachter-Shalomi
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Thank you very much for posting this. I appreciate Reb Zalman tremendously.
I do differ however with our prayers for Thanksgiving. I don’t feel very related, as a Jew, to our Puritan “ Foreparents,” but I feel very much that as a US citizen and as a US Jew, Thanksgiving is a very difficult holiday. It marks, to me, the beginning of the genocide against the Native peoples of these lands by the settlers from Europe, and while the claim in the mythology is that a peaceful dinner took place, the reality is that there was no peace before or after, and millions of lives of Native Americans were taken.
With respect. Diane Balser
November 24th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Yasher koach!!!
Most beautiful and profound.
Much love from us to you,
Wayne