Rabbis: Hanukkah, Thanksgiving have much in common
By Michele Dargan
Palm Beach Daily News
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Chaya Gutnick, 5, of Boca Raton builds a wooden menorah earlier this month during a Chabad of Northern Palm Beach Island-hosted workshop at the Palm Beach Recreation Center in preparation for Hanukkah, which begins tonight. Its first day falls on Thanksgiving in a rare calendar connection that some rabbis say will not happen again for 70,000 years. 
Dovid Gutnick helps his father, Rabbi Shmuly Gutnick, pour olive oil that they produced into a menorah as his daughter Chaya Gutnick, 5, of Boca Raton looks on. Children made the oil and menorahs during a pre-Hanukkah event hosted by Chabad of Northern Palm Beach Island. 
Rabbi Shmuly Gutnick encourages Musia Levitin, 2, dressed as a dreidel to spin like her sister Mirel, 8, as he explains the significance of the Hebrew letters on it. |
The rare phenomenon of Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah falling on the same day this year has spawned a new term, Thanksgivukkah.
Jewish scholars differ on when it will occur again. Some say 100 years. Others say 70,000 years.
As Rabbi Moshe Scheiner of the Palm Beach Synagogue points out, in either scenario, for most people, it will happen only once in a lifetime.
Scheiner said it’s fitting that Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlap because of the similarities of “giving thanks to God” in both holidays.
“The pilgrims came to this country in search of freedom from religious persecution,” Scheiner said. “When we sit down at Thanksgiving table, we thank God for our freedom.
“The story of the Maccabees is a story of a group of brave Jews fighting for the same things: religious freedom, to throw off the religious oppression of the Syrian-Greeks, who forbade the Jews, at the time, from practicing their faith freely. Both Thanksgiving and Hanukkah share a common message: that God created man to be free with the right to practice their faith and beliefs. Thanksgiving in America, for Jews and non-Jews alike, is that we’re all very fortunate to live in this country, which gives every citizen the right to practice religion freely.”
Hanukkah begins at sundown tonight and lasts for eight days. Referred to as the “festival of lights,” Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem following the Maccabees victory over the Syrian-Greeks about 2,200 years ago.
When the Maccabees regained control, they returned to the Temple in Jerusalem, which had been spiritually defiled. Jewish troops were determined to purify it by burning ritual oil in the menorah for eight days, but they had only one day’s worth of oil. They lit the menorah anyway and, to their surprise, the small amount of oil lasted the full eight days.
Rabbi Barak Bar Chaim of the New Synagogue of Palm Beach also noted the similarities of the two holidays.
“The Jewish people miraculously defeated the Greek empire and regained their freedom,” Bar Chaim said. “Hanukkah is about being thankful for that and spreading light as opposed to darkness — the light of peace and the light of kindness. It’s really fortuitous that they fall together because they really are thematically similar in giving thanks to God. It’s a recognition of God’s interaction in our lives and in the world. The tie in of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah is very strong. Thanks is something you can never give enough of, so it’s an opportunity to be doubly thankful.”
Rabbi Zalman Levitin of Chabad of Northern Palm Beach Island said he has received emails from members of the community on creative ways they’re celebrating both holidays.
“One member designed a beautiful turkey menorah, while others are exchanging the traditional Hanukkah potato latkes and jelly doughnuts with sweet potato latkes and cranberry-filled donuts,” Levitin said. “Yet, more than cute culinary opportunities, there is in fact a deep and profound common thread that weaves these holidays together. This year, two arduous journeys to overcome religious persecution, two stories wherein spiritual strength and light defied the forces of darkness, two holidays established to thank the almighty for the bounty he bestows upon us will coincide. How fitting.”
Rabbi Michael Resnick of Temple Emanu-El said, “It’s lovely when two holidays that both have such beautiful meaning cross paths like they are this year. Both Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are holidays that ask us to appreciate and acknowledge the many blessings in our lives. Thanksgiving and Hanukkah together is truly a once-in-a-lifetime moment.”