Community Corner

Rabbi: Chanukah, Thanksgiving Holidays of Gratitude

Rabbi Yossi Mintz of the Jewish Community Center explains how both Thanksgiving and Chanukah are holidays of gratitude.

This opinion piece was written by Rabbi Yossi Mintz of the Jewish Community Center in Redondo Beach.

We will be sitting down to our Thanksgiving dinner this year on the second night of the eight-day Jewish festival of Chanukah in what is becoming known as Thanksgivukkah. Due to a rare calendar phenomenon the two holidays converge for the first time in 96 years!

Thanksgiving was established in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln to commemorate the early pilgrims’ appreciation for their freedom from religious persecution, and their gratitude for their survival and ultimate prosperity. 

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Every year since, American families have gathered together to express their thanks for the opportunity to live in freedom, peace and prosperity in this blessed land. 

While almost every religious and national holiday has become commercialized in recent years, Thanksgiving has retained much of its family orientation with its message of expressing gratitude for our freedom (with retailers graciously waiting until Black Friday).

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Chanukah is a time of thanks as well. Chanukah celebrates the victory of Jewish rebels led by the Maccabees over the mighty Greek armies about 2200 years ago. The Maccabees were fighting for religious freedom against the Hellenist oppression which forbade the practice of Judaism. Each year we celebrate Chanukah for eight days, offering thanks for the victory of liberty over tyranny and freedom over oppression.

Thanksgiving and Chanukah are times when we show our thanks and appreciation, but who are we thanking? After all, if there is no one to thank, if there is no recipient of our gratitude then we would just be glorifying ourselves or a directionless fate that led us to what we have today. We must be thanking someone. Thanksgiving is then one of the few remaining national symbols that recognize a Higher Power. We give thanks to the Ultimate Provider for all that we have, starting with the privilege of living in freedom in this great prosperous nation, and our ability to freely practice our beliefs.

But there remains an important difference in how these two great holidays are celebrated. Thanksgiving has become a family time, when we sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table with family and friends showing gratitude to the Creator for all that we have. Chanukah is a public holiday, a time we gather together to publicly express our gratitude to the Creator for all the freedoms that we have. With the rare convergence of the two holidays this year, we get to show our gratitude in both formats!

Join me again this year in publicly expressing our gratitude for our freedoms at our public menorah lightings across the South Bay. This year the Jewish Community Center has erected giant menorahs in the following locations: Redondo Beach Civic Center, Manhattan Village Shopping Mall, El Segundo Civic Center, South Bay Galleria, Greenwood Park in Hermosa Beach and Plaza El Segundo. Each of these places will have a menorah lighting ceremony with local dignitaries on a different night of Chanukah. Join us with your family in your own neighborhood for music, hot latkes and gifts for all the children.

For more information and times for each of the public menorah lightings, please visit our website at jccmb.com, call 310-214-4999 or email info@jccmb.com.

Wishing you a happy Chanukah,

Rabbi Yossi Mintz
The Jewish Community Center 
rabbiyossi@jccmb.com


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