Thanksgiving and Sukkot

​Could our Thanksgiving feast be patterned after the Jewish feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot? This week-long harvest festival commemorates the 40-year journey that the children of Israel had in the wilderness as they made their way to the Promised Land. It is the final festival of the year and always occurs in the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar. There is a dual significance in this festival:  historical and agricultural. God desires that the generations remember that the Israelites lived in booths in the wilderness when He brought them out of persecution in Egypt. (Leviticus 23:43) Thanksgiving was to be the focus of this festival because God had blessed them mightily.
 
Thanksgiving in America was started by the pilgrims who settled in our country. When they came to America they were fleeing persecution in England. Some of them, before arriving in America, settled in Holland and found the Sephardic Jews who had been exiled from Spain in 1492. Because of this and other reasons, some surmise that our Thanksgiving feast could be patterned after the Jewish feast of Sukkot. Let's look at some of the similarities between the two feasts:
 
    - Both began with people that were being persecuted and escaped from their homeland.
    - Both festivals celebrate harvest.
    - Both happen in the fall.
    - Both are based on Biblical commands to give thanks.
    - Both include family gatherings.
    - Both involve feasting.
 
I read on the "One Israel" web site about the first Thanksgiving in America. It reports that ninety Wampanoag Native Americans joined fifty-three Pilgrims in a fall feast. It was these native Americans who befriended the Pilgrims and taught them how to plant corn, fish, and gather nuts and berries. Because of the help of the Indians, the Pilgrims survived the challenges of their new homeland.
 
As people of the Bible, the Pilgrims would have read all the admonitions to give thanks contained therein. I am sure they must have recognized that without God's help they would not have been able to survive. In addition, they most assuredly read about the yearly Jewish feast of thanksgiving called The Feast of Tabernacles. Being people of faith, the Pilgrims would have recognized that their relationship with God was strengthened when they praised Him and gave thanks for His provision and care.
 
When President Lincoln gave his speech describing the purpose of Thanksgiving he said it was, "to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks." We must keep gratitude at the forefront of everything we do. It is God who oversees our lives and gives us provision, peace, guidance, and love. Not only so, but He sent His Son, Yeshua or Jesus, to earth as a human being through the people of Israel to "tabernacle" with Him. Jesus sacrificed His life for us, taking our sins upon Himself so we could have eternal life. This truth needs to be at the forefront of our Thanksgiving celebration.