Jew Do Thanksgiving?

 

 

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This week the anti-Israel Nation Magazine published a lead article, "Make Thanksgiving Radical Again"

(Never fear, it only uses the word "genocide" once.)

You see, no one heeded their call in 2023 "to decolonize Thanksgiving [or] replace Thanksgiving with a 'Truthsgiving.'", so now they're trying to find a way to justify eating turkey and stuffing today. 

These people have to rationalize why New Yorkers riot against Israel (just like last year) but not against Columbus.

Yes, why, do tell us!

Tradition?

In honor of tradition, today we dust off and rejewvenate our annual Hodu message.

Here are a few questions to stump everyone at the table:

Try this one first: Why turkey?

Serious question: Why do Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?

(Why does it seem like a religious duty, like matzah on Pesach.)

If anyone answers, "They ate turkey so we have to eat turkey," that would be incorrect.

In fact, they would be wrong on 2 counts.

First of all, would it really be so bad to have a Thanksgiving pizza? Or Thanksgiving sushi? Or a Cajun Thanksgiving? How about a Chinese Thanksgiving? Curry Thanksgiving, anyone?

(I know I'm not the first to ask this question, but it seems far from resolved.)

Second, they probably didn't eat much turkey.

At that original Thanksgiving in 1621, they apparently ate mostly venison.

I know, shocking, right?

Let's go back in time.

Imagine you're on the boat with Columbus.

(Maybe you're even a Jewish refugee from the Spanish Inquisition.)

PS - If you'd like to know about the Jews who sailed with Columbus, send me an email.

Of course, you and your geographically-challenged buddies think you're in Asia.

It's a strange world! Strange people, fauna and flora.

And you see this funky chicken.

The Wampanoag Indians call it neyhom.

What do you, O Spanish sailor, call it?

Remember, it looks vaguely like a chicken and you think you're in India, so naturally you call it "Indian chicken."

Are you with me so far?

French explorers agree that it looks like a chicken and they call poulet d'Inde (Indian chicken), later shortened to dinde (pronounced "dand").

English settlers think it looks more like a Turkey pheasant than a chicken, so they call the bird turkey.

Jewish explorers side with the French and call it tarnegol hodu — "Hindu chicken" — later shortened to hodu.

What's interesting for us is that the Hebrew word HODU also just happens to mean "give thanks" (in the imperative mood for all the grammarphiles out there).

So back to our main question for your table: What food should you eat on Hodu Day?

(Hodu, of course.)

Now try asking somebody Jewish at the table this stumper:

You're Jewish, right? Can you explain what "Jewish" means?

Forget the religious or cultural meaning; we want to know the etymology of "Jewish".

It means something like, "a state of being thankful". 

Ergo, if you're living up to the name "Jewish" then you are....

....living in a state of being thankful.

Let that sink in before asking the next question: How often?

(Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day?)

That could be a lot of hodu to stuff yourself with.

Final question for the table: How do you do hodu?

Happy Hodu-Day, and

(which may be the same as saying...)

Shabbat Shalom

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Family Business?

New: BackyardBarmitzvah.com

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

November 21/22, 2025 • 2 Kislev 5786 • Toldot (Gen 25-28).
Wishing a refuah shleimah (complete convalescence) to Chaya bas Yehudis.

Do you know anyone who would NOT like to leave a legacy in the world?

Even people who put death into the same bucket as taxes — as something to avoid at all cost — realize that the piper shall be paid.

What I mean to say is — you can try to ignore it, but it's always there.

Here's the eternal problem: how much time do you have left?

If you go by statistics, you probably (hopefully) have at the very least many years left. So maybe there's no urgency to thinking about and planning your legacy right now? What do you think?

The Talmud thinks otherwise: Prepare for death one day before you die. - Avos 2:10

I put a hospitality tent above because I'm inspired by our patriarch Yaakov (Jacob) who is described as a yoshev ohalim - one who resides in tents. What kinds of tents? Some say, tents of wisdom, of learning. I.e., he learned in his father Yitzchak's tent and his grandfather Avraham's tent.

Others say, he was emulating his grandfather - Avraham - who is described as yoshev pesach ha-ohel - sitting in the doorway of the tent in order to offer hospitality to passers-by.

In other words, Yaakov has taken up and even expanded the family hospitality business.

Either way - or perhaps both ways - there is a legacy - of wisdom and hospitality. When we pursue these two missions, we are both giving our parents and grandparents a legacy and ensuring our own.

Question for your Shabbat table: Which is a more important legacy to create/leave - wisdom or hospitality?


Shabbat Shalom

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Who's Afraid of Tylenol?

New: BackyardBarmitzvah.com

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

November 9/10, 2025 • 24 Mar Cheshvan 5786 • Chayei Sarah (Gen 23-25).

Who's Afraid of Tylenol?

Remember last week's message, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Jew?

Strangely, the only people I know who are afraid of Jewish people are other Jewish people. Hmm....

But I do know at least on person who is afraid of Tylenol.

The following message reached my in-box yesterday:

Do I need to be concerned about RFKs Tylenol directive for pregnant women?

So what do the experts actually say?

• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: no.
• FDA: maybe.
• Harvard Health: maybe.
• Hopkins: probably not.
  
• Cleveland Clinic: no.
• Yale School of Public Health: maybe.

Part of the challenge is that: "It’s not fully known how acetaminophen works. It doesn’t reduce swelling or inflammation. Instead, it’s thought that it blocks the release of certain chemicals in your brain that signal the sensation of pain." (Healthline)

Hmm... if that's the case, maybe it would make sense to minimize it, pregnant or not?

But in such a rare spotlight-on-health moment, I would have liked the President to make a broader message.

He could have said - uncontroversially - that we know and believe that the nutritional environment created by the pregnant mother can impact the child - not only at birth, but for years to come.

Vitamin D (and see this), Omega-3s, and other nutrients matter a lot. So does avoiding ultra-processed foods.

Well, perhaps by my writing this and your reading it, someone will see it who can benefit from this knowledge.

But let's make this a Shabbat table talk, with a question for your table, as usual: Why do so many people seem to resist the idea that what (and how much) they eat will impact their mental health?


Shabbat Shalom

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Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Jew?

New: BackyardBarmitzvah.com

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

November 7/8, 2025 • 17 Mar Cheshvan 5786 • Vayeira (Gen 18-22).

Try asking this at your table:

Why do they hate us?

We know that they do hate us, right?

The anti- rallies began on October 8, 2023 - weeks before Israel began the "genocide".

(Yes, that was sarcasm.)

We know they hate us because they held "glory to our martyrs" rallies on October 7, 2024 and 2025 - attended by thousands around the globe - praising Hamas and Hezbollah.

We know they hate us because of their relentless acts of violence against us.

We know they hate us because they tell us.

But why do they hate us?

The most common reason given is that they hate us for our success. 

Our present success, our 3,000 years of success.

But success at what? Business? Can't be - the same people who hate us respect Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk whom they regard as successful businessmen. 

Success at innovation? Doesn't sound right - our people's innovations have saved lives and given them some of the greatest technologies. 

My friend Raphael Shore in the above book gives a fresh perspective on the entire subject.

With an eye on 3,500 years of Jewish history, he observes: 

From the Hellenist Greeks to the Crusaders and the Nazis, and from the Communists to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, authoritarian ideologies often seem to have two things in common: (1) An obsession with conquering the world and (2) Hatred of the Jews.

Shore notes that October 7 didn't merely reignite a spark of Jew-hatred; it also forced many Jews to re-think Jew-hatred:

Amazingly, the Kibbutz Nir Oz, which had a quarter of its population murdered or kidnapped on October 7, had planned to participate in a protest rally on that very day with the slogan that peace cannot be achieved because of Jewish settlements. They did not make it to the rally. The pogrom blasted a hole in their mistaken assumptions, and they were forced to come to terms with Jew-hatred. They had made the classic Jewish mistake of falling for the excuse instead of discerning the reason behind the hate.​

But Shore's book is not merely history, not only sociology. Other's have already done that. What he has done in this ground-breaker is to apply those lessons of history to the present and the future - what should we learn? How should the history and true nature of Jew-hatred impact the way I live my life?

He observes, "One thing we can learn from antisemites is that the Jewish People matter." In other words, we can harness Jew-hatred to sharpen our clarity on why being Jewish matters to us.

If you want to consider his vision of how to harness the current O tempora, O mores! moment, click on the image above and read the book.

It will change the way you think about anti-Semitism and about your place in history.

Shabbat Shalom

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This message can be read at Times of Israel.