Happy Thanksgiving!
And Happy Khanukah!
Thanksgiving is a civil ‘holiday’, that was rooted in the celebration of religious freedom. It is a great way to remember that many of our earliest founders were leaving behind corrupted religions and religious persecution to come to America to try to create a society that better reflected the faith of a good society.
John Winthrop, one of the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay colony, said on the voyage over that they would be a “City on a Hill”, citing the words of Yeshua when He was teaching the Torah and what we who follow His Word are to be.
William Bradford, another Puritan founder, was studying Hebrew, and the Name of יהוה is on his gravestone, from the verse, “יהוה is the help of my life.” They were trying to restore true worship, and be “Visible Saints”, reflecting by their actions and lifestyle the faith they all confessed.
Within 20 years, they founded Harvard, to teach Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so that they would all know the scriptures.
The idea of giving thanks at this season, then, is rooted in the idea of faith helping to create freedom.
That is the very idea of Khanukah as well!
A greek ruler of the southern quarter of Alexander the Great’s divided empire had attacked Israel. He desecrated the Temple of God by offering a pig and erecting a statue of Zeus, and declaring himself their god. He forbade all things that encouraged the worship of יהוה : circumcising newborn boys, speaking Hebrew, teaching the Torah, and observing the feasts of God, most notably the weekly feast of Sabbath on the seventh day.
After 3 and 1/2 years of that oppression, Judah Maccabee and his sons gathered a rag-tag group of farmers and miraculously overthrew the greeks. They found enough oil to burn the Menorah for the eight days of a “Sukkot out of season”. The feast of DEDICATION was usually done in the very early fall, during the season of Sukkot. The first Temple and the second Temple were both dedicated at Sukkot. The Maccabees did not want to wait for NINE MONTHS to dedicate, re-open, and celebrate their victory of restoring the House of God, so they held the season of Sukkot out of season and “Dedicated” the House of God, re-instating religious freedom. Thus, they created the season of Khanukah, which Yeshua observed [John 10:22].
Psalm 30 is a song about DEDICATING THE HOUSE. It beings with:
“Mizmor: Shir Khanukat HaBayit l’David :: מִזְמוֹר: שִׁיר חֲנֻכַּת הַבַּיִת לְדָוִד
“A melody: Song of Dedication of the House by David”
Yet, it is really about SALVATION! And, as King David, the archetype of Messiah Yeshua, is singing about being rescued, he sings, הוֹדוּ לְזֵכֶר קָדְשׁוֹ, “Hodu l’zekher kodshoh”, which is, “Give thanks to his Holy Name” [where name in this verse is actually ‘spoken memorial/memory’. see also Exodus 3:15.]
So, Dedicating the House is a time of THANKSGIVING. So, Thanksgiving can be a time of dedicating the house!
This can be on a personal level, and on a spiritual level, for every family that trusts in Messiah.
Ya’akov [James, Yeshua’s brother] stood up in Jerusalem and said that we, the believing community in The Son of God, are rebuilding the fallen SUKKA of David. [Acts 15:16] So, temporarily, we are rebuilding a place of worship for God’s people.
But, Yeshua is using us to build a PERMANENT house!
Sha’ul [Paul] and Kefa [Peter] both tell us that WE are the House of God, and that each of us are living stones in that house! This is why we should follow the example of His Torah as Yeshua modeled it for us. [1 Cor 11:1-2]
So, this season of Thanksgiving and Khanukah are converging this year, as they sometimes do, and I just wanted to share the overlapping theme. By the way, “hodu” in Hebrew also means “turkey!” It was cool that last night we lit our Khanukah Menorah to start this day [Biblical days begin at night], and to celebrate Yeshua’s conception, and nine months from now, we will celebrate His Birth at Sukkot. That is not a coincidence, and is certainly a reason to dedicate ourselves and give thanks!
Happy Hodu and Khanukah!