Thanksgiving has become a secular religious festival. Last night, we went round the table saying what we were thankful for. Few of the thanks were explicitly religious. Though one nephew said he was thankful that his father is a Christian. Everyone laughed. He is so young that no one was quite sure what to make of the statement. Someone asked him to explain and he said that a lot of people are Jewish but his father is a Christian. My interpretation is that he's at an age in his identity formation when he hears about tribal differences and is not yet aware of what they mean, but he wants to keep both tribes pleased.
I often think I have a similar role. Today with my gentile in-laws, who gathered across town last night for their thanksgiving, we went for a walk in the fields. There was a lot of talk about Obama's team (approval), about the tremendous chores he faces, and about the financial meltdown. My wife's aunt, who is very smart, said it was important for someone to go to jail for what happened. Maybe Greenspan. When he said that no one had ever seen anything like this before, she said, His job is not to be a historian, it's to manage these matters. Or maybe Barney Frank should go to jail, she said. He was the one who pushed for changes to the federal housing law so that banks would take on subprime mortgages to put poor people in houses. Now he's in charge of fixing the mess he made. Or Henry Paulson, for claiming to know what was going on as he demanded all our money. I don't think it occurred to my aunt-in-law that she had mentioned two Jews. If my own family heard the list, though, they would have been sensitive to this issue. That's where I am now, at my family's house. It's an academic Jewish house. A ton of books, a lot of food, a lot of activity in the kitchen. NPR going 24/7. No long walks in the fields.
The space between these two cultures used to be dangerous. People got shunned for entering it. Now it's a conventional space. Witness, my nephew. Hardly the only religious mutt. I suppose we need new religious rituals to sanctify it. Last night when it was my wife's turn to offer thanks, she was thankful for the fortunate times we live in that we can gather and have a sumptuous feast–because who knows about next year. Our leadership is going to need esprit de corps to weather this storm…
I'm thankful for all the readers of this blog, for my friends who contribute to it, for Richard Witty for hanging in there as an antagonist, and for my many mentors.
