Rabbi's Chayva's Chat

Thanksgiving is a beautiful holiday, but like most holidays, it has more range and variability than we give it credit for. There are times when Thanksgiving captures a blissful cornucopia of blessings in one’s life, times when that call to count one’s blessings feels hollow, or times when eating, being with friends and family, or emphasizing gratitude can feel complicated and fraught. 

Thankfully, our tradition holds complexity well; our prayers and rituals pull us towards gratitude and celebration without minimizing our suffering. In my mind, that religious honesty is one of the things that has kept the Jewish community faithful and connected for so long.

I would like to suggest a way to bring that Jewish lens into your Thanksgiving this year, and into any moment in which we eat and are thankful: the blessing after eating. If you’re inclined to roll your eyes and think, “Oh what a typical rabbi thing to say,” just hear me out. I’ve collected several options so that you can find the version that feels most true to you. I wish you all a filling and fulfilling Thanksgiving.

• Interfaith Worker Justice’s Thanksgiving Birkat HaMazon: https://ritualwell.org/ritual/birkat-hamazon-thanksgiving-adaptation/ 
• Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi’s Thanksgiving insertion for Birkat HaMazon: https://ritualwell.org/ritual/thanksgiving-supplement-birkat-hamazon/ 
• Universalist gratitude prayer (Marcia Falk): https://ritualwell.org/ritual/birkat-hamazon/ 
• “Let us bless life” humanist gratitude prayer (English & Spanish): https://ritualwell.org/ritual/humanistic-bendigamos/ 
• Succinct Talmudic & Sephardic gratitude meditation: https://ritualwell.org/ritual/grace-after-meals-meditation/ 
• Traditional full Birkat HaMazon with transliteration and translation: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/birkat_hamazon.pdf