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Happy Thanksgiving!

Last Tuesday evening I had the privilege of attending an interfaith Thanksgiving dinner at the Dialogue Institute Austin, on Gattis School Road in Round Rock, whose mission is ” To promote mutual understanding, respect and cooperation among people of diverse faiths and cultures by creating opportunities for direct communication and meaningful shared experiences.”

The entire goal of the evening was to sit across the table from somebody new and get to know them through our shared experience of delicious food (all prepared by volunteers). I happened to be at a table of all women. Myself, a Christian on my left, and Turkish Muslims in the remaining seats. Of the women we were fortunate to have Suzanne, who made the most succulent turkey and tasty rice, with us. A conversation around cooking, who likes to and who doesn’t, how much butter is necessary to make food delicious, who prefers to be the taster/eater, ensued.

As a first-time attendee I was nervous as to what the evening would be like. As a Jew in this time having felt uncomfortable in a variety of settings throughout the past year I wondered if I would be welcome. I am very pleased to say that from the moment I walked in through the end of the program I was made to feel at home.

As we finished eating and after the raffle was drawn the Executive Director visited each table with a box containing strips of paper with Thanksgiving themed questions on them. A person at each table was nominated to pull a paper and then was encouraged to answer the question. When he made his way to our table my new friends unanimously elected me to pull the question:

“How will you handle your family when challenging topics are brought up at the Thanksgiving dinner table?”

“That’s easy,” I said, “I won’t be at a table with my family! My family is in Canada, and they celebrated thanksgiving on the first Sunday in October without me.” Everyone laughed and, yes, that was a simple way to answer the question. I went on further to say, “while I won’t be at a table with my relatives, I will be at a table with the relatives of friends who have become family so, of course, challenging topics might come up and what will we do? I was listening to a podcast on my way here “What Now? With Trevor Noah: Tight Values, Loose Ideas with Malcolm Gladwell” and one of the participants said (I am paraphrasing here) “we are more than our politics/who we voted for.” We have the opportunity to connect with one another like we have here tonight, over cooking, being a mum, being a daughter, being a spouse, loving music, movies, theater, reading – whatever. Let’s bring this sacred work, of seeing the person across from us as the human they are, to our Thanksgiving tables.”

So, this is my prayer for all of us not just at our Thanksgiving tables but in the many ways we exist in the world. As the podcast is entitled, hold onto your values and be loose with your ideas as you head into conversations with your family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. We have more in common than we think we do, and we have so much to learn from each other.

Shabbat Shalom