Commentary: Four questions at Thanksgiving

Now that the Alabama chief justice has been kicked out of office for displaying the Ten Commandment in his courthouse, pardon this religion editor for anticipating some troubling secularist questions concerning Thanksgiving. Perhaps it should be abolished or have at least its name changed, lest it causes nonbelievers severe distress, as apparently did the Decalogue in Alabama.

With this in mind, let's ponder this national feast from four earnest perspectives.

1. Is Thanksgiving a religious holiday? Well now, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, that depends what "is" is. It's hard to miss the pious note in the 1789 proposal by Congressman Elias Boudinot of New Jersey urging President George Washington to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of the Almighty God ... "

By God, he mentioned GOD! Secularists will be comforted to learn that George Washington watered this term down a little in his assignation of Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, "to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that is ..."

Moreover, Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln declared it so in 1863. Since then, 140 years have gone by. Should you still have doubts as to its inoffensive nature consider this: What's religious about it when the Supreme Court in its sometimes inscrutable ways has ruled that even Christmas and Hanukkah are "secular" holidays? So come ye unfaithful and celebrate with the rest of us. Come and enjoy some of the 45 million turkeys that will die for your Thanksgiving pleasure this year.

2. Now to a matter of faith -- are turkeys ecumenical, are they kosher? Three years ago, an Italian priest questioned the inter-confessional nature of America's bird, calling it the quintessential Protestant animal. By all means, let him eat pasta on that day, which he doesn't celebrate anyway, being Italian. Clearly, though, he did not know that at the eminently Catholic courts of Spain and France turkey was served as far back as the early 16th century as a delicacy at state dinners after the Conquistadors had brought the bird back from Cortez' 1519 expedition to the New World.

There is no record that it did any more or less harm to Catholic stomachs of the Renaissance than did any other of the amazing victuals consumed in those days. It is true, though, that turkey also has a distinctly Protestant side to it because the English raised it domestically before the Pilgrims settled in the New World in 1620, bringing the by now tame turkey back to its native continent. I owe this important bit of information to Rabbi Ari Z. Zivatofsky, who wrote a learned treatise on whether the turkey was kosher, which some Jewish sages doubted, believing wrongly that the turkey hailed from either Turkey or India and hence was untested in the sense of the halacha.

I am pleased to report that Zivatovsky does not share their view, given that the turkey possesses the extra toe setting it apart from the uncleanly scavenging birds -- and given that it had been sufficiently long around European barnyards and received "near-universal endorsement." As Zivatofsky observed, to call this into question "is to impugn ... the millions of honorable Jews, who have eaten turkey for almost half a millennium. That is not the Jewish way."

So now we know that just as nonbelievers can safely celebrate Thanksgiving, Catholics and Jews may enjoy America's favorite bird. But...

3. Is it right for God's children to indulge, especially in times of woe? Of course there exists a humorless variety of piety, which would say, no. But if we consult Scripture, this seems an almost blasphemous approach, to wit the fact that the Hebrew verb "to eat" has probably the same root as the word, "covenant." Both Testaments are full of wonderful stories telling us that God loves a good party. Indeed, he is present when the faithful feast. "There is nothing better for a man that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil. This also ... is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25).

This brings us to the last question for this Thanksgiving:

3. As it is evident that Thanksgiving and the turkey are religiously and agnostically correct bits of Americana, how do we wash down the bird and its trimmings? Here my Bible-based prejudice flows unabashedly in favor of red wine, first planted by Noah after the Flood, according to the Book of Genesis (9:20-21). Wine was one of the seven blessings of the Promised Land; wine nourishes the mentally and physically exhausted; wine symbolizes prosperity, fruitfulness and spiritual gifts, and in, with and under the wine (and the bread), Christ is truly present in the Eucharist.

So who are we to eschew this divine beverage in favor of chemical concoctions? With this thought in mind, it's worth remembering that the fun-loving God of Israel told his people to have a good time: "Go, eat your bread with enjoyment and drink your wine with a merry heart" (Ecclesiastes 9:7) -- these words have become my favorite verse from the Bible for Thanksgiving.