Thanksgiving is a perfect opportunity to follow Abraham’s example in the Torah Portion Va-Yera and perform the mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim, welcoming guests. We bustle about, as Abraham did, preparing a feast and making our visitors feel comfortable. We embrace Thanksgiving as a treasured tradition; a Norman Rockwell scene of family and friends thankfully enjoying a festive, leisurely meal; lingering over the pumpkin, chocolate, apple, and pecan pies; schmoozing a little; snoozing a little. A Shehecheyanu moment. Abraham would be pleased.
BUT that was before Black Friday and the extreme sport of shopping burst on the scene! Now, Thanksgiving is much less Norman R. and far more BestBuyMacy*sToysRUsJCPenney. Now Thanksgiving is a minor prelude to the orgy of commercial greed which subtly creeps in before the first Halloween pumpkin has ripened and stridently builds to the frenzy of consumption that immediately follows Thanksgiving. “Immediate” it is! Black Friday once began around 7am on, you guessed it, Friday! This year, with the economy still slumping along, in a desperate (some might say demonic) attempt to maximize consumer spending for the Christmas/Hanukkah season, stores are opening at 9pm on Thanksgiving night. That means being at the mall by 7pm at the latest, turkey leg in hand, to line up in the chill darkness in order to be one of the first 10,000 crazed customers to rush madly into the stores with the cheapest, most covetted “doorbusters!”
Wait, there’s more! Being there isn’t enough. Only those who have spooned out their stuffing while clipping coupons from the 900 newspaper flyers and downloading store maps and price comparison apps will succeed in carting out those three-hour-only, quantities limited super-bargains that will become the stuff of family legends for at least the next year. (“Remember how Dad used Google Earth to grab the last $998 65” LCD TV, which he couldn’t fit in the car, while snagging the Disney Princess Favorite Memories Magic Castle at 60% off!!”)
By sunrise, Friday, Thanksgiving is just a faint memory and a fridge full of foil-wrapped leftovers, while the Holiday shopping season, in all its stomach-churning glory races on.
Go! GO! GO! There are only 21 days ‘til Hanukkah!
Wait! Stop! Take a breath! What have we learned? (Nu, you thought in a Jewish educator’s blog there wouldn’t be a lesson?) Let’s ask, “What would Abraham do?” Would he rush out on the three angelic visitors because there was a midnite special at Camels-R-Us? Would the prospect of cheap sheep (2am to 5am only) cause him to put commerce before the Covenant? Unless you’re the CEO of Macy*s or Amazon, shopping is not a mitzvah. Strike a balance. Savor the moment. Give Thanks. And no matter how persuasive the media barrage, “Consume!” is never a Commandment!
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