Jtube: The Colbert Report: Hanukkah Attack

lots of fun

Didn't Care for ethnic humor until now

learned alot

Thanksgiving is thanking G-d for His protection, for the survival of the settlers after a very hard first winter in the new country, for the food, the harvest, for their physical survival.

Chanukah is thanking Him for the spiritual survival of our people. The danger was not death to our bodies but to our souls, through assimilation into Greek culture, which would have brought the end of our people, through intermarriage into a foreign culture.

One of the main symbols of Chanukah is oil. Oil doesn't assimilate. With which ever liquid you try mix it, it doesn't mix. It doesn't assimilate. It remains oil. It always rises to the top. On Chanukah we thank G-d for the survival of our faith.

I adore Stephen Colbert who doesn't take himself too seriously and neither should you. This is a joyous and humorous poke at a very unusual overlapping of holidays.

Thanksgiving is not about thanks to G-D. It has been completely secularized. It is about filling one's stomach. Chanukkah however, is not all about food. It's about the eternal values of Yiddishkeit.

Every Jewish Holiday is about giving thanks to Hashem, so what's the distinction? Chanukah is much more than a military battle. Chanukah is much more than the purification and rededication of the Holy Temple. Chanukah is about the defeat of Hellenism and the return of Jews to Observant Judaism. It is about the weak defeating the strong and the few defeating the many. It is the telling of events of over 2,000 years ago, the lessons of which are as current today as they were at the time of the Miracle of Chanukah.

Seriously, they really do have quite a lot in common. In the addition to our prayers on Chanukah, we say that we light the candles in order to give thanks to and praise HaShem. And what's Thanksgiving about. Giving thanks to HaShem.