Posted
on November 28, 2013
Many
people are saying that this has never happened before. And that it
won't happen again until the year 79,811!
Which
is more than 77 THOUSAND years from now.
But....that's
not quite true.
What
are we talking about? This year a very rare event is going to happen:
Hanukkah will start on Thanksgiving!
Gobble tov! Get
out your menurkey! Light the candles on the tur-norah! Spin the
drumstick dreidel and collect the giblet gelt!
Now,
why, oh why am I disagreeing with the people saying that this has
never happened before and won't happen again for tens of thousands of
years?
Breaking
it down:
Although
the Pilgrims and their friendly Native American neighbors ate the
first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621, and President George
Washington declared a national day of Thanksgiving on the last
Thursday of November in 1789, Thanksgiving didn't become a regular,
predictable national holiday until 1863, when Lincoln declared the
last Thursday of November to be henceforth a national holiday. (He
was of course honoring the date that Washington had established as a
one-time thing 74 years earlier.)
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt later changed Thanksgiving from the last
Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday in November; still, we
will start counting from the 1863 Thanksgiving. And here is how
Thanksgiving stacks up with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah:
(Wait!
First I'd better mention that Hanukkah is always celebrated on the
25th day of the month of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar.
Also, Jewish holidays always start at sundown of the evening before.
So, keeping those things in mind...)
Thanksgiving
11/29/1888 – first day of Hanukkah (but it started the evening
before, so light two candles on the menorah)
Thanksgiving
11/30/1899 – fifth day of Hanukkah (light 6 candles)
Thanksgiving
11/28/1899 – Hanukkah eve (light 1 candle)
Thanksgiving
11/28/2013 – first day of Hanukkah (light 2 candles)
And,
assuming that Thanksgiving continues to be the fourth Thursday, and
that the Gregorian calendar remains in use without alteration, AND
assuming that Hanukkah remains Kislev 25 on the unaltered Hebrew
calendar:
Thanksgiving
11/27/2070 – Hanukkah eve (light 1 candle)
Thanksgiving 11/28/2165 –
Hanukkah eve (light 1 candle)
Where
did the 79,811 date come in? A Jewish scholar computed that date as
the next time that the FIRST day of Hanukkah (light two candles)
would happen on the fourth Thursday of November. I feel just a little
bit skeptical that it will take that long for the calendars to synch
up again...but I can see that this is a different question than “When
will any part of the Hanukkah celebration (from sundown of the 24th
of Kislev to sundown on the last day of Hanukkah) coincide with
Thanksgiving?”
For
more on Thanksgiving, check out these earlier posts:
Also
on this date:
Plan
Ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
This year, Hanukkah doesn't start until the evening of Dec. 22...
...but tonight is a latke festival in Brooklyn, New York. The 11th Annual Latke Festival is being held at the Brooklyn Museum, and it will feature "the best and most creative" potato pancakes, a panel of celebrity judges, a DJ, and of course loads of good food and drink!
