Ma Nishtana: What's the difference between Thanksgiving, Hanuka, and Shabbat?

On this bizarre Thanksgivukkah-Shabbat that we just had, I found myself reflecting on our various holiday get-togethers, and how my own traditions have evolved.

One of my strongest Thanksgiving memories is from when I was in college. The air was a New York crispy, I had just finished a grueling mid-term season, and my warm bed at home never felt so inviting. That Thanksgiving, I felt a sense of real escape and respite. I desperately needed the down time, a long weekend with warm food hit the spot, and, well, there was one more thing I was grateful for. Thanksgiving was like a Shabbat without any of the craziness.

You know what I’m talking about. The story of Shabbat is not really about Shabbat. It’s about Friday. Or for some people, it’s a whole week of preparation. It’s about the frenetic energies that go into making a day that may or may not be “relaxing”.

I recently read an Israeli cookbook about raw food that requires days of planning for each ingredient — sprouting, soaking, freezing, dehydrating. It is a complete kitchen take-over in stages and stations. The author, an enthusiastic religious mother of eight, wrote, “Isn’t it just wonderful to revolve your whole week around the Shabbat meal?”

I was like, Um, no.

I lived that way for a little while — like, 20 years. I did think about Shabbat meals way in advance, planning both the guests and the menus, and figuring out a schedule for when to prepare what so that I would still have time for my regular Friday writing. I always overbought and overcooked, and while we loved getting together with friends, there were many other aspects of that lifestyle that wore me down.

The overabundance of food. The pressure to get it exactly right — not too much, not too little. The expected openness of our house to all people, even those who turned out to be obnoxious, sexist, racist, or just generally unpleasant. The hours of cleaning, washing, and trying to impress. The feeling of being judged — by myself or by others. The need to anticipate the appetites of lots of different people for a 25 hour period in which shopping and cooking was, ironically, not done. The pressure to not run out of anything, because having a hungry person in your house is like, the ultimate sign of failure. The expectation that I was able to be an endless giver, putting myself and my own needs last, eager and happy to serve the collective.

And of course the exhaustion. The physical, emotional exhaustion. At a time when what I really needed was some down-time.

And then the post-meal judgment and guilt and revisiting and anguishing. Did I make too much? Did I make too little? Did everyone have a good time? What am I going to do with the leftovers? Do I have to eat this all myself now?

At a certain point, I stopped doing that. Well, mostly.

It was around the time that Trump was elected, and I found myself unwittingly hosting some Trump supporting relatives from Montana who openly mocked my “Hillary” pin, who loved guns and fetuses more than actual live human beings, and talked about the climate hoax as if the earth entering another Ice Age where we all die is really No Big Deal and possibly God’s Will. I was, at the time, in the midst of a trauma recovery from the new political reality — the same shock-trauma that some 60 million Americans were also struggling with — and I had inadvertently invited tormenters into my home, where I shopped and cooked for them, and then spent a few hours serving them. I had given them control over the future of democracy, and as well as women’s body autonomy. Wasn’t that enough? I had to give them all my time, energy, and best desserts? That was just too much for me.