Giving thanks

Even though this paper is meant to arrive at readers’ homes the day after Thanksgiving (yes, the post office willing, which, we know, it often isn’t), the glow of the holiday can last throughout the weekend.

Despite the sheer weirdness of the times that we are living through now, there is so very much for which we are grateful.

To begin with, there is physical beauty.

Fall came late this year, but finally it did. The leaves turned red and copper, the light turned burnished gold, and there were times when walking in it left me slack-jawed at the combination of the colors and the breeze-blown shadows. When you walk and look, you see splendor all around you. (Be careful not to walk into things when you do that, though.)

As sideways as things seem to be going now, it is always useful to compare our time and place to others. Consider the Soviet Union, where nothing ever seems to have been in color — in this week’s cover story, former Soviet Jew Izabella Tabarovsky talks about the difference between the black-and-white gloom of the FSU and the glorious full color that she saw in Italy as she waited to get to the United States. She talks about ordinary grocery stores as stunning museums of food. It wasn’t even necessary to eat anything. The ordinary fruits and vegetables and loaves of bread were a visual feast.

Or consider Ukraine, where people who live in cities like ours, in apartment buildings like those in our cities, have no electricity most of the day, which means that nothing works. Not the heat, not the light, not the refrigerator, not the elevator. And to live there now is to know that it’s not impossible that one of Vladimir Putin’s soldiers might decide that your building would be a great place to bomb.

I am grateful not to have to live like that.

Our country is going through a hard, divisive time right now, and as we know, antisemitism is resurfacing, along with overt racism and misogyny. But we have a deep well of goodness to draw from as we fight the darkness.

There is also much joy in our world. Thanksgiving weekend is a great time to hold our families and friends close. We are heading into winter, but the amazing thing about the season is that the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, is December 21. That’s less than a month away. After that, more and more daylight returns.

Let’s all look toward the return of the light as we feel gratitude for what we have, and give what we can to others who have less. It’s the American way.

—JP

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