First Fruits: A Thanksgiving Study
Biblical Excavations, a program that creates a Christian Bible curriculum designed to cultivate a deep and profound love for God in your homeschooled student, has released a Thanksgiving study based on Deuteronomy 26, available for free download. The study includes word studies, mini-research projects, and probing questions that reveal parallels between the feasts of Passover and Thanksgiving. It tells the story of the founders, their journey, the obstacles they had to overcome, and the vision that drove them. It teaches that all these were rooted in the Hebrew Biblical narratives of Exodus and Deuteronomy
Additionally, the study of harvest times aligns the common calendar with the Biblical feasts and festivals within the Hebrew calendar. Although the focus is on the Thanksgiving holiday, the study content and focus are applicable year-round.
The website also offers “Thanksgiving Conversation Cards” for free download that will enliven your holiday table, guiding conversation towards subjects that spiritually raise the gathering.
The organization also offers a YouTube Worship Song that will enhance the holiday atmosphere.
David Nekrutman, a renowned Jewish Scholar and a fervent advocate for Jewish-Christian relations for over two decades heads the organization. He explained the reason for the Thanksgiving program.
“Thanksgiving is at the heart of the American experience and rooted in the Hebrew Biblical narratives of Exodus and Deuteronomy,” Nekrutman told Israel365 News. “It is a religious holiday, where all are invited to the table. At the same time, Thanksgiving provides an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be an American in a biblical sense – the joyous responsibility of building a covenantal society on the foundations of equality, justice, and liberty. The only way to ensure Thanksgiving never loses its religious significance is that each family celebrating it sees it through the prism of biblical memory – a past episode, lived in the present moment for the future of His kingdom. Biblical Excavations First Fruits: A Thanksgiving Study takes a Hebraic deep dive into the Farmer’s Declaration in Deuteronomy 26:1-11 to unpack the biblical understanding of memory and identity to enhance one’s Thanksgiving celebration.”
“The approach of Biblical Excavations is to help people understand the importance of using critical thinking skills to study the Bible and how it pertains to everyday life. The closest thing you have in the Bible to Thanksgiving is the first fruits, known in Hebrew as bikurim. When the farmer brings his bikkurim to the Temple, he makes a special declaration. You would think that a farmer who traveled during difficult times to Jerusalem to bring these first fruits would say, ‘Thank you, God, that I got here and it wasn’t raining.’
“But he doesn’t do that. For some reason, the farmer goes through a memory of the past that happened a long time ago, but not even to him. It happened to his ancestors. It’s the story of his people who went through slavery and were brought out of Egypt. The farmer himself didn’t go through it, but he’s required to save this memory.”
“It is important to know that there is no biblical Hebrew word for history. The closest word that we have is memory, and zachor represents that word. So the farmer is putting himself into the story of his people. This becomes the essence of what Thanksgiving should be. It’s not about department stores, or, you know, getting things cheap during Black Friday.”
“Thanksgiving, like bikkurim, is about seeing ourselves in the story of the Pilgrims having their meal with the Native Americans. It’s also the story of a memory of what we wish to accomplish as an American citizen.”
“There is no other country I know of, besides Israel, that is made up of a covenantal society. And because it’s made up of a covenantal society, if you truly want to understand what it means to be American, you must understand its memories.”
The Thanksgiving study can be downloaded at the website. It will be delivered directly to your email inbox (NOTE: It may be identified as spam. Open the spam folder to find it there.)
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