This opening prayer for Thanksgiving Day, “The Significance of the Day,” was first published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 304 — as preface to a number of readings selected by Mordecai Kaplan, Eugene Kohn, and J. Paul Williams for the day. It is unclear from this publication whether the prayer was written by Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, or Eugene Kohn separately or together in collaboration.

I have tagged this prayer as problematic due to the statement, “We thank you for the vigor of body and mind that enables us to exploit the fertility of our country’s fields and forests and the buried treasures of its mineral wealth” — a naïve statement that elides the destruction of such exploitation to the land and its complex interconnected ecologies for all the human and non-human creatures that inhabit it. (For a prayer from the same period with a similar orientation to material resource extraction, find Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes’s, Prayer for American Enterprise and Prayer in Spring.) I have edited this prayer to replace archaisms (thee, thou, etc.). — Aharon Varady

Source(s)

“Opening Prayer on the Significance of Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Eugene Kohn

Eugene Kohn (January 26, 1887 - April 1, 1977) was an American Reconstructionist rabbi, writer and editor. Born in Newark, New Jersey he attended the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in 1912 received ordination. It was here that he met Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan who taught him homiletics. Between 1912 and 1939 he served as a congregational rabbi in Conservative synagogues in the U.S. states of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin and Ohio. He also served as the president of the Rabbinical Assembly 1936-1937. He played a central role in the Reconstructionist movement. He edited its journal The Reconstructionist and, alongside Kaplan and Ira Eisenstein, edited The New Haggadah (1941), The Sabbath Prayer Book (1945) and The Reconstructionist Prayer Book (1948). Alongside Jack Cohen, Eisenstein and Milton Steinberg he was one of Kaplan's main disciples.

John Paul Williams

Dr. John Paul Williams (1900-1973) was chairman of the department of religion at Mount Holyoke College. In 1946, he served as president of the National Association of Biblical Instructors (now known as the American Academy of Religion). He wrote What Americans Believe and How They Worship (1952, revised 1962) containing the chapter "Judaism -- the Mother Institution." Together with Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn he co-authored the anthology of civic prayers, Faith in America (1951).

Mordecai Kaplan

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

Works of related interest:

 

Opening Prayer on the Significance of New Year’s Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Arbor Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Labor Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Flag Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Lincoln’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Washington’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Closing Prayer for Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

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