Thanksgiving Prayers

Happy Thanksgiving -Here are the links to  three of my prior posts in which I posted Thanksgiving prayers.  I am posting tonight to give everyone a chance to print out before the holiday. In future years, I hope to post a few more historic Thanksgiving day services from earlier in the century.

Service for Thanksgiving Day 1940 – Rabbi Joseph Lookstein (2014)

Rabbi Joseph Lookstein’s Thanksgiving prayer was exceptionally universal and was picked up from my blog by several widely read online sites as a wonderful universal prayer- ideal for Thanksgiving reading. Here is a pdf of just the service.Thanksgiving Service at KJ 1940

Service for Thanksgiving Day 1945 – Rabbi David de Sola Pool (2009)

Service for Thanksgiving Day 1905- In Commemoration of 250 Years of Jews in the US(2016)

There was a special convocation in 1905 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the settlement of Jews in the United States. It was held the Sabbath before Thanksgiving and the prayer was written by Rev H. Pereira Mendes of the Spanish- Portuguese synagogue of NY.

Elsewhere on the Web

1789 Sermon Gershom Mendes Seixas

There is also the historic sermon from 1789 at the start of the US by Rev Gershom Mendes Seixas 40-page sermon for the first national Thanksgiving (1789) or an easier to use version here.

To jump forward to contemporary prayers. Here are two contemporary prayers. 

A Thanksgiving Prayer by Rabbi Naomi Levy  of Nashuva in Los Angeles via RitualWell

A Prayer for Thanksgiving by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi via Opensiddur.org

Here are two sermons 50 years apart.

America, Bless God — A Thanksgiving Day Sermon by Rabbi Norman Lamm

THANKSGIVING SHABBAT 2011 by Rabbi Edward Feinstein Valley Beth Shalom with a Thanksgiving prayer or as she calls it, a kavannah, by Ina J. Hughes