“I can see this becoming as much of a tradition as football, overeating and falling asleep at 6:30.”
So began this year’s Thanksgiving Day service at Congregation Emanu-El, held jointly with the First Unitarian Universalist Society. The words came from Mark Schlesinger, a member of the San Francisco Reform synagogue’s board of directors.
Though it may have been Schlesinger’s first time, the custom of holding this interfaith service is already in its second century. Alternating venues each year, it began around the same time as Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of a national day of Thanksgiving in 1863.
About 250 people turned out this year, with both congregations well represented.
“Let us take this opportunity to acknowledge a small miracle,” said Cantor Roslyn Barak, referring to the Israeli airliner carrying 261 people that had dodged missiles shortly after take-off in Mombasa, Kenya. As light poured through the sanctuary’s stained glass windows she sang a rendition of Meir Finkelstein’s “V’al Kulam.”
Rabbi Helen T. Cohn pushed beyond Thanksgiving’s traditional theme of thankfulness to stress giving back to the local community.
“When was the last time you spent $50 on a night to the theater?” she asked, as she began a collection for Habitat for Humanity. “Fifty dollars can buy a door for a house, which will last a lot longer than a night out.”
“I know most Jewish people here are not accustomed to reaching into their pockets during service,” she acknowledged, “but this is not Shabbat, this is Thanksgiving.”
The Rev. Margot Campbell-Gross focused her sermon on the growing gap between the rich and the poor.
“My father used to say, ‘The rich get richer and the poor get measles,” she said, to chuckles. “But nowadays it’s more likely to be HIV or AIDS.” She questioned the federal government’s expansion of military spending at a time when the rest of the economy is in “free fall.”
Her explanation for this disparity was politicians’ distance from the poor and underprivileged. The solution, she said, was “bearing witness.”
“If we can…learn to walk in one another’s shoes, then we will discover our common humanity.”
The joint service was founded on such notions, and the crossover between the two congregations runs deeper than might be expected. Both are liberal and support social action, and both have been in San Francisco for more than 150 years. In addition, Unitarian Universalism, which does not uphold the divinity of Jesus, welcomes members who have come out of many faith traditions; there is no conversion.
Eugene Sander, 86, comes from a Jewish background. He has also been a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Society for 40 years, since around the time the Unitarians and Universalists merged. Despite the merger, there was apparently a sort of snobbish rivalry back then between the similarly sounding sects.
“The Unitarians thought the Universalists were less intellectual,” he said, deadpan. Naturally, he identified as a Unitarian.
This was his 10thThanksgiving service, and he said its most important theme was “a message of cooperation and mutual understanding.”
Cohn and Campbell-Gross said the service’s beauty comes from going beyond events normally associated with Thanksgiving.
“The service gives a holiness to the day it might not otherwise have,” said Cohn.
“We’re trying to break down barriers of difference between religions, to come to appreciate each other’s ways,” added Campbell-Gross.
One event that particularly united the two congregations was the earthquake and resulting fires of 1906. The synagogue, then located at 450 Sutter St., was completely gutted, and The First Unitarian Church, as it was then known, extended the use of its sanctuary and facilities.
A letter of thanks was reprinted on the back of this year’s service program:
“We will never forget your kindness and fraternal consideration. In your benevolent attitude towards us we recognize the spirit of fellowship in God, our common Father; and we, too, will treasure this spirit and acquaint our descendents with the great fact that — in the midst of the ruins of a great City — Jew and Christian, like men and brethren, worshipped God beneath the same roof.”
The letter was dated Sept. 1, 1907, and signed by Emanu-el Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger and President H. Wangenheim. The same sentiments apply today.