The spiritual link between the Jewish Exodus story and America’s founding shaped the nation’s moral foundation, with gratitude serving as an antidote to modern division.
Thanksgiving connects America’s founding story with the Jewish story of a people who fled oppression, crossed the waters and gave thanks upon reaching a promised land. The link between the Pilgrims and the Israelites is not just metaphorical; it is literal. The early Puritans saw themselves as a new Israel. They read the Hebrew Bible as a guide. In sermons and diaries, Puritans described England as Egypt, the Atlantic as the Red Sea and America as Canaan.
That fusion of Jewish biblical narrative and American destiny shaped the moral foundation of this country. Benjamin Franklin even proposed that the Great Seal depict