Today was my favorite Shabbat of the year. Because it is the longest. Because it is the darkest. Because on this day we can really rest. We don’t have anything else we have to do and we can enjoy its beauty. Just because we can. Havdalah which separates Shabbat from the rest of the week, holiness from profane, from light and darkness will be especially sweet against the dark night sky. The moon is small, but growing, the days start becoming longer, but today is the shortest day of the year. The stars, planets and even the meteors have been lighting the night sky, providing an antidote from our neighbors’ beautiful, warm and welcoming Christmas lights. G-d’s own natural display of light, providing a wow factor, awe and wonder. But the Havdalah prayer “separates”, one more thing, Jews from the rest of the world. Sometimes these words makes me uncomfortable.
We are not alone in marking this time of the year. Whether it is the winter soltise or Chanukah or Dewali or Kwanza, there is something for everyone one. You might not be aware of this but….Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat. Hopefully not this rabbi but one more cookie could do it. Perhaps this is not a usual topic by a Jewish rabbi. Perhaps you don’t think it is appropriate for a synagogue to even discuss. Perhaps you don’t even care. Perhaps you are wondering how does this tie in with the parsha?
Today’s parsha is important. Maybe they all are. Joseph welcomes his brothers back to Egypt with his father Jacob who he hasn’t seen in a number of years, since he had been thrown in the pit and sold into slavery. Since he had imprisoned on false charges. Since he had risen to power, viceroy of Egypt. He must find some way to reconcile with his brothers. He goes out to greet them, the very people that tried to kill him. Jacob sends Judah ahead, the very brother who threw Joseph in the pit. How difficult would that be to do? How do we do this in our own lives? Should we? Are there times when we just can’t? People in the congregation answered that we should try to reconcile, we should look for forgiveness and we should keep trying. More on that topic some other time.
More than that, he welcomes his brothers and father from the land of Cana’an where there is no food, where Egypt, under Joseph’s vision and leadership had stockpiled food. He is a minority in this culture. His family is a minority. How do they make this work?
It seems to me they make this work by practicing the Jewish mystical tradition, not yet defined of tzimtzum. It is said when G-d began to create the world, G-d had to take a breath in order to make space for the world to exist. Like G-d, they take a breath in, they make space for what is going on around them. They say that they are going to be servants, farmers. They are non-judgmental and non-threatening.
In the text however, if you look closely on page 284 of Etz Hayyim, there is a machlochet, a disagreement between Joseph and his brothers. Joseph tells them that if Pharaoh asks they are to say they are breeders of livestock. When Pharaoh really does ask, they answer “We, your servants, are shepherds.” Why the difference?
Etz Hayyim has an answer that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Will someone read it? Essentially it says that Joseph because he lives in the Diaspora is not comfortable with his status as a Jew and tries to hide it. On the other hand the brothers who live in the land of Israel are comfortable with who they are. Why? As one woman said, “I think Joseph has issues.”
I am not sure that I am comfortable with its reading that Joseph, even though he was the viceroy was uncomfortable in the dominant culture so he lied. A few weeks ago we had a similar conversation. In the middle of the Gaza crisis, I asked if you feel that people are always out to get the Jews. About half the room that morning felt yes. In another two weeks we will read the line, “A pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph” and the Israelites will really become slaves, not just servants. In periods of time we have seen this ebb and flow, the destruction of the Temples, followed by a period of tremendous growth of Judaism, the Golden Age of Spain, followed by the Inquisition, the flourishing and assimilation of Jews in Germany, followed by the Holocaust. So maybe you are right. I can understand where Joseph’s fear comes from. However Joseph’s brothers who are feeling more comfortable don’t lie. They don’t hide. They tell it like it is.
According to Etz Hayyim’s summary of halacha, we are allowed to adjust our behavior “for the sake of the ways of peace, mipnei darchei shalom.”
Every year at this time I watch the anxiety of my students and their families grow as they deal with “The December Dilemma.” How do you handle this in your own families? What is it that causes your anxiety to rise?
I was pleased that in the group that gathered this morning, people did not seem to express the usual fears I hear. Instead I heard about sharing the holidays with neighbors, singing carols in school without feeling ashamed, enjoying the lights and music, celebrating with friends and family. Seemed everyone had a positive story to tell. No one saw a conflict. So why the anxiety?
However, many students say they feel left out. Their friends talk about what Santa will bring them. Teachers in public school have students add up the presents in Santa’s sack or write compare and contrast essays about Christmas today and Christmas in a historical time and place. This may make them feel uncomfortable. Some students might even lie so that they better fit in. I read just such a story last night, The Christmas Menorahs about Billings, MT. Isaac Schnitzman admitted to his parents that he didn’t tell his friends that his presents were Chanukah presents, he said they were Christmas presents. As it turned out, he had reason to fear. The next year a rock was thrown through his window because it had a menorah in it. The town came together to fight hate and like the Danes wore yellow Jewish stars during World War II to show their solidarity with Jews, every house in Billings, MT put a menorah in the window.
On the other hand, some Jewish students say they are made to feel guilty or uncomfortable if they celebrate Christmas with their extended families, some of whom may not be Jewish. With an intermarriage rate of over 50%, even in this congregation at least among the school population, many of us have non-Jews in our extended families. Making children feel guilty seems to be an unfair burden to put on our youth and may actually alienate them from the very tradition we hope they will embrace.
Jews are not alone being frustrated by Christmas. Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims living in this dominant Christian culture find it frustrating too the amount of attention spent on Christmas. In the book the Faith Club written by three suburban New York moms after 911, there is a poignant story where the Muslim child asks his mother if Santa comes to Muslim houses. Sound familiar? A class of mine last year talked about how this has become a secular American holiday. And how they celebrate Christmas in Japan. Anyone know? By going out for Kentucky Fried Chicken—how American can you get?
Many serious Christians are frustrated by Christmas too. It has grown too big, too commercial, too secular. It starts too early now—even before Halloween. Christmas sales start before Thanksgiving and some retailers were even open this year on Thanksgiving itself.
Chanukah, which we just finished celebrating, is about fighting assimilation. The Maccabees did not want to become like the Assyrians who were in power. They wanted to worship God their own way in the Holy Temple. Oh the ironies. This year I saw a Manischevitz gingerbread house in Chanukah blue with a menorah in the window. Even more puzzling was the Chabad event on the north shore where children could visit with Judah Maccabee? Really? Will this help our kids feel less left out?
We don’t need to be like our neighbors, but there is no reason that we cannot enjoy Christmas with them and still remain strongly Jewish. The question is not about trees but how we relate to the dominant culture, exactly what Joseph, his father Jacob and his brothers are wrestling with this week. Helping our friends and neighbors or even our families celebrate their holidays does not diminish the rootedness of ours. Ideally, we should be able relate to Christmas without fear.
I am told that this anxiety we Jews feel, has risen since the Holocaust. Many Jews, my husband’s and my family included, happily celebrated Christmas for generations, not because we were Christian but because it was fun. My ancestors in the 1840s carried beautiful hand-blown ornaments with them from Germany—you know where they invented the Christmas tree. They were already secular Jews there and participating in that dominant culture. For my husband’s mother, her rationale of why we celebrated Christmas was that Christmas was a holiday of peace and Chanukah a holiday of war. For my mother it made more sense to commercialize the goyim’s holiday. For some immigrants it was a sign that they had made it in America. We were not alone, apparently even Theodore Herzl had a tree. In Russia, Stalin decreed that trees were not religious and every family had one for New Year’s—even Jews. But after the Holocaust, attitudes, by necessity, changed. After all, some of the anti-semitism that lead to the Holocaust, as painful as it can be for Christians to acknowledge, was trumpeted by the Church at Christian religious holidays. Sitting through a traditional Lessons and Carols service, with its beautiful music and candlelight, can be painful for Jews, unless the rector has thought through each of the Christian scriptural readings and how they position Jews in them.
When I have addressed the December Dilemma directly with students, surprisingly mostly they are OK. It is the parents who worry. Some students do feel left out. Most are glad that we give them a safe space to discuss these complicated feelings. And there are a range of feelings. Some are sad that Santa won’t come to their house. Some like the lights—and wonder why if Chanukah is the Festival of Lights their house is dark. One kid was confused about why the Indians in his class, who are not Christian, want to celebrate Christmas. Some said they are not missing anything. After all, they observe the American Jewish custom of going to the movies and out for Chinese food, and everyone laughed. Some acknowledge celebrating Christmas with extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or even the non-Jewish parent. All agreed that the week off of school is welcome, even if it really is Christmas break.
My message to you, is that I have your back, and while it is late this year, if you or your children feel uncomfortable you should feel free to call me or have the teachers call me. Christmas does not need to come with this amount of angst. There is much that is beautiful at this season—the commercialism not withstanding—the music, the lights, the spirit of generosity that are unparalleled the rest of the year.
We can enjoy it too! There are ways to participate without making it our holiday. Go help a neighbor decorate their tree. Adopt a family that might not have a merry Christmas. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a shelter, so others can enjoy the holiday with their family. Sing carols at a nursing home. Actually say “Merry Christmas” instead of Happy Holidays to your friends. Even go with them to midnight mass, if they offer—it will not make you “less Jewish”. One rabbi told me that he didn’t know what the problem was, he always celebrated Christmas with his neighbors, and there was always something for him and his siblings under their tree, and, then, they would come to his house to celebrate Chanukah.
While I don’t have a tree in my house (except for a tabletop rosemary tree which we use for cooking Shabbat chicken and smelling divine and in memory of my mother), my family gathers every year for Christmas in northern Michigan. We don’t pretend it is something else. Everyone there knows I am a rabbi, and the local Santa (this is northern Michigan and the real North Pole) has me bless his sleigh. It doesn’t make me—or my family– any less Jewish.
Perhaps before we can do this we need to secure in our Judaism. Maybe that is what Joseph was lacking having been thrown in a pit, sold into slavery, and imprisoned. Even though he had risen to viceroy, he was not comfortable with who he was. But the halacha as we just learned is to make peace. Something my mother-in-law would have approved of. Something this world clearly so desperately needs.
There are so many ways to celebrate our Judaism year round, that Christmas should not be threatening to our identity. We hear the shofar, eat apples and honey, build a sukkah, dance with the Torah, plant trees and parsley, make noise with graggers, taste the bitter with the sweet at Pesach, bake challah for Shabbat. We can pray to God in shul, in community, or on our own. We can be inspired by a quiet winter walk in the new snow with the moonlight, by a warm ocean beach, on top of a mountain, or by words of Torah. We can pass down these rituals with joy, and we can teach our children how to comfort, how to care, and how to mourn. Judaism is a very rich tradition with plenty to give us meaning, fulfillment and to make us proud. We can be like Joseph, uniquely Jewish in a non-Jewish world.
So however you celebrate the winter solstice—may it be a time of family and friends, warmth and generosity, peace and light, good food (Chinese or otherwise), a beautiful star, and a snowflake or two. Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night. Shabbat Shalom.