By Rabbi Ben Kamin
ENCINITAS, California — Even if we don’t formally celebrate Christmas, we in the Jewish community honor and venerate its true meaning and implication.
Though this December holiday season has been too often co-opted by commercial anxiety and undeniable stress, we recognize the feelings of hope and serenity that are at last realized now in so many homes. We join in the sense of family reunion, thankfulness and even divine hope that the day brings to our nation.
We who are Jews find it easy to offer our real feelings of blessing and respect to our Christian neighbors who know an exalted holiness today.
Not a soul possibly could dispute the ultimate spirit of this holiday, which focuses with love on a singular event of some 2,000 years ago. No one who ever has dreamed can be indifferent to the messianic exhilaration that this international festival brings to little children and adults, too.
While living as a teenager in the benevolent shadow of a fine old Catholic church in Cincinnati, I had the happy experience of sharing this festival with some of my boyhood chums. They and their parents and grandparents drew from the motif of this peaceful holiday by inviting me close to their celebration, but not forcing me in.
Because of the calendar coincidence, I sat with my friends under their tree and shared with them the Hanukkah legends of the Judah the Maccabee. They came over to my house with their simple gifts and occasionally helped me to light our menorah candles. We managed to share an illuminating blend of blessing and respect.
As a Jew, I pray for the resiliency and real meaning of Christmas. The holiday is meant to arouse the power of a story and the treasure of memory. It no longer is common that parents actually are at home having a meal with their children, renewing promises and restoring relationships. The holiday slows down a frenetic world. The little ones are not being driven by the carpool culture. They are breaking bread and exchanging gifts with people who created them.
Whatever your creed, the Christmas season pulls you in by proxy. You cannot help but feel the excitement and the resplendent turnover of the calendar year as the streets are filled with people, expressed good wishes and at least the pledges of better behavior.
Christmas has a way of dressing up our civic centers and even our most mundane strip malls. The connection between this holiday and the economic prosperity of our nation is inseparable. There is real trouble in America these days; the message of peace today is one thing that is unimpeachable. Moreover, even though we citizens spend most days unaware of our millions of servicemen and women in Afghanistan, Korea, and elsewhere, we surely think of their welfare and loyalty on this particular day.
Seeing Christmas through Jewish eyes, I get only satisfaction that a hyperactive world comes to a soft stop at this time. The parents are giving to the children; the children are embracing the grandparents. “Peace on Earth” is much more than a neon billboard. It is a good aspiration that every single person who has a heart endorses at this great and awesome day. It is the birth of hope.
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Rabbi Kamin is an author and freelance writer based in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, California. Your comment may be placed in the box just below or sent directly to the author at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com
There is a good and humorous discission going on at the Washington Post after a humor OPED piece by Tufts professor Daniel Drezner asking his neigbors to stop the war on what he calls “the Jewish Christmas”. One commenter, not Jewish wrote: “I have to admit that last Christmas, because a niece was a nurse who had to work Christmas, we celebrated Xmas dinner on Dec. 24, and I couldn’t wait to take my two brothers to a Chinese restaurant on Dec. 25, just other Chinese families, Jewish families, and us. Great. I thought I was so outré but now I’m only part of a trend.” RABBI, maybe explore this meme next year?