Posted on 12/05/2018 5:30:59 AM PST by SJackson
It’s a holiday that commemorates an ancient battle against assimilation. And it’s the one holiday that most assimilated Jews celebrate.
It’s the question that Jewish parents instinctively dread.
A few months ago, I was sitting on the couch with my 3-year-old daughter, watching YouTube videos about animals in space, when out of nowhere she looked up at me and asked:
“Dada, can we celebrate Christmas?”
“We don’t celebrate Christmas,” I told her, putting on my serious voice. “We celebrate Hanukkah.”
Like generations of Jewish parents before me, I did my best to sell her on the relative merits of Hanukkah. True, Christmas might have those sparkly trees, ornaments and fruitcake. But we have latkes, jelly doughnuts and eight nights of presents.
“Do we have Santa?” she asked, hopefully.
“No,” I said, and her face dropped. “They do.”
I tried to reiterate the part about the jelly doughnuts and the eight nights of presents. But she wasn’t having any of it. I can’t say I blame her. During the rest of the year, the Jewish holidays we celebrate are like special, bonus celebrations we get to have on top of everything else going on in the calendar.
Mr. Lukas is a novelist.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A special side is present in other Christian traditions that take pains to echo Jewish tradition. I think of the Seventh Day Adventist sabbath tradition, for example. They can and do sometimes share church facilities with Sunday (Lord’s Day) worshiping traditions, getting twice the use out of the same facilities and honoring one another’s traditions. I saw one such arrangement in Gainesville, Florida with Orthodox Presbyterians.
“Taken aback by using orange jest in the batter but they need it.”
Surely you jest.
Surely I zest
I'm a Christian. I said it before and will say it again: In a strictly historical context, Christianity is just a very weird sect of Judaism.
As rabbinical Judaism is broadly understood, it’s certainly a turn on the faith that none of the rabbis fully expected.
But it sure fits with Jesus being the ultimate Rabbi with the ultimate right to be that. Being part of the divine nature would place Him squarely in such a position.
The proof, as it is said, is in the pudding. Versions of Christianity that have given Jews historical grief inevitably are those which are acting in part (if not in whole) as Selfianity. This is a hazard that appeared in Pharisaical Judaism and a hazard that continues to be possible in Christendom.
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