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THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS, FOR JEWS

BY RABBI CHAIM STEINMETZ

What is the true meaning of Christmas? This question is the topic of numerous holiday sermons around the world. To sincere Christians, the materialism of the shopping season undermines Christmas, so the devout shift their focus to the spiritual message of the holiday. But for American Jews, Christmas has a very different meaning, complicated by history and demographics. In medieval Europe, Christmas was a time of fear and loathing for Jews. During the rest of the year, the Jews were an embattled minority; on Christmas, they were absolute pariahs. The Chaumont Christmas play of the 1200s depicts Jews as true devils, and antisemitic attacks often occurred in and around Christmas. For example, blood libels took place on or around Christmas in Fulda, Germany in 1235, in Judenberg, Austria in 1312, and in Le Puy, France in 1321, and a steady stream of Christmas related riots and pogroms continued through the Middle Ages. Jews responded to this outpouring of hatred with bitterness. In Yiddish, Christmas Eve is known as “Nittel Nacht,” which is derived from the medieval Latin “Natale Domini.” On Nittel Nacht, many Jews would play cards instead of studying Torah. This custom is intended as a spiritual boycott of Christmas, a way of preventing one’s Torah study on that day from inadvertently being considered a spiritual merit for the founder of Christianity in the divine court above.

The United States is the polar opposite of medieval Europe and has by and large been a true refuge from antisemitism. But Jews found that being accepted into a largely Christian society created new tensions. The public celebrations of Christmas, which were commonplace in schools and town halls until the 40s and 50s, challenged Jews to find inventive new ways to fit in. Janice L. Booker recalls the customs of Jewish public-school students in 1930s Philadelphia: “An unwritten, unspoken agreement among the Jewish kids was that when we sang the carols, lustily and with pleasure, we kept our lips sealed when the name of Jesus Christ was mentioned. To my knowledge, no parent ever asked for this, and no one discussed it; it just was.” How can you be Jewish and sing a Christmas carol? Just cut out part of the lyrics. This “solution,” which is neither here nor there, epitomizes the uneasiness and uncertainty many Jews have felt about Christmas. In 1958, the United Synagogue Commission on Education published a pamphlet entitled “Our December Dilemma,” about the social pressure that Jewish children feel during the holidays. Written by Rabbi Abraham Karp, a leading Conservative rabbi, it included a set of scenarios that Jewish children in public schools might confront during the holiday season and advised the students how to politely avoid being drawn into school Christmas celebrations.

Karp’s answers are rooted in a discomfort with Christmas that has profound theological roots. Medieval rabbis debated whether or not Christianity is considered to be idolatry; if it were categorized as such, it would, among other things, forbid Jews from selling holiday supplies to Christians before Christmas. And while a consensus later emerged to consider Christianity as monotheistic, many held certain restrictions in place. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled that schools should not close on Christmas or even for the following week, because that would acknowledge Christmas as a holiday. He even advised people to avoid making weddings and Bar Mitzvahs on Christmas Eve. (Rabbi Feinstein’s ruling has changed the school schedule of many day schools, which now have a “Yeshiva break” in the winter.) For most American Jews, the December Dilemma is not just about theology. Jews at Christmas feel like an uninvited guest at a party, the man stuck outside in the cold pressing his face against the window. Hanukkah has become the Jewish Christmas with plentiful presents; and, many Jews embraced the Hanukkah Bush, essentially a Christmas tree repackaged with a Hebrew wrapper. (The Maccabees, warriors against Hellenism, would not have been amused). In 1895, even after publishing “The Jewish State,” Theodor Herzl had a Christmas tree in his home. In his diary, he records that a prominent rabbi, Moritz Gudemann, came to visit, and expressed criticism of the tree. Herzl responded, “I was just lighting the Christmas tree for my children when Gudemann arrived. He seemed upset by the “Christian” custom. Well, I will not let myself be pressured! But I don’t mind if they call it the Hanukah tree—or the winter solstice.”

The “Hanukkah Bush” became popular in the late 19th and early 20th century among assimilated Jews. But even more traditional Jews still find the siren song of Christmas too difficult to resist. Cindy Chupack proclaimed in a 2006 article in The New York Times that she decided to celebrate Christmas because she was overwhelmed by a desire for Christmas Decorations and Stocking Stuffers, mainstays of a holiday virtually every other American celebrates. Chupack reminds us that the December dilemma is actually a year-round dilemma: How will Jews maintain their identity in the face of a seductive and embracing culture? Ironically, a religious tradition that has heroically triumphed over persecution and oppression is finding it ever more difficult to overcome acceptance and tolerance.

The “December Dilemma” belongs most to Jews who take the middle road. Deeply Orthodox Jews find no need to concern themselves with someone else’s holiday; some even continue the custom of “Nittel Nacht,” treating 21st century America like medieval Europe. More liberal Jews increasingly accommodate Christmas; a 2013 survey found that 32% of American Jews have a Christmas tree. It is those, who, to use the words of Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, are “a part of the world, while at the same time standing apart from the world,” who must consider how they will respond to Christmas, and what direction they will give their children during this time. I believe that there are two lessons that Jews need to remember over Christmas. The first is darkei shalom, ways of peace. This is a Talmudic principle that Jews are required to embrace their responsibility to the larger community, and to treat everyone with kindness and friendship; one can even put aside certain halakhic prescriptions to do so. I believe that the obligation of darkei shalom is even more significant today, in 21st century America. American Jews must be grateful that we live in an era like no other in Jewish history, where they are fully embraced as citizens, and have taken leading roles in this country. And we should share that gratitude with others. In an article in the New York Times several years ago, several Jewish professionals explained that they cover extra shifts on Christmas and New Year’s to enable their colleagues to celebrate Christmas at home. Dr. Robert van Amerongen, an Orthodox Jew who was at the time director of pediatric emergency service at New York Methodist Hospital, told the newspaper that“although he is senior enough to be able to take Christmas off…. he always works. ‘That just infuses good will,’ he said.”

Good will, or darkei shalom, is something precious. And for Jews who live in peace in countries that practice the ways of peace, good will is certainly part of “the true meaning of Christmas.” The second lesson, which takes the concept of darkei shalom a step further, is Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying God’s name. As Samson Raphael Hirsch points out, living in the Diaspora offers Jews daily opportunities to be a light unto the nations. Each day, Jews can sanctify God’s name with acts of kindness. And there’s no better time for this than Christmas.

Rabbi Berel Wein tells a powerful story he heard from an editor at the Detroit Free Press. During the Great Depression, the editor’s mother, a recently arrived Irish woman, got her first job as a housekeeper with a prominent Orthodox Jewish family. The family went away on vacation, leaving behind their new housekeeper; they were due to return on December 24th. The housekeeper, who had never met any Jews before, decided to make sure that her employer’s home was set up properly for Christmas, so she went out and bought a Christmas tree and decorated the home from top to bottom. Arriving home, the family was stunned by what they saw. What would their friends think? The father, however, responded differently. He took the new housekeeper aside, and in a gentle voice said to her: “In my whole life, no one has ever done such a beautiful thing for me as you did.” He then took out a $100 bill, a remarkable sum at the time, and gave it to the housekeeper. Only later did he sit down and explain to her that Jews do not observe Christmas. The Jewish man’s dignity and kindness made such an impression, that the housekeeper’s son continued to tell the story forty years later.

This is what Christmas can teach us about being Jewish. During the holiday season, Jews can dedicate themselves to helping others, like the elderly Holocaust survivor I knew who each Christmas would distribute blankets to the homeless. We can do small acts of kindness and charity for those in need. And maybe, if Jews rediscover their mission of being a light unto the nations, Christmas lights will not be a challenge, but rather an opportunity.

KJ MISSION TO POLAND

This summer, there will be a KJ mission to Poland with Rabbi Steinmetz. The tentative dates are from July 10th to 17th. Details to follow. If you are potentially interested, please contact dina@ckj.org.

THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT (SALT)

BY RABBI ROY FELDMAN

Adapted from a sermon delivered at KJ on Shabbat Vayera, November 12, 2022 A while back, a situation necessitated that my family eat in a non-kosher venue. We spoke with the maître d’ about what he could bring us, especially for the children. After going through some details and possibilities, he remarked, “One thing you can be absolutely certain about; I have been through the entire kitchen, and all the salt we use here – all of it – is kosher salt.”

Of course, that has nothing to do with the kashrut of the salt. It is the name for the type of salt used for koshering meat; some decades ago, the salt companies marketed it to the general public as “kosher salt” and it became a hit with cooks.

Salt is probably the single most important ingredient in the kitchen because it does so much for food. It preserves foods (think salted or brined meats). Salt as a preservative has been known for millennia – since at least 2000 BCE in Egypt. And when it comes to flavor, if used properly, it does not make food salty – it makes the food taste better. Samin Nosrat, in her book Salt Fat Acid Heat, recounts a story of when she first apprenticed in a restaurant kitchen and was tasked with making polenta. She labored over it, stirring vigorously so it would not burn, and brought it to her chef to taste. “It needs more salt,” he told her. She sprinkled a little salt in, but still it needed more. She writes, “This time he marched me back to the pot and added not one but three enormous palmfuls of kosher salt. The perfectionist in me was horrified… Three palmfuls!” The chef “grabbed spoons and together we tasted. The corn was somehow sweeter, the butter richer. All the flavors were more pronounced.” Salt made the food better.

Parashat Vayeira contains many famous stories, but there is one that is very short (it consists of only one verse) with vivid imagery that stands out. Lot and his family were being saved from Sodom, a city facing certain destruction, and were instructed not to turn back. Yet against those orders, Lot’s wife looked back. As a punishment, she was transformed into a pillar of salt. It’s a perplexing command and an even more perplexing punishment. First, why should she not have looked back to see what was happening, and second, how did the punishment fit the crime - why turn into salt? Rashi cited the midrash. Back in Sodom, when angels arrived as guests, Lot told her to offer them salt, and she refused. She said to Lot, “Do you mean to introduce this bad custom into our city?” הָתְקָל חַלֶמְבוּ הָאְטָח חַלֶמְבּ – “By salt she sinned, and by salt she was punished” But this remains perplexing - why is giving salt to guests a bad custom? Furthermore, the punishment is still way out of proportion. Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi, 13th century) suggested that she had little faith; Lot’s wife wanted to see if the city had really been destroyed. Perhaps she wanted to go back, as Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffman (19th century) suggested: הירחא הריאשהש היסכנ לעו התיב לע הרעטצה She regretted leaving her home and her possessions she had left there. She longed to go back; in fact, she never wanted to leave Sodom. She wished to preserve her past, what she always knew and had been comfortable with. She was not prepared to look ahead to the future, to move on to what had to come next. And because she was fixated on the past, she could not grow. It is good to remember the past and allow our past experiences to strengthen us, but longing to return to the past simply because it is comfortable is not how God wanted his new people to begin its journey. Avraham understood that; he learned things from his home, Haran, and from Terach his father, but he understood when it was time to move on. At this moment, Lot understood it too, but his wife did not. And that was her great crime and why she became salt. Salt contains within it a dialectic. We put salt on food, and it keeps it longer; simultaneously, it improves the flavor. Salt perpetuates the past, but it also enhances the taste – it makes for a better future.

The sacrifices in the Temple reflected this dual nature of salt. All the sacrifices were salted, and Sefer HaChinuch suggested two reasons for that requirement. First, it preserves the meat, and symbolically, we

hope our sacrifices will preserve us for good lives as well. Second, food tastes better with salt, and we wish to bring our sacrifices in the best way possible. Salt preserves and it uplifts. And those are the same two reasons why we put salt on our challah on Shabbat. First, just as there was salt on the sacrifices and on the altar of the Beit Hamikdash, there is salt on the altar of our homes, the dinner table. We preserve our past practices through salting our challah. The other reason is simply Oneg Shabbat: It makes the bread taste better and thus increases our enjoyment of the meal.

Salt preserves and improves; it sustains and enhances. Lot’s wife did not give her guests salt to add to their food. Surely, she preserved her own food with it, but someone of her mindset and perspective could not fathom using salt for its futureoriented purpose of making the food taste better. Her goal was to preserve life in Sodom the way it was; she said, “Do not introduce this bad custom into our city!” Do not think about making a better future, do not be forward thinking. In this way, salt is a microcosmic metaphor for Jewish life. How do we preserve the past while making our future better? This is the reason God’s covenant with the Kings of Israel was a covenant of salt. The book of Chronicles recounts, לֵאָרְשִׂי־לַע דיִוָדְל הָכָלְמַמ ןַתָנ לֵאָרְשִׂי יֵהֹל-ֱא ’ה… ׃חַלֶמ תיִרְבּ ויָנָבְלוּ וֹל םָלוֹעְל “...the LORD God of Israel gave David kingship over Israel forever—to him and his sons—by a covenant of salt.” That is the king’s role and the role of leadership: Preserve the past; make for a better future. And this is the guiding question for Jewish survival and for the flourishing of our people. How do we preserve our traditions, our Torah, Halakhah, our eternal values, while making them relevant – tasty, metaphorically speaking – to future generations? If it is not tasty, they will not be interested.

Generations of Jewish leaders did just that. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American religious leaders began preaching sermons and making synagogue announcements in English rather than Portuguese or Yiddish. At the same time in Germany, Rabbi Samson Refael Hirsch developed Torah im Derekh Eretz - he preached and wrote books about Jewish practices and why they were relevant to the then modern German Jew. In the twentieth century, rabbis such as our own Joseph Lookstein devised an orthodox service that was honorable, respectable, decorous, and meaningful to the sophisticated Jew. He remarked, in a speech to the New York Board of Rabbis, “In the synagogue, in the service, in the character of the rabbi, and even his appearance, in the language of the sermon, in a sense of organization and solidarity, in the establishment of modern . . . educational, recreational and welfare institutions, we have demonstrated in traditional Judaism that we are capable of adaptation to the new world.” These leaders did not belittle the past or depart from tradition, yet they succeeded in making Judaism appealing to their contemporaries. It is now our turn in the twenty-first century to find our “salt” - what can we do to preserve the past and improve the future? Cookbook author James Beard famously remarked, “Where would we be without salt?” Indeed, where would we be without salt?

THE KJ FOOD PANTRYprovides kosher food weekly to New York’s hungry.

Clients are referred to us through the synagogue and local service agencies. Each week clients come to KJ to receive food staples tailored to their diets, as well as a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. Ramaz students pack the bags and staff the booth in the lobby of KJ, and Ramaz/KJ members also deliver packages to those who are homebound.

For further information or to volunteer, please contact Bernice Berman at bernice.berman@gmail.com. The KJ Food Pantry wishes to thank D’agostino Supermarket for all their help.

STEREOTYPES, KALEIDOSCOPES, AND BLESSING THE JEWISH PEOPLE

BY RABBI MEYER LANIADO

In November 2021, a video of Shachar Edui auditioning on the X-Factor, the Israeli version of American Idol, went viral and touched our hearts by giving us a glimpse of what the world could be. As one of the judges said: “You broke all of the stereotypes people have in their minds!”

Shachar entered the stage with long pe’ot curls, a black velvet kippah, jeans, and a t-shirt. The judges were stunned and curious. They asked: “Are you Yemenite?” He said: “Of course.” During the initial interview, he shared that he prepares boys for their Bar Mitzvah; the judges excitedly asked him for a sample. You can see the thrill on the judge’s face when he recited, with beautiful cantillation, a pasuk for them: “These are the misvot and the laws that God… (Bemidbar 35:34).”

The scene then shifts to an introductory video where Shachar shared that because of his peot, he is always asked which group of Hassidim he is a part of. He responded and said he is not Hassidic, and he is not Haredi, period. “You see how I look on the outside, and you already judge me?”

As he waited to enter the stage, he prayed, and you can hear him recite Tehillim, saying: Shir laMa’alot esa einai el heHarim… (Tehillim 121:1) Then, he stepped on stage, and ranked, hands down, with the song “Hello” by Lionel Richie. No one expected this religiouslooking young man to sing a secular love song. The crowd was in shock and blown away.

The story continued with his follow-up audition and song choice of “Wikipedia” by Israeli singer Hanan Ben Ari. Then, he came on stage in a black suit and white shirt, with Tzitzit displayed outside his shirt. The song describes Israeli stereotypes as the lyrics describe the perceptions that: Every leftist is a traitor, every Arab is a suicide bomber, every Haredi is a robber, and all the settlers murdered

Rabin. All Tel Aviv are vegan, all traditional Jews are common folk, and all religious Jews with tzitzit hanging out are primitive. He shattered our perception, and made us realize, made me realize, how quickly we categorize and judge. Stereotyping is the use of classifications and taxonomies, necessary heuristics that we use to make navigating our world easier. They are a way we create order in a world that may otherwise be seen as chaotic and disparate. At the same time, they disconnect us from whom or what we are seeing, experiencing, and interacting with. Our habit of smoothing out the edges of difference and uniqueness so as to group with the similar and categorize what we see was described negatively by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Just as little do we see a tree exactly and completely with reference to leaves, twigs, color, and form; it is so very much easier for us simply to improvise some approximation of a tree.” Abstraction to general categories allows us to quickly order the world, quickly make sense of it, form decisions and take action. Not using generalized classifications would be inefficient, and we would likely be in a stand-still reanalyzing each object and scenario at every moment in all its depths and contours. If we were to see everything in such a way, in high definition, noting how unique it is, we would have information overload. We would not have a method of creating order and would be left with the chaos of individual non-organizable parts, rendering us incapable of functioning. We have organized our world through abstract associations, such as genres, and Type As and Type Bs. These are incredibly helpful, though, once we have placed something in a paradigm, put it in a mental box, and labeled it, we assume we know it, as we understand the general category, and do not look further for the particularness. This is true too in the realm of ideas, as when someone says: “Oh, it’s Aristotelian thinking.” Once that is done, one is no longer thinking deeply, discovering the nuance where the philosophy diverges, and arguing for an alternative view, even if only for a degree or two of difference. Familiarity using this type of association becomes an obstacle to greater understanding, clearer thinking, and deeper relationships.

These heuristics, categorizing people by philosophies, lifestyles, political parties, and other associations, often cause us to create ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups.’ For example, we use categories like Liberal or Conservative, though the views within each group may differ significantly. Larger groupings, like Americans or Israelis, also assume a similarity or a difference that is not necessarily reflective of the culture and views of the individuals amongst those citizens. The solution is not to dissolve the more extensive category but to recognize particular persons, ideas, and nuances within the larger categorization as both reflective of and different from their broader group. This is the view of our rabbis when they express the berakha said upon seeing six-hundred-thousand Jews: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, wise in secrets (Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 224:5).” This is not against non-Jews as we do say a berakha when seeing a wise non-Jew: sheNatan meHokhmato leBasar veDam, “Who has given of His glory to flesh and blood (Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 224:7).” This is about social and political organization, not about Jewish intelligence. The berakha said upon seeing six-hundredthousand Jews is speaking towards the difference between the structure of a mob or a crowd, where the individual is insignificant, and the volume of numbers counts, compared to a community of individuals where each individual makes a unique contribution and maintains their individuality. This homogenous movement, and anonymity of each person within a crowd, is expressed well in Elias Cannetti’s Nobel prize-winning book Crowds and Power. There, when describing the individual within a crowd, he writes, “A head is a head, an arm is an arm, and differences between individual heads and arms are irrelevant. It is for the sake of this equality that people become a crowd and they tend to overlook anything which might detract from it (Crowds and Power Page 29).” In this type of crowd, the individual is insignificant. He is only valuable in extending the size of the crowd and increasing its power. The identity of the person in this group is lost. Rambam notes that the berakha said upon seeing sixhundred-thousand Jews is only to be said in the land of Israel, a place where society has been structured according to Jewish values – where we have created communities in which the diversity is noted amongst the homogeneity, and the group is not dissolved but viewed in higher definition (Mishneh Torah Berakhot 10:11). Then, we can see the kaleidoscope of nuanced views, positions and lifestyles while maintaining the structure of a cohesive collective. In this model, the amazing phenomenon of having this national view of six-hundred thousand is that the uniqueness of each individual is also recognized. As the Talmud explains the reason for the berakha: “One who sees multitudes of Israel recites,’’ ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, wise in secrets’ Why is this? Since, He sees a whole nation whose minds are unlike each other and whose faces are unlike each other… (Talmud Bavli Masekhet Berakhot 58a).” This is the difference between the mob or crowd and the Community of Individuals, where each person’s individuality is maintained within the group. Most people assume they already see beyond the collective categorizations, but do they? There are now online tests that seek to assess our levels of judgment and bias, for example, The Harvard IAT. Yet, I think we can run a quick assessment of ourselves simply by noting how we speak around the Shabbat table. Do we speak about ‘haredim,’ ‘leftists,’ ‘democrats,’or ‘republicans’? When we hear or see that someone is connected to a particular group, attends a particular location, or espouses a particular view, we often build an entire schema around them, grouping them with others and projecting all of the characteristics of a group onto this individual. These categorizations happen automatically, and the strongest tool we have to see the individual within the group is to be open to getting to know, in a real way, an individual within the group. We will then see the divergence of this person from their group and, likely, similarity to us in areas we may not have expected. Shachar Edui was a sensation because he helped us, for a moment, see beyond the stereotypes of the religious and ethnic groups he was grouped with. We saw, for a moment, the individuality, the uniqueness of a person within a category, the whole person within the larger whole. We saw him clearly and not the group we had categorized him in, in high definition, and that was refreshing, exciting, and energizing. We got a glimpse of what Am Yisrael could look like, the berakha, the vision that God bestowed upon our forefathers. God blessed us to become a qahal goyim or qahal amim (Beresheit 35:11 and 48:4), a congregation of diverse groups that each have a variety of individuals, a multitude of views, traditions, and lifestyles.

LEARN TO DAVEN LIKE A BA’AL TEFILLAH

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein’s ten Nusach recordings, designed to help people learn how to be a shaliach tzibbur at daily services, Shabbatot, holidays, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur & selichot around the year, are available free of charge at ramaz.org/nusach.

SAVE THESE DATES

Dec 18 Annual Chanukah in the Park

Jan 6 - 7 Welcome the Travelling Chasidim Jan 20-21 Shabbat Shira – Community Together Dinner Feb 25 Seymour Propp Memorial Lecture – AIPAC Shabbat at KJ, featuring AIPAC Policy Expert Ed Miller

March 3-4 KJ Celebrates Ramaz School: Shabbaton Dinner and Pulpit Speaker featuring Rabbi Josh Lookstein