(no subject)

[ravencallscrows]

Poor are "Lucky Duckies" according to the Wall Street Journal. Ruthlessly lifted from e-mail from damashita.

And now for something completely different. . . .

Well, friends and neighbours, as they say, 'tis the season. Your unflagging reporter Ebenezer Scrooge here with a holidays update.

Leave it to the winter holiday season to make me feel Jewish again. Even without significant positive childhood holiday memories, Chanukah is a unique holiday which speaks to me of perseverance in the face of the odds, and it didn't have to be co-opted from another religious tradition like Christmas- with its roots in the Roman Saturnalia and various solstice celebrations.

From a Jewish perspective, the Christians have their holiday all wrong. Even leaving aside what the Tanakh says about a woodsman cutting a tree in a forest and adorning it with silver and gold (Jer 10:3-5), the Christians have their holiday at the wrong time of the year. The gospel of John says "And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us" (Jn 1:14), but the literal translation (as per Young) is "And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us."

"Tabernacle" is the key word there, if you hadn't guessed by it being the only significant difference. The Greek used here is an obvious reference to the Jewish holiday of Succoth, referred to as the Festival of Tabernacles (or Booths)- a harvest festival and reminder of G_d's deliverance, lasting a week beginning on 15 Tishri on the Jewish calendar. It's a fitting time for one claiming to be the Messiah (itself a cloudy concept, since traditional Jewish thought recognizes two Messiahs- moschiah ben Yosef the suffering servant, after Joseph; and moschiah ben Dovid the conquering king, after David), a redeemer and deliverer.

But enough of this reporter's theological quibbles with Christmas. Christians are largely ignorant of the Jewish roots of their beliefs, by choice. No, my biggest problem with the holiday is the rampant and unbridled commercialism. I don't particularly mind the decorations- i like the pretty lights as much as anyone, but seeing them on store displays starting in mid-October is particularly galling.

All too often, it seems the message about the holiday which we allow society to teach our children is about getting and having, rather than about giving. I try to make it a point (here i go showing my Jewish roots again) to give alexander money to give to those collecting for charity and to explain why it is an important thing. Even this basic instruction in tzedekah seems to be in accordance with halacha (Jewish religious law) for Chanukah- the lights are to be kindled publically except in times of persecution, when it is deemed acceptable to do so privately in one's own home. Rabbi Zadok of Lublin explained this to mean that at a time of danger when the light cannot brighten the darkness of the world, it must at least brighten the interior of the soul.

So much for tikkun ha'olam- the redemption of the world. Perhaps it'll kindle a spark in him that he'll be able to nurture and pass on to others.

Oy, vey is mir! For one who stopped being observant over seventeen years ago, i still can manage to be pretty Jewish for an apikoros heretic, nu?

Comments

[stryal.livejournal.com]

*hugs you and chuckles*
Okay, from a Catholic....we changed the holiday so we could conquer...errr...I mean convert those heathen pagans. They celebrated a nasty pagan religion that had a holy day called Yule, among other names. So, with the Popes decree, we moved the celebration of our Lord Jesus to coincide with Yule and Winter Solstice.
*laughs*
Yup. I've raised my girls so they know that Jesus was born in the summer, but we celbrate in the winter. My 14yo knows why. But then, she's also Wiccan too. *shrugs* Works for me. However she wants to celebrate God in His/Her/Gender Neutral faces.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

That's something that we're working toward in our household- creating our own personal family ritual interaction with the Divine Ones. It's a challenge, because now only do damashita and i have significantly different paths, we have different upbringings as well. She was encouraged by her parents to work out her own spirituality as a child, and has experience with all sorts of different flavours of Christianity. She's an eclectic neo-pagan who has founded a group tradition, although that group is not presently working. My background is in Judaism, my path Celtic Reconstructionism. I tend to view the Divine Ones in a much more literal manner than she does. Ritual is something to which she's become accustomed, where my interaction with the Divine is much more directed toward prayer and offering. It makes for some interesting discussions, and has been an interesting work in progress. Now we just need to make more time for it....

Re:

[stryal.livejournal.com]

Oh coolness.
I've done some research into things other than Christianty. *shrugs* Just me being heretical. I was reading the bible long before Vatican II. What is Celtic Reconstruction? I haven't heard of it before.

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those heretical pagans. ;-)
Celtic Reconstructionism is a blanket term for those who follow ancestral traditions of those from the six nations (Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany) who spoke Celtic languages.
More specifically, we use existing traditions and the historical and mythic legend to try to reconstruct the religious practices of the inhabitants of these areas.
Within that, there's a fairly broad diversity of practice- ranging from those who use contemporary neo-paganism to fill in the blanks to those who stick strictly with attested traditions.
Personally, I'm closer to the latter end of the spectrum. My practices are based in the Scottish traditions of the pre-Christian inhabitants of the Highlands and Western Islands, including the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, but I recognize that there are great gaps in what is known about these people which requires an attempt to fill in the blanks in a culturally sensitive manner.