“Have a merry Christmas, Rabbi,” one of the students chirped as we both set off for our winter break. I am sure she meant well. But still, I wonder: Should I have tried to correct her? Chances are she would have countered, as another student had years ago, “But isn't your Hanukkah basically the Jewish Christmas?”
At times like this I wish the semester for the course I teach in world religions was a couple weeks longer. Then I would have time to explain that the two holidays are actually very different. Christmas, after all, celebrates the birth of Jesus, whom Christians came to worship as the Christ, the messiah, the second person of the Trinity. Jesus plays no role in our religious life as Jews. However Jews might understand Jesus, and however much Jews and Christians increasingly make sense of the Gospels against the background of Jewish religion and history, Jews have no reason to include a celebration of Jesus' birth in our already crowded calendar of holidays, holy days and festivals.
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