November / December 2006:

613 Words: God Bless America
Tis the season to be jolly, merry, and — get this — more religious.

By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach



Editor's Note: We recently began a new series called "613 Words" (the figure corresponds to the number of commandments in the Bible) where we ask a prominent Jewish American to compose an essay in, you guessed it, 613 words. Enjoy.

As a Jewish boy growing up in America, I loved Thanksgiving but, understandably, felt utterly alienated from Christmas. Thanksgiving was a holiday that was right up the Jewish alley, a time to reflect on all of God’s blessings and to draw closer to family. In fact, the very existence of Thanksgiving made me feel so proud to be an American. Here was a secular democracy acknowledging that its bounty came from God. As a Jewish boy, I was taught to say a blessing every time I ate even the smallest morsel of food. On Thanksgiving, America offered a collective blessing to thank God for its food.

Christmas however, to me, was not a national holiday, but a Christian one. It did not include me and I felt like a neglected outsider in its presence. Even Chanukah was inadequate comfort for the all-encompassing, all-consuming Christmas behemoth. To Christmas lights that flooded our streets to Christmas carols that filled our ears, there was no way of escaping it. We went from the inclusiveness of Thanksgiving in November to the exclusiveness of Christmas in December, and it was quite a jolt.

But when I became the rabbi at Oxford University in England in my early twenties, I quickly developed a deep-seated respect and appreciation for the Christian students, who were my greatest supporters and helped me promote my message of love of God and humanity. From coming nearly every night to help me mail out fliers and put up posters, to attending my classes in droves, the religious Christian students became my students. And when some of them developed crises of faith, I worked my darndest to return them to their Christian piety which had done so much to make them such good people.

Through these students, for the very first time, I came to appreciate the religious nature of Christmas for Christians, as opposed to its market-driven, commercial counterpart. Of course, it would never be something that I could celebrate, because the birth of a divine child contradicts the central Jewish message that God is celestial and non-anthropomorphic. But I began to see how, for Christians, the Christmas festival was about living a Godly life and being prepared to swim against the current of societal trends, to do what is righteous even if it is unpopular. Which is why today evangelical Christians are the best friends Israel has. They understand the righteousness of Israel’s cause, even as the rest of the world continues to pour so much venom on the Jewish state.

I would like to see an America that is more religious, without being more self-righteous or judgmental. Therefore, I would like to see an America in which more Christians celebrate the religious nature of Christmas, and go to church more throughout the year. I not only have no problem today with Christmas celebrations, but I welcome them as a reaffirmation of the majority religion of the United States. When it comes to passive Christmas affirmation, the more the merrier (quite literally). But active affirmations of Christianity, like asking kids in public schools, many of whom are Jewish, to sing Christmas carols is as unacceptable as it is offensive. Just as America should never limit Christmas, it dare never impose it either.

The same applies to Chanukah. America may have a majority of Christians, but it is not a Christian country. It is a country in which every single citizen is just as American as the other. We in the Jewish community must do our utmost to put public menorahs on display at Chanukah time as the ultimate display of religious freedom and as a sign of our equal share and pride in the blessing that is America.