How to Solve the December Dilemma

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Many Christians feel that Christmas has been over-commercialized. Jews too have been seduced by the push to buy gifts.

I try not to use words like "seduced" and "overcommercialized," because I figure that people's value of things and people's values are closely related. If you want to know what's in people's hearts and minds, go shopping with them. So to me, commerce is actually a magnificent barometer of what we're feeling.

[I think] that gift-giving, and sharing, and over-the-top, absolutely inexplicable, irrational acts counter to their own economic self-interest are magnificent. I think it's beautiful that at the coldest, darkest time of the year, we choose to celebrate that capacity for light and heat and warmth within each of us.

You don't think it diminishes the spiritual intensity of the holidays to engage in all that buying?

That's all part of it. The idea that you can separate spirit from commerce is like telling us that you can separate body, mind, and spirit. The rap of "too much commerce" came from embittered priests and ministers and rabbis, who said, "How come I'm not determining what those people are doing?" And people were smart enough to say "No, we don't know what the books tell us this day should be about. But we know the look in the eyes of a kid when you give him a present. And we want that feeling."

It is absolutely true that the range of stuff that we can buy has spiraled enormously. And we ought to think about the whole set of questions it raises about consumption. But the idea that we would pit buying a gift for someone we love against spirituality is perverse. To give gifts is a spiritual act. And everyone who does it with a full heart, or receives one with a full heart, knows that.

Is it because people didn't know how to interpret Hanukkah? The historical basis for the holiday?

Most people don't care about the historical basis. I think most parents need to figure out that the story of the miracle of the oil is very profound, because it teaches that inside little containers there's big stuff, and that's precisely what kids need to hear, because they are the little containers.

It's not about getting the facts straight. The adults in many Jewish homes don't want to take Hanukkah seriously, and their kids are smart and know that. So the kids say, if we're not going to take Hanukkah seriously, let's at least do this other holiday, because the whole country seems to take that one seriously.

How about when your children see the baby Jesus in the manger, and they ask you what that means?

I've told them parts of the Jesus story. And what I tell them is that what Christians believe is that God sent this person, Jesus, who was the messiah. And they believe that he will come back and finish the job. And that we believe that because the job wasn't finished, he couldn't have been the messiah, but that we're actually waiting for the exact same thing.

Do you think that this year, because of all the negative things that have happened in the world, that people's sense of hopefulness is muted? And if so, how can we think about what has happened in a different way?

Thanksgiving celebrates the here and now, and people are pretty depressed about the here and now. Hanukkah and Christmas celebrate the there and then. We're so depressed about here and now that we're yearning to celebrate the there and then, because at least then it seemed to work out OK. (laughter)

This might be the year when you've got to focus if you're Jewish on whether or not you believe in miracles-the idea that that little reservoir can hold more than you can possibly imagine-and allow yourself to trust in that. And if you're Christian, to really focus not on the baby Jesus but the baby part. Who could have possibly known in that little manger that a family from Nazareth on its way to Jerusalem was going to give birth to the messiah?

It's hard in this era. All we can do is know that somehow kicking around inside us in both of these communities for over 2,000 years is a basic intuition that things can always be more than they seem.

All the stuff about saying "Happy holidays" and not saying "Merry Christmas" is offensive to Christians. As I was getting out of a cab last night, a cab driver said "Merry Christmas" to me. He was African, and he saw my kippah and said, "I see your hat. You're religious. Merry Christmas." And I said "Merry Christmas to you." He wasn't trying to convert me and he wasn't trying to take over our culture. He was actually offering me the most sincere blessing he knew. And everyone on the left is going to have to chill out, because every time you hear "Merry Christmas" it is not someone who's trying to convert you or take over your school.

The people on the right are also going to have to relax. Because they're going to have to accept that when we start saying "Merry Christmas" again and they call it a Christmas tree again, they have an obligation to make sure that everyone else's words and symbols are as protected as theirs.

Is it a basic human tendency to want not just to be secure in your own perspective but extinguish the other perspective?

No. The need to extinguish the other is learned. And the same way we learn to have that impulse, we can learn to have an embracing impulse.

So what's the message we should take away as we head toward December 25?

Simple. Everyone should reach into whatever tradition they love most and celebrate it bigger than they ever imagined.

Is it OK for us to celebrate with friends of other faiths?

Yeah. But there's a second rule: Do something that helps make sure that other people who are celebrating different things get to celebrate theirs as well. Because right now, the people who tend to celebrate their own tradition most profoundly tend to ignore that there's anyone else in the world. And people who know that we're all in it together are actually afraid to reach into any one tradition so deeply and celebrate it really fully.

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