Christmasukkah, or The Miraculous Week-Long Burning of Hot Air

Reagan was right after all. Trees truly are responsible for the massive release of gas into the atmosphere. Witness the great SeaTac Christmas tree debacle, which has exploded into a national pissing match over the so-called "War on Christmas." (Oy, such a terrible burden to wield cultural dominance!)

Well, it's my town, so I couldn't resist weighing in (I held out for days, I swear) on the question of Christmas trees and religious vs. secular vs. "cultural" symbolism in the Postmodern Age -- a familiar theme in Jewish community, as we struggle to survive the rise of consumer culture. Local columnist Robert Jamieson wrote an editorial that I didn't like. Here is the letter I wrote in response:

Mr. Jamieson,

I am Jewish, and I happen to enjoy Christmas/Solstice/Festivus/Chanukah/etc. decorations. I agree with you that the Port's move to take down the trees was an unfortunate overreaction, though I think the general litigiousness of our culture is as much to blame as any decision-maker at the Port.

That said, I think it's way too easy -- and a mark of Christian privilege -- for you to say that Christmas trees are an innocuous universal symbol of "peace, hope and cheer" that everyone should just shut up and get behind. I can hear some good old boy in Georgia saying practically the same thing about the Confederate flag: its origins predate Southern slavery and it is meant to symbolize regional history and pride, so detractors are just party-poopers vying for attention.

Christmas Day was still a traditional day of pogroms in Jewish villages long after Emancipation. Unfortunately, the most generous holiday spirit of Christians today cannot erase the baggage of their cultural symbols for minorities who have legitimate reason to feel very differently about them.

We all value living in a diverse and tolerant community. The Jewish community is not protesting the celebration of Christian cultural heritage in public places. Why would you protest members of our community seeking to celebrate our heritage in kind? How would that ruin Christmas?

Respectfully,
Joel Rothschild
Seattle

I wrote the same thing into a local radio program on which a caller had expressed a view matching Jamieson's, and I attached a semantic footnote that, looking at it again, I find interesting and potentially useful:

I think it's way too easy (and a little bigoted) for secular Christians to say that the Christmas tree is a "secular" symbol while the holiday symbols of minority cultures are "religious." Both the Christmas tree and the Menorah are religious symbols. They are also both more than religious symbols: They are cultural symbols as well, and in that capacity the Supreme Court has permitted both to be celebrated in the public sphere.

I have often in years past found myself frustrated by the combative attitude of fellow Jews toward public expressions of the "Christmas spirit." I never said anything before, because I couldn't articulate my objection, other than to say it seems a petty fight to pick relative to the gravity of other concerns. (Perhaps that is just easy for me to say, not being a parent faced with the assimilationist vacuum-suck of glittery lights and heaps of new toys.)

Now I see that my uneasiness is with making a complex issue so black-and-white. How can we say that religious expression is oppressive, therefore it must remain private (tell me if this sounds familiar: "I have nothing against Christian people, but why do they have to do that in public? why are they promoting their sick agenda in my children's schools?"), whereas secular expression is somehow inherently neutral? Does it make sense to protest wreaths and lights in schools, and to not protest the equally Christian (and more powerful) English language?

It seems to me that there is a fine yet crucial line between fighting oppression, which is necessary, and fighting history, which is absurd. To return to SeaTac airport as a case in point, it is worth noting that there are religious articles on display there year-round -- local Native American art and artifacts -- to which no one (as far as I know) has ever objected. They bear annotations, museum-style, which neutralizes any implication that SeaTac airport is affiliated with or endorses the culture they represent.

I am firmly of the "Knowledge Is Power" camp, so I think that ignorance (likewise denial) is the surest mechanism of oppression. What would we accomplish by stripping Christianity's visible signs from our public sphere? Would it be easier or harder then for our children to identify Christian culture and its influence in their world?

The most pernicious sin of Christendom is the belief that its language is as universal as its desires. Therefore, the most subversive answer to Christianity's historical hegemony is to put its language in quotes.

SeaTac without Christmas trees is still the gateway to a community that is, no matter how secular, in largest part culturally Christian. Removing the trees from public spaces won't make them any less visible in all of the private stores and living room windows around the city, nor will it teach our children anything about our history and circumstances. Adding a Menorah (a Chabad Menorah, no less) to a Christmas tree display would at least signal the inclusion of other cultures in the community, but it would also risk further confusing Chanukah with Christmas.

Now imagine SeaTac with Christmas trees in a conspicuously annotated display. People who like Christmas trees would still see their beloved seasonal decor. Others would see an objectified statement of fact: that Christianity is a significant influence within this community, not the One True Faith, but one group's expression of faith, with its debatable aesthetics and historical baggage just like any other's.

If we would invest our zealous iconoclasm in forcing Christian culture to contextualize itself, rather than trying in vain to shame it into silence, we could ultimately do much more to neutralize the means of dominance. Perhaps we could also avoid offering Judaism up as the pawn between secular and religious factions of Christendom.

l'Dor v'Dor

(to Generation and Generation)

I spent last Shabbat in Olympia, in order to attend the downtown Saturday-afternoon tribute to an old teacher of mine who passed away. My hosts, Sherri and Neal, are actively involved with the traditional shul there, which emerged from the original Olympia synagogue as it became less of a big tent for the community and more an institutional party-line expression of Reconstructionist orthodoxy. Over lunch, Sherri and Neal described to me an all-too-familiar story: As the community grows, factions emerge to demand more denominationally narrow synagogue offerings. A traditional faction emerges and eventually splits off to form its own synagogue. Within this newly-liberated traditional faction there immediately appear two sub-factions -- one wanting to reach out to families, and one wanting to establish and protect a nostalgic setting. The synagogue as dynamic (and messy) playpen vs. the synagogue as lovely (and staid) museum piece. Now these factions are duking it out and meanwhile membership has plateaued.

I was visited by two insights from this tragedy. One is that synagogue life is dominated by generational politics. Every generation has certain distinguishing experiences, and consumer culture encourages us to seek, and demand, an environment that validates our own experiences. Consequently, the factions that fight over differing visions of what a synagogue should offer very often represent generational divides.

The second is that most of "Generation X" and nearly all of "Generation Y/Why" are absent from the clash. It is between the Boomers and those who came before them. I suspect that what has happened is that the pre-Boomer generations built an institutional infrastructure, within which the Boomers were raised as children later to reject it as young adults and build their own counter-culture. In the '80s and '90s, the demands of family life convinced the Boomers largely to return home, as it were. Then those old institutions, where the pre-Boomers had been entertaining themselves in relative peace and quiet, were flooded by waves of outsiders with a strong sense of birthright to be part of the inside, but also a couple decades' experience of doing things their own way. Voila! Generational struggle.

Meanwhile, Generation X, whose defining experience arguably is that the Boomers spoiled everything, has no desire to get involved in what looks like a fight between the Boomers and their parents. And Generation Y, having been raised by the Boomers amidst their ambivalence over returning to the old institutional life, doesn't feel half as entitled to -- nor half as interested in -- making that return. Which all begs the question: Where will Generations X and Y go to pursue an organized Jewish community life that suits them, while the synagogues scene is internally dominated by a power struggle between Boomers and pre-Boomers? The most obvious quick answer is, Israel and the Internet, but I think the question deserves deeper consideration.

The story of Sherri's and Neal's synagogue also reminded me of an old insight, from the last time I watched my own synagogue go through these travails. It is that matters of generational politics are actually much more resolvable than we are accustomed to presume. Creative multi-generational solutions are quite attainable. We tend not to attain them because we tend not to look for them in the first place. With the young-adult generations being relatively undetermined at present, with regard to organized Jewish community and what it's good for, yet eager to be challenged to leadership, I see a golden opportunity to propose the challenge of imagining functional multi-generational models.

For instance, if families with chidren would be involved in community functions, whether it be synagogue services or JCC classes or whatever, if only there were childcare or youth programming available at the same venue (this is a common issue of generational contention in synagogues, largely because the Boomers did not demand many accommodations when they first started their families, preferring to try to roll their own on the outside, so the synagogues grew accustomed to not having to deal with the problem so much), then why not challenge the younger Gen Xers and Gen Yers who don't have children yet to find creative and rewarding approaches to generating such accommodations, with the long-term payoff being that these will be in place for them when they do have children? Likewise, why not challenge the younger generations to build educational forums for us to learn from the elders in our communities while they're still with us?

Generational concerns provide potential content for the relatively blank slate of younger generations itching to take ownership of Jewish community. There are plenty of other, more selfish, possibilities; but it seems to me that the decision has not yet been made. There are options still potentially on the table that could spell great promise for our future.

Consumerism In Judaism Revisited

Over at Moshav HaAm, I have begun revisiting the endlessly interesting (to me) subject of Consumerism in Judaism.

Paint Me Tears of Shofar

In preparation for, G!d willing, many a Yom Kipur to come, I'm going to lay out a pallette of ideas here. Over time I'd like to use it for the synthesis of a comprehensive, integrated, and precise accounting of the Days of Awe ritual program. Please comment on where this collection of thoughts leads you, and gmar chatimah tovah!

Rosh HaShanah is known literally as either a day of "remembrance" (zikaron) or a day of "crying" (truah). What is to be remembered? How is it related to crying, and crying of what sort?

The Hebrew truah -- which describes the stoccato, sobbing shofar blowing pattern associated with the individual who is "torn" (Rosh Hashanah 16b) -- seems to derive from the fascinating shoresh (Hebrew root) reysh-ayin, which signifies both "evil" and "fellowship." (See also Leviticus 19:18: "love your fellow" / "love your evil...") This shoresh makes another significant appearance in the Machzor in the closing refrain of the Unetane Tokef: "Return, prayer, and righteous-giving will elide the evil (of the) decree." The "evil" is roa (reysh-ayin).

See also these threads re: truah and/or roa:
Danya Ruttenberg: The Unetane Tokef and Collective Responsibility
Linda Hirschhorn: The Shofar Calls

The Torah and Haftarah readings for Rosh HaShanah all involve crying of various sorts. (The differences between these various sorts and situations of crying are surely significant.) The apparent exception is the second-day R"H Torah reading of the Akeydah, where the crying is found in two midrashim: (1) Rashi on Genesis 27:1 ascribes Yitchak's blindness to tears of angels shed into his eyes upon the altar -- in other words, the Akeydah is significant precisely because Yitzchak doesn't cry; and (2) Leviticus Rabba on Genesis 23:1-2 describes Sarah's death at learning of the Akeydah by way of "six cries, corresponding to the six blasts of the shofar." (How do we get six shofar blasts here?)

(See also R' Gafni's Tears on the Holy Days and Tears, if you can bear teaching from this teacher.)

The Talmud associates Rosh HaShanah's shofar-blowing ritual specifically with the weeping of Sisera's mother. Sisera's mother, and our crying-ritual "remembrance" of her, is striking in a number of ways: She is anonymous, newly bereft of her identity's sole point of reference, Sisera. She is our (the Jews', the Universal Other's) perfect Other, the nameless mother of our harshest enemy. She is a tragic victim of war, of that enmity itself, and of our triumph -- staged conflict having submersed her individual human identity in that of a camp, and then our triumph having obliterated that camp in addition to taking her very own son. She is also, not incidentally, the progenitor of the "teachers of Jerusalem's youth" (Gittin 57b).

More on Sisera's mother and shofar:
R' Melanie Aron: Sounds of the Shofar
Ohr Somayach: Blast It!
R' Alex Israel: Shofar – Facing Uncertainty

I have long suspected that we tend not to comprehend adequately the basic tenent of Jewish faith that G!d rewards and punishes. It seems it is most often used as a foil for our human desire to reward and punish each other. Read not, "it is G!d who rewards and punishes," but rather, "G!d rewards and punishes, so I can too." Such facile theological thinking has produced innumerable callous declarations -- by Jews, Christians, and Muslims -- amounting to, "my homophobia justifies the destruction by Hurricane Katrina," and the like, which really is just me using G!d as a semantic proxy for the punishment of my supposed enemies. I find it more intellectually honest, and humble, to presume that one can't possibly imagine the justification for any suffering, violence, or death. Possibly even, as Marshall Rosenberg might argue, the very idea of reward and punishment, at least insofar as we can comprehend it, is simpleminded and morally corrosive. Better probably to say that, if I'm tempted to think of something as being or warranting a reward or punishment, then I'm referring to something in G!d's domain, which I don't fully understand, so it isn't really my business. I should instead content myself to know that, in this comprehensively holistic Creation, every action or expression has consequences both foreseeable and unforeseeable. Really, that ought to be enough.

What I'm arguing for is a cosmology of something like Karma, and I do so because I think it opens the possiblity for a deep reading of High Holy Days ritual in terms simultaneously of individual and of collective narrative. In particular, there is something we have to remember (we're supposed to spend Elul on this) about our threads of relationship into the world, and then there is a kind of spiritual release, drawn upon that remembrance, whose effectiveness somehow determines the fate of life in the year to come. Simplistically, this could mean that, if I remain enslaved to my grudges and my enmity, then there may be violent consequences in the world this year, that could alternately be transformed if I instead embrace the tears that unify the experiences of my mother Sarah, my enemy's mother Sisera, and me.

More on Tears and Rosh HaShanah:
Dr. Elie Wiesel: Let Us Collect the Tears
Shifra Hendrie: Rosh HaShanah: From Tears to Transformation