Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
Electronic Christmas Cards – Missing the Point
1. As an orthodox Jew it is always comforting to see that most religions get most things wrong in most of the same ways.
2. For the past few years on the Jewish festival of Purim the pleasing law of exchanging small edible gifts has been eroded by the advent of a crop of smug little cards, saying things along the lines of “We think there is too much waste involved in giving mishloach monos – so we have given charity on your behalf instead.”
3. It is wonderful to give charity. But it is not the point of Purim gifts. The point of them is to show that before tucking into my own delightful Purim meal I have thought about what my friends and family will have for theirs. I also have to think about those without enough to eat at all – and there is an entirely separate duty of giving money to charity on Purim itself. It is not about spending lots of money on food that will be wasted (so the Talmud states that in some cases exchanging meals is the best answer): but it is about thinking of my friends and translating my thoughts into actions that will enhance their pleasure and comfort.
4. Christmas cards used to have the same idea. As I wandered among my colleagues’ offices I would see piles of cards, showing that people were thinking of each other at this time of year and translating that into action: now I see far fewer – they have been largely replaced by smug little electronic messages which swamp the ether along the lines of “We are saving the planet by not sending out any Christmas cards this year”.
5. There is no point in having a planet at all if we are going to make it as miserable and devoid of comfort as possible. Christmas cards are important. They translate thoughts into action and show people with whom we may have little contact the rest of the year that they matter to us enough not merely to add them to a copy list of a row of smug electronic dots, but enough to take a card, find a picture they will appreciate, write a message that will brighten their day, and go along to the Post Office to send it.
6. Religions of the world: unite against the depersonalisation of human relationships!
Christmas without God – the Jewish Objection to Harry Potter
- As soon as I had recovered from denouncing Harry Potter as derivative tripe (ie as soon as I stopped talking about it and started reading it) I found it a powerful and absorbing work, with a moral tone that generally made it ideal escapist literature to fill the odd hour or two in the bath. But after a while something started to bother me, and as the bubble bath subsided I worked out what it was.
- Harry Potter is the ultimate secular novel. It sanitises moralilty and attempts to divorce it entirely from any kind of religious tradition. It is, in fact, the second important literary work which is all about good and evil and manages to avoid all mention of God. We have Christmas scenes – without God. We have a portrayal of the after-life – without God. We have all kinds of ethical and moral issues – without God.
- The other major literary work that studiously avoids the G-word is the Book of Esther in the Bible. But rabbinic tradition has it that although the name of God is absent, every time the word “The King” (one word in Hebrew) appears it is to be read as referring both to King Achashverosh and also, in some way, to God. The point is that while the story operates at a secular level, God is never far away. He is hovering underneath every line of the story, and challenging the characters to find Him in their everyday lives. And the characters seek Him out through prayer in the dark times and acknowledge His kindness by showing kindness to each other in the good times.
- Jewish thought teaches us to trust in humans only in so far as their moral instincts derive from the imagery of God in which we were created. To guide and fashion those instincts we need to look for God all the time, trying to find different ways of uncovering His influences in the world and enhancing His influence on our lives. We should not try to write Him out of the story, abandoning long-standing religious traditions for pure secular self-reliance.
The Sceptic Blog 