so i have to say good! to this strange you think being a Jew and all? not so! and I'll explain why...
the fact the Jesus may be a valid person who walked, talked, and preached around 2000 years ago means that its possible anyone in the Jewish and Christian Bible walked,talked, and ministered to the masses in the biblical middle east. its a basic umbrella of validity that biblical writings do indeed contain Truths. that the Bible/Torah/Tanach is a valid history not 'folklore'.
so any how...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
some thoughts after the holidays...
The December Dilemma
Every year around December there is a big deal made about Christmas vs. Chanukah and what to do if 1) you are an interfaith family/couple 2) your kids are influenced by their Christian friends 3) any general “what do I do in ________________________ situation?”, type Christmas dilemmas for Jews.
This dilemma is different. This dilemma is a Messiah dilemma.
Being able to stand back and watch the Christmas craziness is very interesting for a non-Christian and considering that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world there are more and more non-Christians out there every year witnessing the nuttiness that is the Christmas Fever or Fervor for that matter. It may sound harsh but it often reminds me of the whole sober person in a room full of drunks scenario.
Watching from the other side of the glass is indeed interesting on a couple of different levels but the one that is the most interesting and causes the infamous dilemma for me is two levels in particular, the Secular Christmas celebrator and the Believer Christmas celebrator. Both of these – for different reasons cause me to question my own personal beliefs in a Messiah every year.
Let’s take the Secular Christmas celebrator. These are the people that for many personal reasons don’t buy into the religion part of the holiday but instead buy into the consumerism side of the Holiday. At first I was tempted to coin it “Hallmark” style side of the holiday but felt that a bit unfair to Hallmark because Hallmark in many, many ways (for all holidays including Valentines!) does an excellent job at focusing on the religious side of a holiday more then the “buying gifts” aspect of all holidays. But I digress…
The non-religious celebrator is difficult for me because coming from the Jewish side it doesn’t make much sense to celebrate a holiday if you do not buy into the religious reasons for the celebration. At this point you are basically mocking the religion of said holiday and making it even more meaningless and trivial to non-Christians.
It would make no sense for a Jew to fast for Yom Kippur if they didn’t believe in redemption (now I get this is nothing like gift giving but give me a break we’re Jews we don’t have holidays like that – that’s right Channukah isn’t about gift giving believe it or not!). Nor would it make sense for a Jew to go through all the Pesach ‘motions’ like leaning to the left and eating the Carpas if we thought the whole Passover story wasn’t real. Therefore it’s very difficult for me to understand the concept of celebrating a holiday you have no religious connection to. Just like Jews who take part in Halloween! Makes no sense…
But the hardest part of my December Dilemma is that part about a Messiah. I’ll just come right out and say it, if I can’t believe that their Messiah isn’t a joke then how will I know when my Messiah comes? How do I know I won’t react the same way to my true Messiah? Being unable to believe in the possibility of their Messiah deeply affects my own personal beliefs in a Jewish Messiah for me.
As Jews I feel we are so busy being caught up defending ourselves against why Jesus isn’t for us (and he isn’t for so many reasons – most of them because he didn’t fulfill the prophecy of the Jewish Messiah to qualify for the job) that we never stop to question our own beliefs in a true Jewish Messiah.
I come from both sides of the road. As a former Christian in multiple Christian roles – I was baptized Presbyterian, raised (during my formable tween and teen years) Episcopalian, was deeply involved in the Episcopalian church as an adult – I was constantly searching for something that the church couldn’t provide and that was reason. Judaism gave me that reason and gave me the faith I was looking for. I couldn’t believe in Jesus as a Messiah as a Christian. Being Jewish made that ok and made it all make sense in the end – because if I was a Jewish Soul of course I wasn’t going to believe in Jesus ‘Christ’.
There was nothing the years of indoctrination into the church was going to do. Nothing the church could say to me since day one of my Human life was going to form my head and heart around Jesus being a Messiah. So was there something wrong with me? No, I was just a Jewish Soul. And I truly believe this.
But if being Christian for 25 years of my life and being very much in love with the idea of Christianity couldn’t convince me of a Messiah then what does that mean for my Jewish self?
And this is my December Dilemma. We scoff and mumble over the silliness of this Christmas holiday and every year we have the ‘what are we going to do’ discussion – because its very difficult as Jews to figure out what to do with your time on a day where everyone is on lock down and I can’t go to the gym or the store or run errands, cause everything is closed, or even enjoy TV without being reminded of Jesus. But I never stop to think about the religious impact the Holiday truly has on my thinking and this scares me a great deal. If I can’t even give the Christians on ounce of true sincerity that hey maybe their Jesus guy might be a Messiah (although the dieing thing doesn’t make much sense) then who am I to say that my Messiah and my Jewish ideas of a Messiah are correct?
To solve this problem for me I really have only one option – and I will admit it is an unsettling option for me but it does help to build my faith – and that option is to ‘put it in G-d’s hands’. This many times is my answer to something I may be having a hard time with and many times it is a relief. This time it offers me no relief though. But I must assume, that if what the Tanach says about the Messiah is True (and because I believe it is the word of G-d I believe this to be so) then it will be obvious when the Messiah comes. It’ll be really hard to miss the dead coming back to life, eternal peace, the rebuilding of the Temple etc. and because of this I put it in G-d’s hands. I have no other choice with this December dilemma in particular.
Every year around December there is a big deal made about Christmas vs. Chanukah and what to do if 1) you are an interfaith family/couple 2) your kids are influenced by their Christian friends 3) any general “what do I do in ________________________ situation?”, type Christmas dilemmas for Jews.
This dilemma is different. This dilemma is a Messiah dilemma.
Being able to stand back and watch the Christmas craziness is very interesting for a non-Christian and considering that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world there are more and more non-Christians out there every year witnessing the nuttiness that is the Christmas Fever or Fervor for that matter. It may sound harsh but it often reminds me of the whole sober person in a room full of drunks scenario.
Watching from the other side of the glass is indeed interesting on a couple of different levels but the one that is the most interesting and causes the infamous dilemma for me is two levels in particular, the Secular Christmas celebrator and the Believer Christmas celebrator. Both of these – for different reasons cause me to question my own personal beliefs in a Messiah every year.
Let’s take the Secular Christmas celebrator. These are the people that for many personal reasons don’t buy into the religion part of the holiday but instead buy into the consumerism side of the Holiday. At first I was tempted to coin it “Hallmark” style side of the holiday but felt that a bit unfair to Hallmark because Hallmark in many, many ways (for all holidays including Valentines!) does an excellent job at focusing on the religious side of a holiday more then the “buying gifts” aspect of all holidays. But I digress…
The non-religious celebrator is difficult for me because coming from the Jewish side it doesn’t make much sense to celebrate a holiday if you do not buy into the religious reasons for the celebration. At this point you are basically mocking the religion of said holiday and making it even more meaningless and trivial to non-Christians.
It would make no sense for a Jew to fast for Yom Kippur if they didn’t believe in redemption (now I get this is nothing like gift giving but give me a break we’re Jews we don’t have holidays like that – that’s right Channukah isn’t about gift giving believe it or not!). Nor would it make sense for a Jew to go through all the Pesach ‘motions’ like leaning to the left and eating the Carpas if we thought the whole Passover story wasn’t real. Therefore it’s very difficult for me to understand the concept of celebrating a holiday you have no religious connection to. Just like Jews who take part in Halloween! Makes no sense…
But the hardest part of my December Dilemma is that part about a Messiah. I’ll just come right out and say it, if I can’t believe that their Messiah isn’t a joke then how will I know when my Messiah comes? How do I know I won’t react the same way to my true Messiah? Being unable to believe in the possibility of their Messiah deeply affects my own personal beliefs in a Jewish Messiah for me.
As Jews I feel we are so busy being caught up defending ourselves against why Jesus isn’t for us (and he isn’t for so many reasons – most of them because he didn’t fulfill the prophecy of the Jewish Messiah to qualify for the job) that we never stop to question our own beliefs in a true Jewish Messiah.
I come from both sides of the road. As a former Christian in multiple Christian roles – I was baptized Presbyterian, raised (during my formable tween and teen years) Episcopalian, was deeply involved in the Episcopalian church as an adult – I was constantly searching for something that the church couldn’t provide and that was reason. Judaism gave me that reason and gave me the faith I was looking for. I couldn’t believe in Jesus as a Messiah as a Christian. Being Jewish made that ok and made it all make sense in the end – because if I was a Jewish Soul of course I wasn’t going to believe in Jesus ‘Christ’.
There was nothing the years of indoctrination into the church was going to do. Nothing the church could say to me since day one of my Human life was going to form my head and heart around Jesus being a Messiah. So was there something wrong with me? No, I was just a Jewish Soul. And I truly believe this.
But if being Christian for 25 years of my life and being very much in love with the idea of Christianity couldn’t convince me of a Messiah then what does that mean for my Jewish self?
And this is my December Dilemma. We scoff and mumble over the silliness of this Christmas holiday and every year we have the ‘what are we going to do’ discussion – because its very difficult as Jews to figure out what to do with your time on a day where everyone is on lock down and I can’t go to the gym or the store or run errands, cause everything is closed, or even enjoy TV without being reminded of Jesus. But I never stop to think about the religious impact the Holiday truly has on my thinking and this scares me a great deal. If I can’t even give the Christians on ounce of true sincerity that hey maybe their Jesus guy might be a Messiah (although the dieing thing doesn’t make much sense) then who am I to say that my Messiah and my Jewish ideas of a Messiah are correct?
To solve this problem for me I really have only one option – and I will admit it is an unsettling option for me but it does help to build my faith – and that option is to ‘put it in G-d’s hands’. This many times is my answer to something I may be having a hard time with and many times it is a relief. This time it offers me no relief though. But I must assume, that if what the Tanach says about the Messiah is True (and because I believe it is the word of G-d I believe this to be so) then it will be obvious when the Messiah comes. It’ll be really hard to miss the dead coming back to life, eternal peace, the rebuilding of the Temple etc. and because of this I put it in G-d’s hands. I have no other choice with this December dilemma in particular.
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