This year, a lot of people have commented to me, “Rabbi, it’s amazing that in 2024 the first night of Hanukkah coincides directly with Christmas day. That’s so rare.” This coincidence is rare, having occurred only four times since 1910, but it’s not amazing. Due to the complexities of the Jewish liturgical calendar, which is different from our civil calendar, Hanukkah and Christmas occur close to each other nearly every December. A little less than half the time, one of the eight nights or days of Hanukkah will overlap with Christmas. Though the direct coincidence of the first night of Hanukkah with the ending of Christmas day is quite infrequent, it occurs as part of the two holidays’ proximity during the year. People find this rare holiday overlap to be a source of such amazement, when there is no need for them to do so.
Perhaps underlying their preoccupation is the long-standing, erroneous conflation of the two holidays in American consciousness and culture. It channels unthinking assumptions about Hanukkah as “the Jewish Christmas” or about the indistinguishability of the two holidays. Implicit in such assumptions, Hanukkah is merely a pale reflection of the real reason for the season. This is exacerbated by the gift-giving glut that’s at the heart of this holiday period. Especially at this time of year, American capitalism floods us with the exploitative message that whatever we have, we never have enough. It teaches us to confuse wants with needs, as our acquisitiveness and dollars feed the commercial beast that itself is never sated. I don’t oppose holiday celebrations and gift giving. In these literally and symbolically dark times, more cheer and fun with family and friends, no matter what religion we are, is a good thing. Yet, serving up Hanukkah and Christmas as one big pot of bland holiday shopping soup is not good. This joint holiday season certainly nourishes a sluggish economy. However, it fails to sate our spiritual hunger for deeper values and beliefs by dumbing down Hanukkah and Christmas instead of celebrating them as two distinct worldviews and value systems.
What is amazing to me about these two holidays is not their striking similarities or calendar coincidences, but their meaningful differences. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus whose followers created a powerful daughter religion from Judaism. One of the classic hallmarks of Christian religion is the universalistic mission to convert humanity to its religious message. Hanukkah is about the ancient Jews’ fiercely stubborn refusal to be converted or assimilated by Greek Hellenism which was the cultured but tyrannical global power of their time. One of the classic hallmarks of Jewish religion is the fierce commitment to maintaining one’s distinctive identity and values.
I appreciate the varied myths and messages of our many traditions. They are distinctive approaches to the one God worthy of our respectful curiosity. They emerge from the many experiences of different people, each of which has something to teach humanity. Over many centuries, given the gross imbalance of power between Jews and the dominant Christian societies in which they lived, religious differences between us often resulted in traumatic persecutions of the Jewish community whose scars we continue to bear. In the larger American setting of religious freedom and multicultural pluralism, these differences provide all of us with the exceptional opportunity to foster a truly universalistic society: one in which we celebrate our diversity by learning about each other without trying to change each other.
Hanukkah and Christmas do share with each other and all other winter solstice holidays the emphasis on light. They seek, as it were, to help nature increase light in the world just as we pass the solstice, and the days slowly begin to grow longer. All these traditions tap into our primal terror that the world will grow cold and dark, leaving us to die. When I light my Hanukkah Menorah and my neighbor lights her tree, we are united in performing rituals that act out the ancient human drama of struggling against the literal and symbolic darkness that descends upon us. The beauty of all these rituals of light is that each of them contributes to the same human quest by being different human endeavors. I can appreciate my neighbor’s beautifully lit tree, and she can enjoy the warm glow of my Hanukkah candles without one kind of light dominating or blending with the other.
America is not a melting pot of quaint traditions that are all pretty much the same. America is not a Christian nation that subsumes other religions under the banner of the one true faith. Ideally, America should be a place of many different lights – many different religions and traditions – that are able to join together while remaining meaningfully apart. However closely they occur on the winter calendar, each holiday should be able to shine on its own, helping our nation to be a far more enlightened place.
Dan Ornstein is the rabbi of Congregation Ohav Shalom and a writer living in Albany, NY. Check out his writings at danornstein.com
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