Surely I'm not the only one, but there's no point in generalizing here -- it's hard enough for me to figure out what's going through my head, so I can't hardly claim to know what other Jews think, or why they think as they do. In retrospect, it's fair to say that Christmas Trees touched on a number of unexamined, sensitive spots for me; sensitive likely because they were unexamined. So when a Christmas Tree -- more specifically, my then-girlfriend/now-wife's Christmas Tree -- first entered my life and then my home, I found myself ill-prepared to handle the latent emotions and underlying prejudices that bubbled up to the surface. Having examined these thoughts and feelings over the past few years, though, I must admit that I've learned a great deal as well as found a lot of new answers to questions that I thought were settled.
For a long time, Christmas Trees represented a lot of wrong things for me: the hegemony of Christianity and Christian culture in the U.S. and the concommitant minority status of Jews; "trojan horses" carrying Christian symbolism and theology into secular spaces -- and, of course, some Jewish homes -- under the guise of celebrating multidenominationalism or cultural tolerance; and, somewhat contradictorily, as an example of the dumbing down of religion whereby something that once meant something specific to some people, comes to mean nothing as a result of its morphing into a symbol of something to all people. In my book, it was more than fine if Christians wanted to have their Christmas Trees, but when they get pushed in my face every year and put up in every Manhattan office building; when I hear about the beleagured Christian masses under assault by the so-called "War Against Christmas" I'm allegedly waging against them; when I get told that Christmas Trees arent' so much about "Christmas" as about the holidays...well, that's all a different story. So one the one hand, clearly the issue wasn't the tree per se; it was what the tree represented vis-a-vis my perception of Jew's position in American society. And as for having a tree; no way was I going to ever have one of those things in my house. Assimilationist Jews who had no knowledge or interest in knowing their culture and religion might have one, but not me. And anyway, wasn't there some relationship between the wood of the tree and the wood of the cross, and wasn't the star on top of the tree the "Little Star of Bethlehem" under which that good Jewish boy named Yeshua was born? You get the point.
There was, though, a pretty major exception in my family. I have an aunt who was and is Jewish, always had a Christmas tree growing up, and continued to do so into adulthood. Funny thing, in spite of all my issues with Christmas Trees, her having one never seemed to bother me too much. I certainly didn't and don't think of her as an "Assimilationist Jew" with no interest in things Jewish; my aunt and uncle went to shul, celebrated the holidays, and, well, let's just say if you didn't know about the Tree Situation, you'd have never guessed. Actually I never saw anything wrong in her practice, which is odd given my own strong feelings about the matter. But looking back now, of course I wouldn't have had a problem with it: my hangups were the result of unexamined assumptions, not reasoned logic; I was the one with an unclear sense of boundary between my Jewishness and American-Christian society, not her. I mean, her tree violated no Jewish laws (at least not in my book), and besides, she was/is my aunt! Silly, I know, but personal connections often trump general prejudices.
And therein lies the rub. To know someone is to have context, and to know one's self is to have self-assuredness. A Christmas Tree represents nothing more or less than what I see when I look at them, and what I see is not some God-given (or socially-determined) fact but rather what I allow myself to see: What remains after I open my eyes and do my best to see what is in front of me without regard to preconceived notions or fears, or ideas long-ago planted in Jewish summer camp...or concerns that, somehow, the scope and content of my Jewish identity is something that is open to judgment and interpretation by others.
I first started to really think about Christmas Trees in the context of my relationship with my then-girfriend, now wife (I'll call her "N"). For N, they were a symbol of much family warmth and togetherness; all good things. So of course she always had one and planned to continue having them around come Christmastime. As we became closer, it became clearer that Trees were going to be a part of our life, and that awakened some of these long-dormant issues I've been talking about here. In particular, as our relationship depeened, the fact that she wasn't Jewish started to loom a little larger, and as that happened, certain little things that wouldn't otherwise be that big of a deal started to feel like they were important.
These little things, I discovered, weren't always obvious ones.
But one of them was the Tree.
In a way it was a fortuitous thing on which to be fixated, because while it helped bring into sharper relief some of the religious issues under the surface, the thing itself -- the Christmas Tree -- was so thoroughly unobtrusive and unobjectionable, and was so definitely going to be a fixture in our life together, that I really had no choice but to "get over it." Looking back at that period of time, when I came to terms with the Tree, I see myself as a sort of addict who, when confronted by friends and family during an Intervention, comes up with every bogus, self-serving explanation in the book to avoid admitting the problem...but in reverse. I knew the tree was a-commin into my life, but as I finally turned to face it, what came out was:
- What kind of Jew has a Christmas Tree in his house?!?
- What does it say about my real beliefs and feelings that I would have a Tree in my house? That I would live with someone who wanted a Tree in the house? What's wrong with me?
- If I let a Tree into my house, what else will find its way into my house?
- What will other Jews think of me? Will I be accepted or rejected by my family?
- How will letting this Tree into the house -- how will the decision to let it into my house -- change me as a person in unforseen, negative ways?
The easy answer is no, of course not: As I was finally able to give voice to these questions, to answer them, and to follow the answers to their logical conclusions, I learned that what was really going on was that a deeply-seeded set of ideas on which I was raised and educated came into conflict with another, ultimately more powerful set of liberal ideas that I was exposed to and came to adopt as an adult...and that the point at which they met was where my inevitable work must be done.
The harder answer, however, one that cannot be answered in a few paragraphs -- and the search for which is a major reason I have started this blog -- is that I don't really know what is at stake when a parochial, religious identity comes up against a self-styled modern, liberal mindset. I don't know what the implications are of all this, of how the answers to new questions -- how turning over the stones of my Jewish identity -- will change things...will change me.
But I do know that I'm grateful that N and her Christmas Tree are in my life. Ironically, they have pushed me to understand my own Judaism in ways I would never have anticipated, "to turn it this way and that," to not take for granted.
Who woudda thunk it?
Fun and/or Disurbing Things to Read:
On Being a Jew at Christmas
Hertzel's Christmas Tree
What Do Jews Do On Christmas?
Toby Belfer Never Had a Christmas Tree (!)
A Lonely Jew on Christmas
Christmas for Jews
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