Call it a Christmas Tree
At a conference on religion a priest, a minister and a rabbi were all asked the same question, "What would you like people to say about you after you die?"
The priest said, "I hope that people will say that I was able to rise above the troubles that are plaguing the Catholic Church at this time. I hope that people would say that I was able to shepherd my flock through this crisis and help them to understand the absolute love that G-d has for all of them as Catholics."
The minister then said, "When I die I hope that people will say that I saved many souls by bringing them to G-d. I hope that I will be remembered as a caring, thoughtful man who always spread the Word, and a faith everlasting in G-d. I hope that my preaching and converting will be carried on in my memory."
Finally, the rabbi was asked, "And you Rabbi, what do you hope people will say about you after you have died?"
And without pausing, the rabbi says, "Look. He's breathing."
Last week I was interviewed for a documentary and the interviewer rather than asking me a list of questions posed just one, and it was the most interesting of questions to me. He said that he’s been meeting and interviewing priests, ministers and rabbis and asking them what they think about holiday trees.
The context of the question is that over the past number of years there has been a steadying decay of Christmas trees throughout the city. In city hall, business lobbies and schools there are trees, but people are being told that they are holiday trees, and not Christmas trees.
So the interviewer asked me what I thought of the change.
And before I answered my mind carried itself back to my childhood, when on Christmas day we would head into New York City – the streets would be quiet, the stores closed, the only people out were either Jews or atheists – and I would see the tree in Rockefeller Centre, I would hear the caroling and store decorations – and they made me feel warm. I knew it was Christmas time, and while I was Jewish, in fact very Jewish, I admired the symbols of this time of year.
So in the present I told the interviewer that I have a huge problem with the renaming of the trees as holiday trees, because they’re not holiday trees. The trees are a rich symbol of Christmas, and the design and trend to cut it down into an ecumenical, and secular holiday symbol is offensive to me, and I’m not even a Christian.
But I am a man of faith.
And there is a disturbing trend in Canada, in fact a near embedded social reality, of not simply secularism. But of an anti religious sentimentality – a sentimentality that not only is distant from religion, but a sentimentality that looks to actively marginalize religion. It happened with how the government has handled the question of marriage in this country – because marriage was and is an institution founded, and shaped by religion – but also in the current debate of religious freedoms and religious autonomy.
And there are more subtle behaviors as well; where the society as a whole is suspicious of faith, and people with faith. It is seen in the absolute absence of religions sentiment from our public discourse and dialogue, and it is seen in the renaming of Christmas trees into holiday trees.
It offends me because I wouldn’t want a Chanukah Menorah renamed into some nebulous creation as a “holiday lantern”. So if it bothers me, how could it not bother our Christian neighbors?
I’m sure it does. And it’s wrong.
Which leads us to this idea: in the context of society and human life we have 2 devices: signs and symbols.
Signs are abundant and everywhere. They tell us where to go, when to stop, which door to use, and which door not to. Signs tell us what is safe, and signs warn us of great dangers. Signs tell us what we need to find, and signs tell us what something will cost us: either the sign of a price tag on a sweater, or the sign on a carton of cigarettes that warns the smoker of the grave dangers of cancer as the price of smoking.
Symbols are of course different.
Symbols do not provide the simplicity of directions or warnings. Symbols are not things that are shaped in a committee meeting or from the sketches of an engineer’s desk. Symbols are the by products of many generations. Of their thinking and sacrifice, and of their commitment and devotion to great ideals and values. As they have passed down these commitments to us, they transcend the simple observance and become symbols of meaning.
And that’s why Christmas trees are symbols.
Just as a Chanukah Menorah is, just as Shabbat and Kashrut are – these are all symbols of great beliefs that have come before us. Each of these are symbols that rise above the singleness of me alone.
In short, signs tell us what to do, but symbols teach us what to feel.
And isn’t that the great challenge to all of our lives – because we do not suffer from a lack of knowing what to do. In fact, our lives are overwhelmed with directions and information. We, the children of the most information saturated generation to ever live, know well what to do, and where to go.
But we do suffer from a lack of meaning; of knowing what to feel, and how to love. We stumble through our seasons seldom understanding that life is not about having, it is not about the business driven obsessions of conquering of time and space – but life is about doing, and the very human obsession with feeling.
The signs in our life tell us what to do, but the symbols teach us what to feel.
And we need this now more than ever.
As we speak of signs and symbols this morning, I am reminded of a story that a friend related to me from his uncle who is a rabbi in England.
The late Shlomo Carlebach, a world famous rabbi and Jewish folk singer, was in England this night before he got on the very plane where he was struck by his fatal heart attack. Before getting onto that fateful flight, my friend’s uncle, the English rabbi, had turned to Shlomo and asked him to share some new story from amongst his awesome array of stories of faith.
Shlomo looked at him and smiled. He said "O.k., holy brother – he always called other Jews holy brother – “sure, I’ll tell you a story I haven't told before".
He then told him of a friend of his who was a survivor of Auschwitz. This friend recounted an event from the camps. There was a very devout and sweet older man named Yosi in the camp barracks with him. Yosi was determined not to let the Nazis destroy his Jewish pride and his heritage.
As a result he insisted on fasting on Yom Kippur, even though that meant not eating the one ration they received daily. As Yosi trudged through the camp performing all the mindless functions of slave labor, his lips would be silently mouthing the book of psalms. In fact, Yosi would measure his days by the number of times he would succeed in "going through" the book of psalms. But on his last Hanukah, Yosi was determined to light Hanukah candles. After allot of work and searching, he was able to get hold of a little bit of vegetable oil, after bartering away his only pair of winter boots.
As Chanukah came, he lit the homemade candle and his face beamed and glowed in the reflection of the candle. Within minutes the door burst open and the Nazis clamored into the barracks. They demanded to know who was the fool who had lit the candle. And they threatened to kill the entire barracks if they would not tell who the culprit was. Yosi, although hunched over with age and pain, stepped forward and said, "It is I. I lit the candles".
At that moment, the Holocaust survivor had told Shlomo, that he had never seen Yosi stand so straight and proud. The murderers hustled him outside...and they shot him dead. But in their rush to kill, they forgot to put out the Chanukah candle.
And then the survivor told him, “I know that you are not going to believe me...but that candle flickered on for the rest of Hanukah..."
Shlomo then told this rabbi, "And that's it...that's the story. Can’t you see? This is not only the story of Yosi, but it’s a symbol of the Jewish people."
So here is the true and real thing: signs tell us exactly what to do. But signs direct and guide us not as people but as things.
It is only in the symbol that we can find our true selves – because symbols allow us to feel what we want to feel, they permit us to express the singleness of me. There is never a wrong way to feel when it comes to a symbol, because the symbol only wants to make sure that we feel. If signs are about having, then symbols are the great gift in being.
It is the symbol which remind us of the words of the great writer Norman Cousins who wrote, “That death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”
In other words, you can live without symbols but why would anyone want to?
Shabbat Shalom