Happy Holidays

[broken_soul6286]

Is anyone else highly offended by the group that wants to replace "Happy Holidays" seen at stores, etc with "Merry Christmas?" You know, the one Bill O'Reily talks about but denies participating in? They're going as far as actually BOYCOTTING stores that wish people happy holidays, calling it Un-Christian. They seem to overlook the fact that NOT EVERYONE IS CHRISTIAN!!! Christmas is already a huge holiday that overshadows Hannukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, and any other holidays I may have forgotten (sorry). Are these people really this selfish that they want to COMPLETELY alienate everyone else but the Christmas-celebrators (because not all Christians celebrate Christmas). What's next, are they going to say that having other holidays this time of year affects how they view their own holiday?

It was either the Daily Show or The Colbert Report that called Christmas the only religious federal holiday and it's true. EVERYTHING is closed on Christmas. Christmas specials flood the tv starting after Thanksgiving (if you're lucky). You almost can't live in America without knowing all about Christmas but how much is said about other holidays this time of year?

See the article: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/targetxmas.asp
and another one found on the same site that makes me laugh: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/target.asp

Comments

[virtual-rabbi.livejournal.com]

First, it is not completely clear that they do Xmas just to bug outsiders. They really just like it.

Businesses like Target, even publicly held though they are, are private not public entities and can do as they please. If a Jew has a shop and wants to put up a Menorah, so be it.

This is a culture where the majority are Xtians. That means the society will have an Xtian flavor. If you are not an Xtian you may be somewhat uncomfortable with that. So what?

We are lucky to live in a country that provides maximum inclusion for those who want and maximum freedom for those who don't. I think that's great. Secularized Jews are a bunch of crybabies in this regard and they have---horrors--translated this into an ACLU that attacks the majority culture. I think that is terrible. They want to be totally included in the culture and the freedom to be as different as they choose BUT at the same time they never want to feel any discomfort.

Torah-observant Jews are very different than the majority culture and suffer very much for that fact. But you don't hear them complaining about their "rights." That's because the Torah is about serving God. We have OBLIGATIONS to God, our fellow Jew and to greater humanity. The Torah suggests that every person needs to ask, "What is my OBLIGATION as God's servant and representative toward the person/group I am interacting with at this moment?" NOT "What are my RIGHTS and entitlements that I should expect to get from the other?"

If people worried more about obligations and less about their rights, we would have a much better world.

Pardon me for being confrontive in this particular way, but I challenge you (and all Jews) to choose some particularly Jewish act as prescribed in the Torah to inculcate into your daily life. Do something to be a Jew in more than just name every single day. When you have fully integrated that one mitzvah, pick a second one. When you have arrived at a place where you are serving God through the commandments of the Torah to such an extent that all around you are immediately aware that you are a Jew, THEN see if you have any complaints about Xmas. I think this will mostly be a dead issue.

PS - while you are at it, throw out your television.

Your pal,

Ben
Jew-curmudgeon-poet and virtual_rabbi