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A: As befits a website with a social and contextual way of looking
at things, a bit of history would be in order. If you've gotten
this far, you probably already know that there are at least two
calendars in use today: the Jewish calendar, with lunar months
modified by solar years, in which the current year is numbered
5760, and the calendar that the rest of North America uses, in
which it is the year 1999. This latter calendar is technically
known as the Gregorian calendar, because it was instituted by
Pope Gregory XIII about 1700 years ago. It replaced the Julian
calendar which had been instituted a few hundred years before
that, by Julius Caesar (of the salad fame J ), which in turn was
a replacement for the older Roman Imperial calendar, which kept
getting abused by officials in power who added months to the year
to extend their terms in office!
As you can see, a calendar is by definition a human creation,
a way of organizing our time and the rhythms of our year, and
in fact there are dozens of other calendrical systems now in use,
a fact which can be verified by simply typing the word "calendar"
into an Internet search engine and getting page after page of
different entries, some of which compare one kind of calendar
to another- say, the Druid to the Hindu, or the Christian to the
Moslem calendar, or the Jewish calendar to the Aztec one, and
so on. There isn't even just one "Christian" calendar; to the
best of my understanding, certain Eastern Orthodox (Christian)
communities will celebrate their millennium a few days later than
the rest of the Christian world.
The main feature of the Gregorian calendar, of course, is the
centrality of the birth of the Christian messiah. For example,
dates before that purportedly seminal event are called BC (before
Christ) and afterwards, AD (Latin anno domini, "in the year of
our Lord"). Although the Gregorian calendar is merely a social
convention for Jews who live in a society that uses it, one interesting
Jewish connection has to do with New Year's day itself. If you
count from Dec 25th, the day many (but not all) Christians celebrate
Christmas, the purported birthday of the Christian messiah, and
then count the number of days till Jan 1, you always get - c'mon,
do the math.. . . . . . eight. That might ring a bell, because
it's on the eighth day that Jewish boys are traditionally circumcised.
So, what New Year's Day historically celebrates, according to
one way of looking at it, is the circumcision feast of a Jewish
boy born about 2000 years ago (if in fact such a boy really existed)
whom many people- but not religious Jews of any denomination-
believe to be their messiah.
Of course, the Christian connection is very obscure for many people;
to them, (Gregorian) New Year's eve is just a big party time,
and this year, a VERY big party time. One could argue that the
Christian connection is so obscure that Jews just shouldn't worry
about it, they should just join their friends and neighbors in
a marking of the turn of time, and have fun along with the other
members of the society in which we live. Most years, I actually
tend to agree with this, but one could also argue that the Christian
origins of the celebration of the (Gregorian) New Year are inescapable,
even if obscured, and therefore Jews should <not> have anything
to do with New Year's Eve parties and the like. This might be
comparable to arguments over Christmas trees in public places;
some people say they are neutral seasonal symbols, and therefore
unoffensive to Jews, while others say that they are clearly signs
of a Christian holiday, and thus dangerous when North American
governments appear to endorse Christianity as the official civic
religion.
So Y2K isn't really a different problem for Jews than any other
January 1st, except for the fact that this (Gregorian) New Year's
Eve is Friday night, Shabbat in the Jewish week. Clearly, as a
rabbi, I'm in favor of Jews celebrating Shabbat according to the
custom of their community, and just as clearly, quite a lot of
the (Gregorian) New Year's Eve type of activities are not going
to be "Y2K Shabbat-Compatible." Shabbat is a special spiritual
time to connect with God, self, family, and community; noisy parties
and other secular events have a very different feel to them.
OK, so what about marking the Millennium in a way that is compatible with the spirit of Shabbat? Well, that's debatable,
as above. If you think (Gregorian) New Year's Eve is inherently
Christian, you probably wouldn't want any part of it at your Shabbat
table. If you think it's just a nice time for North Americans
to celebrate together, then there's probably nothing wrong with
making a toast or talking about your hopes for the future or having
friends and family over for an extra-long, extra fun Shabbat dinner
party. Some synagogues are doing this, but not all for the same
reason. Some synagogues are having special Shabbat events that
evening because they want to give Jews an alternative to (Gregorian)
New Year's Eve, and some are doing it because they want to celebrate
the general North American New Year (and millennium) in a particularly
Jewish kind of way.
As for Kolel? Well, we're having a Shabbat program (Millennium, Shmillennium) too that night, and probably our reasons include a little bit
of both perspectives discussed above. We want to give Jews a wonderful
Shabbat experience, but it's a great night to do it, when there
will be people who want to escape the Y2K hype, while at the same
time, there will be others who want to do something special that
night, and might not have elsewhere to go.
So, like many other aspects of life, it seems to me there is a
balance here. As Jews, we can't escape the pressures of living
as a minority in a Christian society, yet we can try to remember
that our Jewish rhythms in time have a deep integrity, and can
add immeasurable richness to our lives. There's nothing inherently
wrong with celebrating certain aspects of North American culture-
Canada Day, or the American Independence Day- but sometimes Judaism
takes priority, and for Jews, the primary "New Year's" experience
is on Rosh Hashana, when we evaluate our lives and repair what
needs fixing. Does that mean we shouldn't party on Dec 31st? My
feeling is that thoughtful Jews, who do a bit of research and
soul-searching, can trust their gut to know how to balance the
pressures of the two civilizations in which we live.
What do you think? What are your Dec. 31st plans? Tell us about them in the
Kolel interactive forum, and the Reb will join the discussion.
NJL
Sources: Encarta Internet Encyclopaedia; Encyclopaedia Judaica. |
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