"Chardakim": Hysterical, Fear-based Propaganda - Just for Kids!

The anti-army, anti-State-of-Israel wing of the Charedi community has once again outdone itself, creating this lovely little comic leaflet which it has littered the streets with, coining a new term for Charedim who join the army: "Chardakim". They call it an acronym for "Charedim Kalei Da'at" (weak-minded Charedim), but really it's a play on the word "chaydakim" which means bacteria/germs. (You can see a few strange bug-like creatures in the comic which attest to this. Of course they'd have no clue that microbes look nothing like bugs!) Basically, the point being made here is that Charedim who join the army are "idiots" who do the "evil" government's bidding, and what's worse: they're coming after little kids. The term "chardakim" depicts them as "germs," a disease, something to "cleanse" the neighborhood of.

This is the message they're hammering into the heads of impressionable kids. It's like I said in a previous post, living in "la-la land" and believing in crazy stuff might work at the Shabbos table, but those crazy-chickens eventually come home to roost, sometimes in the form of insidious propaganda like this, which pumps hysteria and hatred into the next generation of charedi kids.

Anyway, I'm going to let this flyer speak for itself (see translation below):

(Click to enlarge)

"For the sake of our future!!! For the sake of our children!!!... 
We guard cleanliness !!!
THIS AREA IS CLEAN FROM 'CHARDAKIM'*
Passage of Chardakim in this area is definitely forbidden 
*Chardakim = Charedim Kalei Da'at / Weak-minded charedim - See the Encyclopedia Judaica, p. 134."

Side 2 (click to enlarge)

(Kids running away) "Immaleh, help!" (Charedi soldier bursting through wall) "Hooray, I have it... What fun... I have a rifle..." (Other side of wall, sign reads) "State of Evil and Annihilation"   (Man, presumably Netanyahu, says) "It's on my dictate that all the army runs - I won't rest until I see all these charedim on the core curriculum of the Israeli army or at least in national service."  "Ha, ha, ha... This idiot is doing our work for us - beautiful!"

On the other side of the leaflet, it says (using images of rifles and more kids fleeing in fear): "The goal: To destroy the Charedi character. The method: Conscription of Chardakim to the IDF and national service."

There are other leaflets as well, all with similar "comical" images. One says:

(With foot stamping on/kicking charedi soldiers) "Chardakim out!" (Other side, showing charedi soldiers being roped in) "The Chardakim decided to meet their end like sheep to the slaughter." (Netanyahu and general) "Don't pressure them - give a little smile, a little money, and they'll be here on all fours." "Ha, ha, ha - these idiots are still smiling. They don't dream of what awaits them." "Come, 'sheepelach', come, it's a Charedi atmosphere." (Charedi soldiers on all fours) "Mooo... Money... Mooo". (Child running away) "Oy, these Chardakim are getting in... They have no Olam Hazeh and no Olam Habah." (Dead charedi soldiers) "Where is the home... where are the children... where are the old friends... Shabbos... Chagim... Oy tatteh... They burned my neshamah." "I always knew that this money isn't everything, but they pressured me... money... career... success... They created this kind of mood, that I forgot to think about the result... That's it - now everything is dead."

Another says:

"There were Tzedukim. There were Kara'im (Karaites). There were Shabatai'im (Shabbatai Tzvi followers). There were Frankistim (followers of Ya'akov Frank - another false messiah). There are Maskilim (enlightened secularists). There are Reformim. There are Zionists. There are Mizrachistim (not even sure what that is - some slight on the knit-kippa community I suspect). And there are also... CHARDAKIM ! Changing identity in the army and in national service." (image of black hat with a bug underneath it) "Enough! I'm already sick of carrying the burden of this black hat. I'm not ready to wait until age 22 in order to be free from it. We have to find a way from age 16. This is already intolerable. If the rabbis don't let the Chardakim advance Charedi society from within, we have to find rabbis to our liking and push our way to the front with them." (On the other side...) "Another solution from the Chardakim factory: 'We're losing out on Parnasah'." (Image of a Charedi demonstration with the following signs) "Chardak - leave our camp." "Separate from me - don't trample our children." "Go fight Amalek - Chardakim out!" "The Torah states: Separate from a bad dwelling and do not associate with an evil person - the Chardakim are trampling us!" (Charedi soldier jumping from charedi demonstration into flames) "Hooray! What fun... Also action... and also parnasah..." 

There's more - honestly it's just too nauseating to keep going. I think you get the idea. It seems they plan to hold a demonstration today. I won't translate that flyer except for this one ditty: "We won't sell our children to snoring hyraxes and gluttonous rabbits and pigs."

Do hyraxes "snore"? Not sure (you'll have to ask R. Slifkin), but one thing's for sure - we can't afford to snore. The crazy beliefs and cartoonish depictions of bugs in hats all seem laughable - but these people are deadly serious, and new generations of children are being raised on blind hatred, with no ability to discern for themselves. I'm just glad it's the "Chardakim" who are carrying the rifles - and not them!

I Finally Counted All 49 Days of the Omer... So?

Well, for the first time in my frum life (as far as I recall), I counted each of the 49 days of the Omer with a bracha. Most years, I'm usually "out" within the first two weeks. I miss a Maariv in shul, then forget to say it the next day - and that's it. (And when you "lose the bracha", there's a tendency to lose heart/interest and stop counting the Omer altogether, which is the actual Torah mitzvah - the bracha is just a rabbinic mitzvah. Which is its own problem I'm not getting into here...) Anyway, for all the Omer-related drashot people make about "counting" and "being counted", if there's one thing you could pretty much count on, it's me forgetting to count the Omer.

So how'd I do it this time around? A daily alarm on my smartphone. Simple as that.

Now... The point of this post is not (just) to offer myself self-congratulations. It's to talk about the significance I ascribe to finishing the Omer with a bracha... Cosmic significance?... Zero. Mitzvah points?... Doesn't concern me. Hashem loves me for it?... Come on, you know me better than that! So why does it matter one iota whether I complete the Omer, or even count one single day of it for that matter? In the objective sense, IT DOESN'T. I don't believe I accomplished anything for the Jewish people, for the world, or secured any reward for myself. I won no favor with God, pulled no strings in shamayim.

What I did was this: I set a goal for myself, figured out what it would take for me to reach that goal, implemented a solution - and I was successful. It was 100% a personal exercise. That's all.

I'm one of these people who admittedly has trouble committing myself to doing something day-in-and-day-out for any considerable stretch of time. Inevitably something comes up - either I forget, or I get distracted, or I'm not feeling well, or I'm just plain lazy - any number of reasons/excuses which come up in life. So to set my mind to it and actually do this for 49 days straight IS an accomplishment for me. And it also has the effect of "mitzvah goreret mitzvah" - where one mitzvah "drags" another one along with it. Meaning, when you do something right, you "build muscles" which make it easier to do the next time. If I'm consistent with something like counting the Omer, it builds the confidence and experience that can make it easier for me to be consistent in a different context... and maybe, hopefully, with something that really and truly "counts".

A good Chag Shavuot to all!

Ba'al Teshuva La-La Land

It starts off innocently enough... Just really wanting to do what Hashem wants from you, trying to get a good seat in the World to Come, ending your devar Torah with "And may we see the coming of Moshiach bimhera beyameinu". But at a certain point the "fantasyland" fun and games start to have real-life consequences.

I'm speaking in this case about many of my contemporaries who came through the ba'al teshuva yeshiva track here in Israel and are now living "charedi-lite" lifestyles. They're open, educated, working, good people, generally happy, but also "serious", affiliate with black-hat institutions and rabbis, and want to send their kids along the yeshivish path, which they perceive (and with some justification) as being the path to becoming/getting married to a talmid chacham, which of course they want for their children.

But even in ba'al teshuva yeshivas there's a sense that the "ba'al habatim" (working folks) are a sort of nebach (pathetic) class of people - they're not "zocheh" (smart enough, committed enough, spiritual enough) to be part of the elite, cream-of-the-crop class of talmidei chachamim, those who learn/teach Torah all day, but instead have to go out there and work the grindstone. But still it's a "kosher" way to go - you can be accepted in the community, and even respected/kowtowed to for the money you bring to shuls and Torah institutions.

Now where it comes to the children of these people, it's an altogether different story. Yes, Israeli charedi schools accept the fact that the parents may be working (again, how else are they supposed to get tuition money otherwise?), but the indoctrination/expectation (even in "liberal" yeshiva ketanas where they offer bagrut/matriculation testing in secular subjects) is that you don't go into the army, don't go for higher education, get no career training - but simply go on to "yeshiva gevoha" (post-high school) for an indefinite period. In other words, the default is a life of kolel. Which means these children are being supported by their parents (fully or partially) indefinitely. And what about the children of these children, who have no parental support since their parents were themselves supported? Well, it's pretty much a bare-bones existence, barely scraping by with kolel stipends, government subsidies, and whatever income the woman of the house can earn in her free time - when she's not taking care of all the kids.

What I'm trying to say here is that the "la la land" of ba'al teshuva-hood (and charedi olim-hood in general) is extremely short-sighted and naive. Yes, it "works" at the Shabbos table. It works for you. It might be able to work for your kids. But what about theirs?

And it drives me absolutely nuts to see my friends, like lemmings, just walking over that cliff one after the other, trying to send their kids to "top" yeshivas, and unwittingly condemning their future generations to poverty, not to mention "unenlightenment" - all that openness and worldliness and secular knowledge and wealth of experiences that they brought to their new-found observance just "X-ed out", erased, certainly for their grandkids - and to a lesser extent their own kids - who will be getting the charedi-brand indoctrination of Torah 24/7 their entire lives.

I'm not even going to get into the issue of community-wide army exemptions here, which to me is inexcusable and immoral. I won't even get into the "shidduch" expectations of the charedi world that wide-eyed ba'alei teshuva have no idea what insanity they're getting themselves into. I'm not getting into the fact that their kids are going to learn to ignore (or at worst hold real antipathy toward) the State of Israel, which supports them and allows them to live in "eretz Yisroel", and look down their noses at (or at worst view as the enemy) the vast majority of secular/non-charedi Jews living in Israel - their brothers and sisters in "Klal Yisroel".

Now of course there's hope. The hope is that you impart such a strong imprint on your kids as to the importance of working, supporting yourself, seeing the value of contributing to the wider society, learning something about the world, appreciating the State, and loving all Jews charedi to secular, that somehow they are able to buck the system, deflect the indoctrination, and be part of the 5% (to make up a figure) who forge their own path. (Either that or the hope is that the parents and/or kids leave Israel before it's too late.) But that's not exactly giving your kids a fighting chance - it's "relying on miracles".

And it all started with a simple belief in Hashem and longing for Moshiach. But the thing is, if you train yourself to be naive, and believe in (and I'm sorry to have to use such a dismissive word) "nonsense" on a theoretical Torah level, then you open yourself up to dangerously naive faith in the whole "system", against what should be your better common sense. And that has very real, and sometimes very unfortunate, practical consequences.

So "wake up" folks - shake off the fairy dust and high-tail it out of la-la land! Don't go the way of the lemming.

"Have You Checked Your Mezuzahs?"

I've made a couple of trips to "Terem" (local emergency medical clinic) recently with two of my children, including last night. (Everyone's ok - just kids having normal kid-type accidents, though it doesn't make it any less traumatic when it happens!) So after a fairly long evening I get home, and a neighbor, knowing about the previous accident, asks me with grave concern: "Have you checked your mezuzahs?"

I'll tell you why the question irks me. First off, here I am coming back home from what was obviously a stressful ordeal, and now somehow I'm to blame for it, because I haven't checked all my mezuzahs recently? I know he wasn't "blaming" me - but the implication is that I'm supposed to be the one taking care of my household, yet I'm not ensuring that we have basic "spiritual protection". But the other thing I'm left shaking my head at is the belief (which is as far as I can see has become "standard" creed) that mezuzahs basically work like amulets, a form of "Torah-sanctioned" magic, whereby if the letters are written correctly, they have the capacity to protect the house and ensure that no harm comes to the family. But God help you if there's one letter that's missing, faded, smudged, etc., because now "mazikin" (demons, spiritual entities) will enter the house and unleash all manner of hellish havoc - from broken toasters and leaky pipes, to accidents, sickness, problems with "shalom bayit", you name it. Even if a person is God-fearing, davens sincerely three times a day, is meticulous in mitzvah observance, that's not enough - because if so much as one letter of your mezuzah is ill-formed, all bets are off!

This is just one of the little interactions with my religious brethren which leaves me with the sense of "What are people thinking?!" Forgetting about whether it might be a form of darchei emori (lit. "ways of the Amorites", buying into non-Jewish magic and superstition), what about basic common sense? You know, like the kind that says that "accidents happen" is a more likely (not to mention healthy) explanation

Taken from an article on the breslev.co.il website

than saying little Shloimi or Rivka fell off their scooter because a demon placed stones in their path or went inside their heads and caused them to make too sharp a turn, all due to the fact that here's a scroll on the doorpost of their house that wasn't offering enough spiritual protection. Seriously? It just goes to show that intelligence is no inoculation from believing in utter nonsense and superstition.

The bitter irony is that emergency clinics all through the country are going to be filled over the next day or so with kids who've been burned or otherwise hurt as a result of Lag Ba'omer bonfire celebrations, where kids build towering infernos with little or no adult supervision, often in areas adjacent to dry brush. Every year kids end up hurt, and every year fire departments are driven nuts putting out wildfires. And why? Because of the belief in the holy power of Kabbalah/mysticism and the veneration of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who many people believe authored the Zohar (which itself is a questionable assertion). Point being, the same people who will tell you about getting your mezuzahs checked for fear of harmful demons are the same ones who let their kids run around setting massive unsupervised blazes. The message: Hashem will protect you - not if you're a decent human being, not if you practice reasonable safety measures, but if you press the right spiritual "buttons".

It's superstition run amok, a kind of religiously sanctioned mental illness. And not only is it annoying to encounter (especially when coming back from the ER), not only is it the kind of superstitious thinking not befitting of an am kadosh (holy nation), but sometimes it's just downright dangerous!

Wishing everyone a happy (and safe, and sane) Lag Ba'omer

Why I Don't Care whether the Torah Is Factually True: Part II - Morality and Midrash

In my previous post, I suggested an approach to Torah that doesn't require making any assertions about historical events in the ancient world (e.g. the giving of the Torah at Sinai, or even the historicity of Moses). Even if none of it "happened", it shouldn't have any impact on our involvement in Torah. Why? Because in this approach, we look at Torah as a declaration about how we view ourselves as a nation and what kind of people we choose to be, commit ourselves to be. And so we stay involved in Torah and mitzvot because we view them as having intrinsic value.

Now I'd like to focus on two examples where a "declarative" approach comes in rather handy - morality and midrash. I've also inserted a bit of preemptive Q & A (which I certainly invite you to challenge and/or add to).

1. Morality

As I said last time, there are other truths besides "historical/factual truth" that we ought to be concerned with and strive for. One of those is "moral truth".

Now let me clarify - when I say "moral truth", I don't mean in the sense of there being any absolute moral truth "out there". I wouldn't for instance assert that "murder is wrong" or "rape is wrong" in the sense of believing that these moral laws are somehow etched into the universe. Nor am I a relativist who believes that just because there's nowhere I can point to and say about morality, "See, there it is," that I can't make the statement that "murder is wrong".

I would say as follows: All the talk of "moral absolutism" and "moral relativism" can simply be bypassed if we stop using "assertive" language to talk about morality, and instead simply start using "declarative" language. Murder and rape are wrong because we as a society declare them to be wrong. Period.

Q: Doesn't that mean the designation as "wrong" is arbitrary? A: Not at all. We have plenty of grounds for making this declaration, since it overwhelmingly reflects our experience as human beings, and certainly society would crumble if we didn't make this declaration.

Q: But how is that considered a "truth"? A: In the sense of it being "true to" the human experience, true to our higher sensibility that suffering is something we find to be abhorrent to us and which we will go to great lengths to try to prevent.

Q: That may work with murder and rape, but what about cases where there's less unanimous agreement? A: The idea of "declaration" as a substitute for "assertion" doesn't take away the complexity of issues or the fact of differences of opinion. What it does is 1) provide a more honest presentation (rather than having to make claims about "divine" morality), and 2) it softens the "bite" of differences, since after all it's harder to kill someone over a "declaration" than it is an absolute, God-given reality.

2. Midrash

To bring another example where the idea of "declaration" might serve us well, let's talk about "Oral Torah", and Midrash in particular. On the one side you have people who take the Midrash to be "literally true" in the sense of describing "facts", actual events, e.g., if you don't think Moshe was 10 cubits tall as described in the Midrash then you're some sort of heretic. And on the other side you have people who ridicule the Midrash for being obviously "false", not only in the sense of not portraying real "events", but for often being totally inauthentic to the words of the Torah text.

But again, both of these positions are based on an assertive orientation to Midrash. I would recommend instead that we approach Midrash as being declarative. That is, Midrash is a statement which says: "I choose to look at the Torah through the lens of such-and-such teaching". It's not making any "fact-claims" - just emphasizing what we feel is important. So don't venerate Midrash for being something it's not, and don't judge it for being something it's not either! That would be my take.

Another way to put it is in terms of "meaning". There are two ways to look at meaning. One is "meaning of", a synonym for "explanation". This is the assertive usage. For instance, if someone argues that the text "means" such-and-such, we can debate whether that meaning is right or wrong. The second way to look at meaning is in the sense of deriving "meaning from", as in providing personal "significance". That's the declarative usage. When someone says that they find an interpretation "meaningful", that's not a question of "right" or "wrong". It just is meaningful to that person. What I'm saying about Midrash is that it's a mistake to think of it as explaining the meaning of the text. Rather, it's a tool to derive significance, meaningfulness, from the text, by attaching a desired teaching/interpretation to it. Or if you will, it's a way of making the text into a mnemonic device for reinforcing our values.

This last part is important. Because the pshat of Torah, what Torah "is", doesn't always match up with something that we'd want to declare our commitment to! And so we have Midrash (and in the wider sense "drash") to help make Torah work for us. Because despite what the Torah says, at the end of the day WE declare what we believe, what values we hold, what's relevant to us. And if we see something in Torah which turns us off, which runs counter to what we believe, we can and must interpret it in a way that resonates with our conscience. (Either that or just repudiate it altogether.)

Q: But isn't this disingenuous to the Torah? A: No, this kind of drash is not disingenuous because it never asserts to explain the "meaning of" the Torah text. Rather, it is knowingly interpreting the text in a way that attaches meaning to the text. (It's an "asmachta" - see this post about Midrash.)

Q: Doesn't this approach essentially render Torah meaningless? A: No, it doesn't, first off because we never depart from Torah. Even if we're disagreeing with it, we're still interacting with it, stimulated by it. Secondly, it's not meaningless because there is always a "critical mass" of Torah that we naturally resonate with, either in the pshat itself or in classical Midrash. In other words, if we completely darshened away the meaning of the entire Torah because it didn't fit with our sensibilities, that would probably be time to get ourselves another text. But that is very far from being the case!

What's more, there's a great deal of precedent for creating interpretations which suit us. How do you suppose the Midrash came to be in the first place? How is it that all kinds of Halachot are darshened into the text (and very differently by various Tanaim and Amoraim)? These aren't "built-in" features of the text - it's ALL asmachata! It's all human-driven interpretation. Torah Sheb'al Peh is one big declaration of how we choose to perceive Torah - and it's one which is meant to evolve over time.

What all this points to is an orientation that sees Torah as a choice. Even a "command" is a choice to feel commanded, compelled, regarding those things to which we ascribe importance and value. It's our choice to declare our identity as Jews, as a people connected to and nourished by the Torah. And what's more, it's up to us to declare what exactly that Torah is. Our job is to look at Torah, figure out what's nourishment for us and what's poison (sam chaim vs. sam mavet), and then - as the Torah itself instructs us - "choose life".

Does any of this depend on the Sea splitting? Does it depend on pillars of fire or talking donkeys or even a talking "Hashem"?

Sure, the "believing bunch" derives meaning and relevance from Torah by saying it's all from God, all factually/historically true - so therefore it's obviously relevant, no matter what it says. What I'm suggesting is replacing the authority-driven approach to meaningfulness, with a content-driven approach. It's the content of Torah which is worth perpetuating, irrespective of how or when (or at what stages) we got the Torah. And how do we ensure that it's worth perpetuating? By continuing to refine, reinterpret and mold the content of Torah so that it aligns with our highest ideals and sensibilities.

No, it's not a free-for-all. It's not about overnight revolutions. But it is ultimately in our hands.

"Great Pillars of Fire!" Why I Don't Care if Not One Single Word of the Torah Is Factually True

Short answer: Because Torah is not an assertion of "facts" - it's a declaration of how we choose to identify and act as a people.

Ok, now the longer answer... To understand where I'm coming from, we need to distinguish between two entirely distinct modes of language - assertive and declarative.

Assertive language is concerned with facts, claims, proofs, truth and falsity: Is it true or isn't it? Did it happen or didn't it happen? For instance, the statement "There's a grocery store on Main Street" is an assertion. "God gave the Torah to Moses" is another assertion. Clearly, some assertions are more easily provable/falsifiable than others.

Declarative language by contrast is a pronouncement on oneself or something else. "Let the games begin" is a declaration. "I do" and "Harei at mekudeshet li" are declarations. They're not facts. They're neither true nor false. Instead, they express one's will, intent, choice.

Sometimes the same statement can be either assertive or declarative, depending on the intent. For example, "I'm Jewish" can be an assertion, as in "I claim to be Jewish," and if asked for proof I'll tell you that my parents are Jewish, that I live a Jewish life, etc. But "I'm Jewish" can also be a declaration, as in "I (hereby) identify as a Jew." The first is concerned with the "facts" of the case. Am I in fact a Jew or am I not? The second is simply an expression of my will, choice, commitment, identity. It's factually independent. (Granted, my self-declaration as a Jew may be meaningless to the outside world if they don't recognize me as Jewish, but the statement per se is a declaration of intent, neither true nor false.)

We live in a world that's often dominated by assertive language. Especially in the religious and political arenas, the discussion often centers around asserting what "is" good and bad, right and wrong, arguing over who's got the "facts" right, proving what "really happened" or didn't, and what "really exists" and doesn't. And indeed that's an important part of life. But who says it's the most important part of life? And who says it's even the Torah's perspective?

Could it be that we're projecting our "assertive" mentality onto the ancient world, and more specifically onto the Torah? What if the entire Torah is a declarative statement about what this civilization believes, what it values, what it identifies with as its national story, its lore and narratives, and what standards and norms it's committed to?

Now, I don't want to go overboard either. I don't believe the Torah sees itself as being entirely devoid of "facts", or as not being tied to any historical events or persons whatsoever. But "Torah" after all means "instruction". If it manages to give over those instructions effectively, it's a success. If it doesn't, regardless of how many "facts" it contains, it has failed. So I'd argue that the Torah davka goes out of its way to present a fantastic, compelling, memorable story, one which is deliberately highly embellished, in order to more effectively give over its teachings, its instruction. It is not a book of facts, nor was it ever intended to be.

But really that argument is superfluous. All I need to say is that I don't need any of the Torah to be historically/factually true in order to live and identify as a Torah-observant Jew. Why? Because I declare the teachings of Torah, observance of the mitzvot, affiliation with Am Yisrael, and my own identity as a Jew, to be relevant to me.

In other words, I don't have to "assert" that the Torah is literally/historically true. I just need to declare that I identify with it. And I do so by living it, learning it, infusing my life with it.

Because there are other types of truth that are vastly more important than "historical truth" or "factual truth". There is moral truth. There is intellectual truth. There is being true-to-life, truly relevant, truly meaningful, truly something that has what to contribute to the world. If Torah has that, I couldn't care less about facts and history. Because Torah is self-justified. It's able to stand on its own without any historical justification. Yes, of course I'm curious as to what the "reality" is, what the true events of history were. I'm also curious whether there's sentient extraterrestrial life out there. But I don't base my life on that!  (See my post on truth/emet for more on this topic.)

Stay tuned for Part II of this post - about morality, Midrash and more...

Saying "Merry Christmas" without the Neurosis

I used to wish my Christian friends a very reluctant "Happy Holiday" when Christmas rolled around, feeling like saying the word "Christmas" meant acknowledging and giving honor to the birth of "that man", whom they erroneously call the "Christ/Messiah", giving tacit support to avoda zara, the belief in a "man-god". It's the same reason I used to feel my skin crawl if I somehow found myself stuck inside a Reform shul during services - that I was betraying Torah, giving my unspoken approval to foreign and wrongheaded practices.

But today I gladly, without any hesitation whatsoever, extended a warm "Merry Christmas" to a Christian friend of mine. Of course I reject the "man-god" concept as ridiculous. But I acknowledge that holidays for most people have very little to do with the theological/conceptual package, and everything to do with family, memories, songs, traditions, food, joy, more down-to-earth concepts like "goodwill towards men". Holidays are packed with meaning and personal/family significance - THAT is what I honor when saying "Merry Christmas". I honor the person by acknowledging what is deeply significant to him (in this case a "him"). Just like he'll wish me a "Good Shabbos" even though he doesn't believe in a literal seven-day Creation (and even though as a non-Jew he's "chayav mita" if he keeps Shabbat) - because he knows that Shabbat as Jews experience it has nothing to do with all that.

And of course what helped make my more respectful, more human greeting possible is the fact that I reject not only the man-god, but also the God-god. I've made the move to "clean house" entirely by trying as best I can to sweep out the door (and not just under the rug) untenable beliefs not only of other people's traditions (which is all too easy to do) but also those within my own tradition. We can argue over who's got "crazier" beliefs, the one who holds by the virgin birth or the one who holds that the sea split, the one who holds that God incarnated in the form of a man or the one who holds that God inscribed His will word by word in the form of the Torah, the one who holds that belief in Jesus as savior brings eternal salvation, or the one who holds that the dead will one day literally rise from their graves and roll their way to Eretz Yisrael. As I say we can argue but we'd be foolish not to see that there's a bit of "crazy" in each of us.

So ok, if I can take Judaism's craziness with enough of a grain of salt to actually devote a huge part of my life to religious observance and Torah learning, then I can take Christianity's craziness with enough grain of salt to wish a good friend a "Merry Christmas" - that is, providing I also get to wish a hearty "Mazel Tov" on the bris come January 1.