There are 250 million people in Japan and only 2% of them are Christian. But it seems as though all 250 million Japanese celebrate Christmas. Tokyo is filled with Santas, candy canes, and Christmas cakes.
The first December I spent in Tokyo, my Japanese boyfriend Hiroshi asked if I was going to have a Christmas tree. I explained that Jews (even Jewish Buddhists like me) didn’t have Christmas trees, and that we don’t celebrate Christmas. He was quite shocked. He knew I was Jewish, and in fact he was fascinated by this since he’d never met any Jews before. He had an idea from something he’d read that Jewish mothers and Japanese mothers were the same. He just assumed that Christmas was something all Westerners celebrated. Of course his understanding of Judaism was as limited as my understanding of Shinto. Not to mention my confusion at the fact that every Japanese considers themselves both Buddhist and Shinto — and that they see no contradiction. Not that a Jewish Buddhist like me can complain about that.
Anyway, Hiroshi thought all Americans celebrated Christmas, and now that he had an American boyfriend, he really wanted a tree, despite the fact that neither of us was Christian.
The Japanese do have year end custom that seemed similar — on New Years Day, the Japanese put pine branches, plum branches and bamboo saplings together just outside the entrance to the house, to welcome good luck into the house for the new year.
He felt that if we put Christmas and Japanese New Years together in a tree, it would be a yearly ritual for our relationship. The idea of a Christmas tree just didn’t seem right to me, but I wanted him to be happy.
So I called my friend Andrew Ramer back in the U.S. and told him my dilemma. And he told me what Rabbi Miriam Da Silva had to say on the subject....
It seems that a young couple had gone to Rabbi Da Silva for counseling. Their daughter wanted a Christmas Tree. Now their daughter was a Jewish day school student, who took her heritage seriously. But for some reason the child insisted they have a tree.
The rabbi listened and thought about Purim, whose heroes, Mordechai and Esther are clearly taken from the Mesopotamian Pagan gods Marduk and Ishtar. And she thought about the quintessentially Jewish ceremony, the Passover Seder, which was modeled on an ancient Greeks ritual, the Symposium — which is a banquet centered around a topic of discussion. Not that the Maccabees, intolerantly murderous fundamentalist fanatics that they were, would want to know this. But the Rabbi didn’t have an answer, so she asked the couple to wait while she sought guidance on the matter.
And that night the Rabbi had a dream. In the dream, a fiery angel of god came to her and said,
“Miriam, Miriam. Remember when Moses saw a bush all aflame. This came at a dark time in history, when the Jews were slaves, just as the Solstice is the darkest time of year. The tree this child longs for is a symbol of that burning bush. Tell them that. Tell them that their tree will commemorate this sacred time — but that it must be grown for only this purpose. They may not cut down a tree in the woods. And it must be mulched or recycled at the end of the season. The tree must not be taller than the tallest person in the family. They may decorate it with colored lights, but no more than ten, to remind them of the tree of life and its sephirot. And they must not use tinsel, even if it is biodegradable. They must never wear shoes around the tree. And for the eight nights it is up, they must sit around it and read and discuss the passage from Exodus about Moses and the burning bush. Tell them if they do these things in just this way their tree will be kosher, a sacred reminder of the Presence of God in the world and in nature, which must be honored and preserved, for it is God’s holy creation. “
When the Rabbi awoke, she wrote down the words she remembered and told the parents of the girl. And she said that Jews unconsciously honor the sacred revelation of nature every time they plant a tree in Israel, At least that’s what my friend Andrew Ramer told me that Rabbi Da Silva said. It gave me permission.
Okay, I’m sure you know the song from A Chorus Line — What I Did for Love. I went out to the nearest florist and rather than buy pine branches, I bought a potted pine tree, one that could keep growing, so we could keep it on the terrace throughout the year. We decorated so that it glinted with 10 gold foil wrapped chocolate Hanukkah coins. So, no, the foil wasn’t biodegradeable. At the top we put a gold star of David, which oddly enough also happens to be a Shinto symbol.
That first year, Hiroshi also put a little statue of the boddhisatva of wisdom, Fukurokuju, at the foot of the tree. He said it would be okay, because he looked like Moses — carrying a staff and a scroll.
It was a funny looking statue, a smiling old man with a, long white beard and a bald domed head that stretched up like a zucchini to emphasize his intelligence. It was only after I’d spend a few years in Japan that I learned in earlier times the statues were made in graduated sizes and used to initiate the boy acolytes of the Buddhist priests. Yes, it’s the sacred dildo you can see to the right!
That is my coming out story as a Queer neo-pagan Shinto Buddhist Jew with a Christmas-Hanukkah-Oshogatsu tree. I just hope there aren’t any Maccabbees reading this blog. The photo above of Hiroshi and me in front of one of our trees was taken after we moved to New York — around 1990 — and when the decorations had become even more, uhhh, eclectic.
Meanwhile, my wish for you, my dear readers, is that this Hanukkah and all year round your life is filled with light to share with those you love — and all beings. To quote the Buddhist teacher Ajahn Sumedho:
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Share your light.
Comments