hip and holidays

We had an after-work party on Monday to celebrate the birthday of one of our counselors, but it was mostly an excuse to have a staff party. We have a huge kitchen/main room, and tables were decorated with all kinds of sports motifs in honor of Sam; there was alcohol and kosher Chinese food was brought it, cake and a pretty fruit platter. Dancing ensued. Not one was allowed to stay seated. The best surprise was one of the young Orthodox guys doing a killer Michael Jackson. Who woulda thunk?

I acquitted myself nicely, until all of a sudden...a horrible pain in my hip. I limped home, applied a cold pack and took ibuprofen, called in sick the next day and did more of the same, and went back to work Wednesday, still limping and in pain. What I didn't want to do was go to my doctor, who would certainly send me to an orthopedist. Since it continued to hurt a lot - I take seven flights of stairs in my daily commute, plus my apartment is two flights up - I saw my chiropractor today, for the first time in years. (If anyone in Brooklyn needs a chiropractor, I would recommend Scott Skolkin with absolutely no reservations. He is incredible, and one of the nicest guys ever.) The limping was causing all kinds of back and leg pain, which I knew needed a chiropractor. Luckily, Scott is in my insurance network, no referral required, $20 co-pay. However, he couldn't x-ray me without permission from the insurance company, so he didn't adjust me. He did say that a large black-and-blue mark indicated some level of tissue damage. He did do some message and applied heat, so it does feel a good deal better for now. He should have the insurance company approval by around Wednesday.

This was emailed to me a few days ago:

Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year, which prompted Ben Stein, to say, on CBS Sunday Morning,

My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejewelled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a nativity scene, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.
Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it.... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what a bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

I have very mixed feelings about this. I do think it's idiotic to refer to a Christmas tree as a "holiday tree," since it's a Christian symbol of a Christian holiday that occurs during the holiday season, along with something like six other holidays celebrated by various non-Christian religions.

I'm not crazy about being wished "Merry Christmas," because it always seems to carry that implication that everyone is Christian, or at least that everyone should be celebrating the Christian holiday. I generally don't wish non-Jews "Happy Chanukah," although I do wish Christians "Merry Christmas" (or sometimes "Happy Holidays," which to me indicates holidays of all faiths that take place in this season).

I do have a problem with Christmas, since in America, it seems to have become about 80% crass commercialism, 15% peace-on-earth, and 5% birth-of-Jesus. I have no problem with the latter two, but I cannot stand the constant advertising labeling practically everything a "great Christmas gift."  There's a commercial Best Buy is running this year that says if you buy their products as gifts, you will "win Christmas" - meaning that your gifts will be better than everyone else's. Competitive gifting: horrible.

Some years back, I worked in an office with two younger women, who always played an internet radio station which was basically music from the 70s on, minus any black music whatever, not even Michael Jackson. After Thanksgiving, they asked me if it was OK to play Christmas music. I said sure. Those weeks basically ruined Christmas music for me, even the cool ones like Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Paul McCartney Chirstmas song, "Jingle Bell Rock," et al. I cannot stand Christmas music any more.

Another problem I have with Christmas is this: when I was a kid, I of course always wanted a Christmas tree, and my parents told me very plainly that we were Jewish and did not celebrate Christmas. We had the usual Reform Jewish Chanukah: lit the menorah and said the bruchas (prayers when the candles are lit), received the eight days of modest gifts, ate latkes (potato pancakes which are traditional for Chanukah).

After my parents divorced, my father married a very lovely woman who is Catholic. They had a rabbi-and-priest wedding, but my father is not very religious and my stepmother is very observant, so the Christian holidays pretty much "won." My father announced to my brother and me that we were celebrating Christmas and had to buy gifts for him, my stepmother, and my stepmother's sister and parents. (My stepmother's sister is a very cool nun.) My brother and I were maybe 10 and 13, and not having grown up with the habit of saving up money for Christmas gifts (Chanukah gifts are parents-to-children only), not only had to frantically scrape together money, but also to choose gifts for people we barely knew. Whatever we received did not compensate for the anxiety of the gift-giving end. A year or two later, my father announced that we were no longer to buy gifts jointly, since we were each given individual gifts, and that was even worse. 

 

One year, I was unemployed, and told my father, in advance of the holiday, that I had absolutely no money to buy gifts He said, "It's OK, they don't have to be big gifts, just a little something." Bad, bad, bad. When I was asked what I'd like for Christmas, I was either told it was too expensive or given the cheapest possible version of the requested gift. At the same time, my father and stepmother unwrapped gifts long after everyone else had finished opening theirs, and some of them were really expensive. I remember one particular year when I was in college (which I did by working for NYU, which earned me two free classes each term), I asked for an electric typewriter, which I needed desperately for my schoolwork. At the time, university jobs paid way less than the private sector (which is no longer the case), and even the registration fee of $125 that I paid each semester was a hard hit. An electric typewriter cost about $125 at the time, and I was told that it was too expensive. 

When Christmas came around, as usual, we took turns unwrapping our gifts, and again, everyone finished way before Dad and Mary. When she opened her final gift, it was a necklace from Tiffany; I couldn't help looking it up later on, and it cost $800.

I'm not sure if I quit Christmas after that year, or continued on for a year or two, but I did finally announce to my father that I did not feel comfortable celebrating Christmas, and dropped out of the celebration, gifts and dinner. (I did not miss the dinner at all, which my step-aunt prepared; it was small, bland, and included that awful string bean casserole.)

As far as Ben Stein's wanting to put religion back into schools and so on, I say no. Emphatically. I think atheism is a perfectly valid choice, and people who do believe in God should be free to choose their own type and level of religion. You know that they wouldn't be reading the Quran or Torah in schools. I have no doubt that it would be dominated by Christianity. When I was in school, we had a Christmas pageant every year, and sang Christian songs in school chorus. Singing the Christian songs initially jarred me; I actually only mouthed the lyrics that were

As far as spanking children or any kind of physical punishment: no, no. no. Violence only teaches violence.

I find it pretty refreshing to work for a Jewish organization. Not only are you not assumed to be Christian, but no one judges your level of observance, or for being non-Jewish. We have a few non-Jews on staff, but most of the staff is more observant than I am, and mostly Orthodox or raised Orthodox. I'm certainly learning a lot about Judaism and Jewish customs. I don't have to use personal days to take off Rosh Hashonah or Yom Kippur; even with my very low level of observance, I never ever work on the High Holy Days. I'm actually kind of tickled about working on Christmas. (The only "American" holiday we have off is Thanksgiving.) And, I have to say, it's nice being around my own kind. Back in the day, I dated men of pretty much every faith and color (except Asians, just because it never happened), but I married a Jew. There's just a certain kind of familiarity within your own faith, plus I also consider being Jewish my ethnicity. Judaism in unique in being both a faith and an ethnicity; some of us use the abbreviation MOT, for "Member of the Tribe," as in, "She's an MOT, right?" I'm glad to be an MOT. Christmas is not for me.