Christmas week poses fascinating and perhaps harsh questions for our people. Do we lean in or out? Do we look away? How do we discuss the holiday when our kids ask about it? What do we make of a national culture so totally consumed with the rites and norms of Christmas?

Throughout history, we have wrestled with the customs about us. We have been forever entangled in conversations around assimilation, a buzz-word for our people. Many of us have seen the iconic film, Hester Street, which documents the very real challenge of Lower East Side Jews as they navigated this new land with trepidation and uncertainty. They feared that assimilation meant the end of Judaism or the total erasure of Jewish identity. They could not fathom living both fully as citizens and as Jews. We are at a much different place today of course, at home in our religious and national identity, with the two often informing each other in fact. 

And yet… the stakes feel higher than usual as we gaze out our windows at houses adorned with Christmas lights. Our television blares commercials focused on Christmas morning gift giving. The music we hear on the radio, at Target or CVS, is inevitably Christmas themed. It is precisely at this time of year when we are most keenly strangers in a strange land, to borrow a phrase from the Torah. Moses and early generations of our people felt like outsiders in Egypt. He was Egyptian, but not totally like his Egyptian neighbors. This is us, most pointedly when it comes to Christmastime in America. It is as if we are brought back to the Lower East Side of yesteryear, suddenly a bit off balance, decidedly aware of our ‘stranger’ status. 

As a rabbi, I choose to see Christmas as a chance to connect with my Christian neighbors, wish them well, ask them about their holiday plans and see what I can learn about their customs. If we want people to be curious about and interested in our way of life, then we should model the same. Otherness need not be scary or angst-inducing, otherness is something to explore, even embrace. The KI community itself is one of great diversity, and includes many non-Jewish partners and spouses. They offer us so much and broaden our understanding of faith and devotion and religiosity. 

In our Torah portion this week, we are approaching the end of Joseph’s story. He is and has been a true minority in Egypt. He is perhaps the preeminent minority, a lone Jew surrounded once and again by non-Jews. He maintains his heritage and identity in spite of this, encouraging us to do the same all these years later. When he reconnects with his brothers, he comes to them ready to forgive and to provide for their aging father, demonstrating that his Jewish heart still lives.   

This season, I invite you to be proud of who you are and proud to be part of this people, even as we learn about and appreciate the practices of our neighbors. We are indeed one human family in the end. Let’s use this time to draw a bit closer together, rather than always further apart. Amen.