When I was in elementary school I had a Jewish classmate (I was way ahead of Vatican II in interfaith dialogue) whose parents celebrated Chanukah/Hanukkah as well as the secular side of Christmas with Christmas trees and secular Christmas (or is it Xmas?) decorations and most importantly exchanging Xmas gifts!
I was so jealous as he got both Chanukah and Hanukkah gifts and Xmas gifts! Yes! I was guilty of the deadly mortal sin of ENVY!
But I digress! How do you spell the Jewish and Christian holy days or is it holidays? O my! How do you spell that?
And if Jews can celebrate Xmas why can't Christians celebrate the Festival of Lights?
6 comments:
It's חנוקה. According to Aquinas, we shouldn't celebrate Jewish holidays. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2103.htm#article3
There is but one way to spell the name of the festival: חנוכה
Xmas is Christmas, with the Greek letter Chi (X) standing for Christos.
Hanukkah is a transliteration of a Hebrew word so there is no standard spelling - cf Pekin, Peking, Beijing.
Of course Jews look forward to Xmas. As Tom Lehrer put it: 'Angels we have heard on high, tell us to go out and BUY!'
In the old days a cash register (till) was referred to as a 'Jewish typewriter'.
On August 14 th (1st in new calendar), when we have the celebration of the Maccabees ;)....If you search hard enough, you'll find commemoration of OT on the calendar :p
John Nolan,
This reminds me of a comment from one of my old Jewish friends who owned a shop at Christmastime: What a friend we have in Jesus!!! Of course, he would be accused of "cultural appropriation" today by some lefty, looney!
Catholics and Orthodox regard 1&2 Machabees as deuterocanonical; Protestants do not. The Epistle for the anniversary Requiem Mass is 2 Mach. xii 43-46 and ends with 'it is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.'
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