מתני׳ כל הצלמים אסורין מפני שהן נעבדין פעם אחת בשנה דברי רבי מאיר וחכמים אומרים אינו אסור אלא כל שיש בידו מקל או צפור או כדור רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר אף כל שיש בידו כל דבר:
MISHNA: All statues are forbidden, i.e., it is prohibited to derive benefit from them, because they are worshipped at least once a year; this is the statement of Rabbi Meir. And the Rabbis say: The only type of statue that is forbidden is any statue that has in its hand a staff, or a bird, or an orb, as these are indications that this statue is designated for idolatry. If the statue is holding a different item, it may be assumed that the statue was fashioned for ornamental purposes and not for worship. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: It is prohibited to derive benefit even from any statue that has any item whatsoever in its hand.
THE RABBIS DEBATE: CAN THE AMERICAN JEW KEEP CHRISTMAS?
From A Kosher Christmas by Joshua Eli Plaut
- In the early years of Jewish immigration to the United States, the Philadelphia Times reported in 1877: "the Hebrew brethren did not keep aloof" from Christmas. As expected, rabbis during the 1800s were outspoken against the use of Christmas decorations, although a few were sympathetic to the need for Jewish parents to please their children.
- A controversy arose in 1883 surrounding a Friday night lecture in St. Louis; Reform Rabbi Dr. Solomon Sonneschein of Temple Share Emeth proposed that it might be appropriate for Jews to celebrate Christmas. "Can the American Jew keep Christmas?" he asked. He answered summarily, "I say he can, without in the least disgracing his religious convictions or interfering with the building up of a stronger and nobler Judaism." He reasoned that Christmas was celebrated as a national holiday because its strong secular orientation did not conflict with Jewish beliefs. More shocking was his claim that Jews should celebrate Hanukkah on December as regardless of when Hanukkah fell on the calendar: The suggestion had a certain allure because on the Hebrew calendar, Hanukkah falls on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev as does Christmas on the 25th day of December. In Sonneschein's opinion, Jews could better appreciate both Christmas and Hanukkah if they shared a mutual date on the calendar.
- In 1896, Dr. Emile G. Hirsch of Chicago's Zion Temple reportedly encouraged his congregants to observe Christmas as a great holiday and Jesus as a great Jew. At the beginning of the twentieth century, according to Penne L. Restad, the debate about whether a Jew should celebrate Christmas continued and expanded within the Jewish community, parallel to the growing influence of Christmas as a public holiday. Precisely at the beginning of the twentieth century, Christmas had so vastly changed in observance and scope that it posed a serious dilemma for American Jews. Previously, during the nineteenth century, the celebration of Christmas in America had been confined to the domestic and church domains. With the emergence of a more public form of Christmas in the early decades of the twentieth century, private ritual overflowed into the public domain, altering both the environment and the experience of public space. An expectation evolved: "in Christmas lay a key to social peace, a goal grown more important as immigration rates rose higher and higher in the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century."
- In 1906, Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes (at the time, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan), proffered that Jews should neither fear nor reject Christmas. Magnes, aware of the social trends of the day, suggested that Christmas might even facilitate Jews in strengthening their own beliefs and noted that, although many Jews protested the celebration of Christmas, others "silently brought trees and lights into their homes."
- The public debate persisted until the onset of World War II. Christmas became increasingly ingrained in the American popular ethos at the same time as the first generations of American-born Jews (whose parents were part of the historic turn-of-the-century exodus from Eastern Europe) were struggling to make decisions regarding acculturation.
- In the December 6, 1939, issue of the Christian Century, Rabbi Louis Witt of Dayton, Ohio, published an article entitled "The Jew Celebrates Christmas." Rabbi Witt described his experiences as a rabbi in addressing the growing number of Jews who celebrated Christmas: "I pleaded and scolded, waxed wrathful and tearful, year in and year out--in vain! The Jew today observes Christmas more than ever."* Rabbi Witt argued that Christians had become more liberal in their teachings, which accentuated the "universal humanness" of Jesus' teaching rather than a specific religious doctrine: "If Christmas were only Christian, the Jew would be only Jewish. ... A theological, ecclesiastical Christmas finds and leaves the Jew the same 'infidel' he has ever been." Witt further commented that his own children felt deprived of the joys inherent to the holiday and that the "friendliness and goodwill" of Christmas made it alluring to people of all credos, including Jews. For Rabbi Witt, celebrating Christmas did not proclaim that the Jew was "thereby drawn by even the breadth of a hair nearer to the worship of an ecclesiastical Christ and that he [was| meeting the Christian on common ground which is both nobly Christian and nobly Jewish." The celebration of Christmas by Jews meant that the Jew was creating what could be termed a common denominator with the Christian. Witt concluded, "I say then, as a rabbi, thank God for Christmas! May it, in the spirit of its Judeo-Christian founder, bring forth in ever fuller measure the love that is hidden away in the hearts of men. ... Is it neither treason of Jew nor triumph of Christian but partnership of Jew and Christian in the making of a better world in which the Christ can have part only by energizing and perpetuating and hallowing the partnership." According to Witt, this strategy of self-protection protected the Jews from being shunned by a culture that had assisted them in their successful Americanization.
- Fanny von Arnstein – a Berliner by birth (1757-1818), cofounder of the Music Society of Austria, and a member of Viennese high society – was among the first known European Jews to introduce the Christmas tree into a Jewish home!'5 Fanny's father, banker Daniel Itzig, was court-financier to King Frederick Il of Prussia. He also was a leader of Berlin's Jewish community and, in 1791, acquired full civil rights. By 1812, Fanny von Arnstein and her married daughter Henriette (who later converted with her husband to Catholicism) introduced the new custom of a home Christmas tree to Vienna. This custom was already prevalent in Berlin. Arnstein also added a personal touch, attaching little poems to the presents. Fanny held court over her celebrated Viennese salon that attracted notable intellectual personalities who were comfortable viewing a Christmas tree in her home. Arnstein's practice of having a Christmas tree then became de rigueur in the homes of the Jewish intelligentsia and cognoscenti of Vienna. (It is interesting to note that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart received early support in the salons of Fanny von Arnstein and her sister Cäcilie Eskeles. He lived at the Arnstein residence in Vienna for an extended period of time, and there he composed several of his most inspired works.)
- Perhaps most surprising is that Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of modern Zionism, also brought a Christmas tree into his Vienna home. Indeed, after Herzl completed his seminal book on Zionism, Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1895, Vienna's chief rabbi, Moritz Gudemann, visited Herzl to discuss the new book. This visit occurred on December 24, Christmas Eve. The chief rabbi was surprised to find that the Herzl household displayed a Christmas tree. In his diaries Herzl wrote, "I was just lighting the Christmas tree for my children when Gudemann arrived. He seemed upset by the 'Christian' custom. Well, I will not let myself be pressured! But I don't mind if they call it the Hanukah tree-or the winter solstice."
- Gershon Scholem (1897-1982), esteemed scholar of Jewish mysticism [kabbalah], remembers his parents creating a festive mood in their Berlin home on Christmas Eve. The atmosphere was enhanced considerably by the inclusion of a Christmas tree. Under the tree was, ironically, a photograph of Theodore Herzl in a black frame, given lovingly to Scholem by his parents who knew how much Gershon admired Herzl and Zionism. Scholem wrote that "since the days of my grandparents, Christmas was celebrated in our family with roast goose or hare, a decorated Christmas tree which my mother bought at the market by St. Peter's Church, and the big distribution of presents for servants, relatives, and friends." Scholem's parents told him that Jews participated in Christmas because Christmas was a German national festival celebrated by all German citizens, including Jews.