c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz is the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Penn.)

(UNDATED) Deeply held religious views can be a threat to civilization’s survival, or its guarantor. The symbols of Hanukkah and Christmas suggest the role of religion in moving us toward peace rather than destruction.

The link between passionate advocacy of religious views and spirals of senseless violence has been made by many students of history. At a moment when our increasingly global community is challenged by multiple _ and competing _ religious absolutes, religionists of every kind must acknowledge both our common humanity and our real differences if conflict is to be avoided.

An earlier age believed the world to be comprised of a flat earth, an unfathomably deep underground and an inconceivably distant heavenly realm. With their roots deep in the soil and their leaves reaching to the heavens, trees were natural magnets for the religious imagination, uniting the upper and nether regions with the middle realm inhabited by humans. The ancient Israelites moved their community away from the practices associated with nature religions by retaining some of the trappings of pagan worship while utterly transforming their meaning.

The gold menorah (candelabrum) that illumined the ancient Israelite sanctuary was, in fact, designed to resemble a tree. No longer an object of veneration in itself, it was harnessed to provide light for the innermost precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Thus it was that the tree was transformed into the menorah, “with six branches going out of the sides: three branches of the candlestick out of one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side,” as recorded in Exodus 25:32-33.

Like Hanukkah, Christmas also partakes of the symbolic power of trees and light. Anthropologists have long connected the Christmas tree to the ancient practice of using evergreen foliage common to the region (palm leaves in ancient Egypt, fir trees in Germany) to brighten up the long nights of the winter solstice.

Of the many legends about the origins of the Christmas tree, perhaps the earliest association is made with St. Boniface, the 8th century apostle of Germany. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that Boniface, in an effort “to show the heathens how utterly powerless were the gods in whom they placed their confidence, … felled the oak sacred to the thunder-god Thor, at Geismar, near Fritzlar.” Popular legend adds that in the oak’s place, a small fir tree sprang up which the axe-wielding apostle identified as the “tree of life,” that stood for Jesus.

Later accounts credit Martin Luther with introducing the practice of adding lights to the tree after returning home from a walk one winter night. Hoping to convey the beauty of the stars twinkling through the evergreen boughs in the forest overhead, the story goes, he cut down a small fir tree and put lighted candles upon it.

Drawing from the same well of ancient and universal symbols, Hanukkah and Christmas remind us that despite differences of history, culture and religion, our lives are shaped by what Margaret Mead called “this fragile earth, our island home.”

And yet, the differences between Jewish and Christian religious practices are as important as the similarities. Unlike the Hanukkah menorah, the Christmas tree is not an abstract representation, but an actual tree. This use of concrete rather than abstract symbolism is a consistent difference between Christianity and Judaism.

At this time of year, when both Judaism and Christianity express universal themes through universal symbols, the particular ways each tradition chooses to express the universal testifies to the richness and variety within the human community.

Our increasingly global world challenges each person, religion, culture and nation to maintain their singularity, while also living in unity and interdependence. A universalism which obliterates all differences is violence in another form, while a world-view which denies our essential unity leads to chauvinism and bloodshed.

Considered together, the Christmas tree and the Hanukkah menorah can nurture our appreciation of the beauty inherent in both our unity and our variety. If our world is to move toward peace rather than destruction then passionate commitment to a religion or nation must also lead us to a deeper appreciation of both our uniqueness and our interdependence.

KRE END EHRENKRANTZ