When my son, Moses, was 4 years old, he said to me one December day, “Papa, can be pretend that we are Christians?”
“Hmmm, Moses,” I replied, with exaggerated casualness, “why do you want that?”
Moses: “because I want to make a snowman and play in the snow.”
Oh my poor, L.A.-born child, who had never seen snow. Yet, he saw Christmas-themed images on billboards, movies, and books of kids playing in the snow.
“Moses,” I said to him, “we can be Jewish and still play in the snow.”
“We can?” he exclaimed with surprise. “Even if we are Jewish? Can we build a snowman and have a snowball fight and lay in the snow and make angels?”
Moses, who has rich Jewish holiday experiences, was still somewhat envious of what he perceived to be a Christian activity: having fun in the snow. And so I promised him that year that we will take a drive to the mountains and go sledding.
Moses understood, even if he couldn’t express it clearly, that he was missing out on something: other people’s holidays. What I tried to explain was that, like going to a friend’s birthday party, we could celebrate with other people even if the holiday is not ours. We invite our non-Jewish friends over for Hanukkah, Sukkot, and Passover. And our children, in turn, get invited to their non-Jewish friends’ houses for their holidays.
Jews are still, as we almost always have been, a minority. Yet, America is an amazing place where people of different faiths can express and share our celebrations with our neighbors. And then return to our own homes safely, secure in the beauty of our particular tradition.
Snow is for everyone, even if we have to drive to see it.
