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As I reminded you on Hanukkah, which has recently passed, our custom as the God Squad during the winter holidays was to trade off writing the column. Tommy would write a Hanukkah greeting and I would write a Christmas greeting. Since Tommy’s death in 2016, I have tried to piece together his notes to me about Hanukkah in his memory. I wrote what I remembered this year. This is what I would say to Tommy if he were here about the upcoming Christmas holiday.

To my best friend Tommy,

Emmanuel!

That is the single word I offer in your memory, Tommy, to all our Christian readers. Emmanuel is the one word that I think most truly encapsulates the meaning of Christmas as you taught me in our 36 years together here on planet earth.

Emmanuel is a Hebrew word that means, “God is with us.” If I had to summarize the central teaching of BOTH Judaism and Christianity it would be Emmanuel. Of course, we have different ways of elaborating and expanding that teaching, but we never change it.

For Christians the manger scene and the birth of Jesus, who was and is for you the Messiah sent by God, is a perfect expression of Emmanuel. It took me a long time and many late-night dinners and drinking for me to understand what you meant by Emmanuel. I wanted to limit the teaching of Christmas for Christians to the very non-Christian idea that God had sent a Messiah to Earth. It is, in fact, a much more challenging and powerful teaching. Christians believe that God actually came to Earth in the form of a messiah. The baby in the manger is not a messenger from God. The baby in the manger is God.

What came next was your attempt to teach me the doctrine of the Trinity so that I could understand how you viewed the divine visitation that was the birth of Christ. I must admit that I failed to understand it to your satisfaction, but in fairness to me I failed not because I was not smart enough, I failed because I am not a Christian. If you had been given a few more years I would have kept trying to understand how there could be one but, honestly, I think that there is always a point where the paths up the same mountain diverge.

The truth is that I would have loved to have more years with you, not so that I could have more time to understand the Trinity but so that I could have more time to love you.

What I do understand is Emmanuel. I understand that the belief in a God who is always with us is the only belief that can sustain hope and lead us to salvation from sin. God is with us. Nothing else really matters, and for you the first moment when that belief was grounded in history was in Bethlehem.

This is a moment of surpassing joy for all Christians and this single holiday has brought joy to the world. Not always, of course. Those who betrayed the Emmanuel message of Christmas are shameful, but the number of Christians who gave hope to the world through the birth of a savior far exceeds those who took that hope away.

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