HOLIDAY PRAYERS FROM RABBI MARC GELLMAN

By Rabbi Marc Gellman, Tribune Media Services on Dec 23, 2008

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The competition is not fair! Chanukah is a minor Jewish holiday celebrating the Maccabees' victory to maintain monotheism against the pressure of a pagan world. Christmas is one of the world's greatest holidays. It combines presents, great music (much of it written by Jews, thank you very much), twinkling trees, a jolly figment of our imagination who tends flying reindeer and, at the root of it all, the hoped for a redeemer of our broken world.

Christmas literally has everything. I secretly wish that Passover (our greatest Jewish holiday) would fall in the winter so that we Jews might at least have a fair fight.

Actually, I love it all. I love Christmas trees and I love dreidels. I love caroling and I love latkes. I love a holiday time that brings family and friends together and reminds us that giving feels better than getting, although getting is just fine, too. I love the way kids get excited at this time of the year. I do not love the way some of them succumb to materialistic sloth, but I think much of that is overstated. Kids are mostly happy just to be loved and to be a part of a family able to teach them to smile and to give to others.

I never understood why some adults are so willing to believe the worst about children. Perhaps it's because they believe the worst about themselves. This Chanukah/Christmas season, my first prayer is that we try to believe the best about each other, including the best about our kids. Without that belief in the goodness of others and the innocence of children, true joy is impossible.

I also want to pray for those who are poor and newly poor this Chanukah and Christmas season. I pray that you not feel sad or ashamed that you can't buy things, or that you can't buy as many things as you once did for those you love. I ask kids all the time if they can remember what presents they received on Chanukah or Christmas last year. Only a few can recall. When I ask if they can remember their holiday gifts from two or three or four years ago, all come up empty. However, when I ask when they're most happy, they say it's when they're with their families. You can make kids feel happy for no money; it only costs lots of love, and we can all afford that.

I also pray for the thousands of pets living in cages, waiting to be adopted at shelters across America. They are all innocent creatures just waiting for unconditional love. If you can make room in your home and in your heart, please consider rescuing a homeless animal in this cold season of struggle. If there is room in your heart but not your home, make a donation to your local no-kill shelter. Pets waiting for someone to open their cages are God's creatures, too.

I also want to include a prayer for the seed of Abraham through Ishmael. I want to pray for our Muslim brothers and sisters. I pray that at this time of the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca and the feast of Eid al-Adha, that all the children of Abraham -- the children of Abraham through Isaac and the children of Abraham through Ishmael -- will find the directions for a pilgrimage we can make to each other. May our growing bond of faith and friendship prove to those who believe religion divides us, that it can also unite us.

Help us, Lord, help all your children, all the seed of Abraham, to rejoice in your mercies and sing your songs. Help us to hear every holiday song as part of a glorious, sacred and shared human harmony. Perhaps then we can taste every holiday food (or at least the ones that don't have pork in them) as part of your lush and living sacred banquet.

Then the lights of every tree and every star will decorate your heavens and your earth in grateful thanks for the life you have spread before us to reverence and to protect. Perhaps some day we will know if our broken world will be repaired in our time, in the time of our children, or in the time of our children's children. In the end, the hoping is more important than the knowing.

May God bless us one and all,

Amen.

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