At one time or another some of you converters (not the DC to AC types) have asked me how to un-celebrate non-Jewish holidays and I really have no idea how. After all, I grew up frum and never tried to stop celebrating pesach or chanukah, I wouldn’t know what to do anyway. I doubt I would have the guts to pop a piece of bread in my mouth on Pesach or eat on Yom Kippor, although I think if I started slowly, by maybe wetting my lips on Yom Kippor or eating kitneyot on Pesach I could eventually come to uncelebrate the holidays.
I think you converts can do the same thing, maybe you can stop drinking eggnog on Christmas, it tastes like crap anyway. Maybe you can buy sweat socks instead of stockings or get a wreath and not a full tree.
Besides for Christmas what other holidays are there to un-celebrate anyway? Easter – don’t buy eggs. Palm Sunday – don’t take the lulav apart. Halloween? Is that even a holiday?
I feel that non-Jews who go off the derech have it way easier then us frummies who decide to take the plunge, giving up seders, chanukah presents and matzo would wreak havoc on your social life while not going egg hunting and dancing to the monster mash seems kind of easy.
Maybe I’m an ignorant fool and have it all wrong though.
Being a Lubav is even more difficult-what are you going to do, stop saying lchaim on the chassidishe yomim tovim?
TRS: maybe you could wean yourself off by saying toasts instead of lchaims!
Interestingly, I recall having a classmate in 3rd grade whose parents became Gerrim. At his young age, he missed Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, et al. My teacher would forbid him to talk about it, but he’d still tell us how his aunt kept asking “will you be my Valentine?” and he had to remind her that he was now Jewish.
All I got to say is when I still lived up by YU/with my parents, when I first started walking off the derech, I was making myself a bit of a social pariah (esp. given that I had one room mate who would go ape if I was mechalel shabbat in front of him). Once I moved out on my own and starting hanging out in the goyyish world, things changed. I daresay I know my share of people who are being held back from going off just because of social reasons (ahem: UWS).
On the converse, plenty of my goyyish friends (be they Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, or Atheist) do marvel at the concept of “losing religion”. I guess the one frustrating thing is the common “what happened to you?” interrogation (especially the ones who are being nice about it).
I daresay you are no more ignorant than most people I come across (and in my line of work, I come across many). I think this is quite the astute observation of the typcial Jew who is “poschim al shnei ha’se’ifim”. The way it is with some of my Christian coworkers, given how bewildered they are by my not going to shul, I gather that in their circles, no longer going to church would be as big a deal.
ghottistyx , the difference between Judaism and other religions is that Judaism turned almost every act of everyday life into something related to religion. Every bite we eat, and almost everything in our schedule, from the instant we wake up, to the instant we go to sleep. The way we dress, the order we put our shoes on, etc. It’s all part of our religion. Christianity is much different, even for devout Catholics, they have mass, they have lent, they have impure thoughts and confession, but they don’t have religion wrapped up in their every action.
The things I am most curious about is how did it feel? How did it feel, that first time you were blatantly mechalel shabbat, that first flip of the light switch? That one I can easily imagine isn’t a biggie. For me the biggest would be, how did that first bite of pork product go down? Did you gag? Did you get a stomachache or a heartache afterward?
Before and after I converted, my parents and relatives still give me Christmas gifts. What I’ve tried to do is when my grandfather asks all the grandchildren for gift lists is to put down Jewish-themed books or things from the Heifer project catalog (like giving someone a hive of bees). Un-celebrating Easter was easy enough — I just stopped going to the Easter service.
In my family, Easter eggs were just something you did to entertain the kids. Same for jack-o-lanterns.
Since a lot of Christian holiday traditions are in fact based on pagan customs and symbolism rather than religious laws/the New Testament, I don’t think the process of giving up Christmas trees and Easter eggs is religiously significant.
Such traditions are, however, still tied to one’s family customs, so it’s more about negotiating with your family about what you cannot do at all and what you are willing to watch.
Halloween and Valentine’s Day are so secularized, even more so than Christmas, that I still celebrate them but I don’t make a big deal about it.
If you are a Muslim going “off the derech”, you should hope to live long enough to enjoy your new lifestyle.
I went to palm service this year for the first time – don’t know where I was going with that.
Palm Sunday: Because you want to waive a lulav in the middle of Pesach?
Palm service? Is that what you do when you don’t have a woman around [to service you]? 🙂
I’m not Jewish but I’m contemplating conversion and openly disbelieve Christianity within my immediate family (although my mother seems to be in denial). Not celebrating Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Pentecost, Advent etc. is not difficult because they are pretty much celebrated exclusively in church services, except for maybe the advent calenders some families stick on their refrigerators and even fewer who set up an Advent wreath with candles in their houses.
I think the hardest parts about Christmas and Easter aren’t really giving up the the decorations but the parties and celebratory meals that the rest of my family attends, along with a lot of our friends. They’re usually pretty fun and the only times I get to see a lot of my childhood friends. Also, my mother still insists on giving me Christmas gifts because she says it would depress her if I sat by the tree with the rest of the family and didn’t have anything to open. No one over ten really hunts Easter eggs except for older siblings who don’t want to spoil the fun of their younger siblings. I’m almost 22 though and my mom still insists on giving me an Easter basket full of candy.
My family was very kind and supportive throughout my conversion process, but I did learn a few things to keep the whispers down amongst the extended family around the holidays.
Their wishes that I “have a Merry Christmas” were all returned with my “No, YOU have a merry Christmas”, or “YOU have a happy Easter”. Everyone is happy, everyone thinks I’m just being polite.
@Mark, it was actually pretty easy. I guess because my head was in it for quite some time before I took the plunge. I was one of those who only kept Shabbos/Kosher because it was convenient. Once I finally moved in with guys who were willing to go to a movie then a bar on a Friday night, all I had to do was get up and join them. I was too busy having fun that night to have any serious regrets. I didn’t gag on my first piece of shrimp; on the contrary, it was more of a “where have you been all my life” experience. It was much easier than the first time I ever got high, the first time I came home 3 in the morning smelling like I’ve been partying, hell it was even easier than my first time ditching school.
Point taken about Judaism. It’s the old Jonathan Swift analogy about which end of the egg we’re supposed to crack first. Hell, I know a Rabbi who (no joke) was able to teach a month’s worth of shiurim on halakhos of going to the bathroom. So at least leaving Orthodoxy is a total lifestyle change.
I was never religious at all, xmas was just another secular thing in my family, same for Valentines (which is secular in origin anyway), and cant remember ever having hunted Easter eggs in my life. Nothing to un-celebrate really.
Last December I took the wife shopping to pick out some jewelry. She grew up Buddhist so Dec 25 has no religious meaning to her and I’d bet more than 99% of the people in Japan dont know the xtian basis for xmas anyway. (BTW Dec 25 is a normal workday here in Japan, there are no national religious holidays here)
Guess its pretty easy for me 🙂
Not just in Japan! Lots of people here in Australia (which is supposedly a Christian country) have no idea that Xmas is a religious holiday. My colleagues asked me a few times when the Jewish Xmas was, assuming that since there’s a Jewish New Year, there must be a Jewish Xmas as well. LOL
i like your spin on things chris b!
Disclaimer: I am Jewish from birth so I do not know if this will help but:
My synagogue has a something called “jewish ski day” it happens to fall out on the 25th of December. Don’t not celebrate something “convert” it. Just like our Muslim brothers do to everything else. Kind of how Stalin’s birthday is Earth Day.
ghottistyx,
Not going to church is a thing even if you are a woman. There’s no “women dont’ go” in Xtianity.
I stopped celebrating Xmas and Easter after my mother died in 1993 so, there was nothing to UN-celebrate for me.
You answered your own question….you are an ignorant fool…
In my family religion was such a non-issue that all I learned about Easter was that a bunny brings eggs. No wonder it made no sense to me! One year a neighbor had pity on the poor little heathen child and took me to Easter services with her family. I remember being majorly PO’d that there was no “Easter parade”!