Christmas and the New Year

I do not know what dull tedium would take hold of us if our life were to keep turning in the monotony of its accustomed course, without there descending upon it, once a year, “Christmas” — the feast of childhood and purity.

With the return of Christmas, we feel a flood of hope and faith engulfing our souls and sweeping over their barren desert, as the surging tide sweeps over the tranquil red sands.

There are many traditions and customs that have piled up, with the days, as companions of Christmas: the setting up of the tree with its ornaments and lights, the visit of “Father Christmas,” and the exchange of gifts — all of them precious and sweet things whose meaning is directed toward children, for the one whose feast it is was born a child. Yet Christmas, with all the pleasures and luxuries that accompany it, loses its deep, original meaning if we strip it of the idea of “giving” and “good will” toward all people — and especially children — I mean the spiritual side, which has shrunk with time at the expense of the material side... And is there any occasion like Christmas for replacing the ravening ogre in our breasts with the gentle dove?! Is there any opportunity like Christmas for teaching our children the love of giving and sharing, and that happiness lies not in their keeping to themselves the heaps of gifts and clothes and sweets, but in their sharing some of these good things with little ones like themselves whom fortune has wronged, denying them the blessing of ease and plenty?

Let us join our giving to our children, at Christmas, to their giving to others, and let us be generous to them in the measure that they are generous... There is no way like this practical method to guide them in the right educational direction and to make them understand the importance of human values in an age in which matter has overwhelmed spirit.

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And New Year's Day is, in truth, the feast of renewal and rebirth together. With it the mind turns to the thought of new, elegant clothes and gay, boisterous evening parties. And in it, too, man stands for a moment before his Lord and before his conscience, rendering an account of his deeds over a year.

And man, in the presence of his Lord and face to face with his conscience, is small and slight, however great and mighty he grows; he examines his sins under a microscope, and a tremor of remorse and repentance strikes his inmost self, and his “humanity” wakes from its heedlessness.

And there is no occasion like the New Year for man to shake “the man” clean, as the bird shakes itself at dawn to be rid of the dirt and impurities that have weighed down its feathers, so that its wings grow light and it can readily take flight and soar.