 On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdul-Mattalab on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, tried to detonate plastic explosives and bring the plane down. He was the underwear bomber, that's where the explosives were held. He was ultimately charged and convicted of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and the attempted murder of 289 people. That was in 2009. On June 29, 2010, a Jewish woman, Ilana Kagan, who then was the Solicitor General of the United States, was being grilled at her confirmation hearings for a position on the Supreme Court. And Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina brought up the Christmas Day bomber. And she mistakenly assumed that she was being asked to comment on some legal issues that pertain to that case. And the senator said, no, I just want to know where you were on Christmas. So she said, you know, like all Jews, I probably was at a Chinese restaurant, which gave credence to this talk, that how were we meant to celebrate or not celebrate this day? For lack of a Chinese restaurant, I guess we're here to learn a little bit tonight. The temptation to join our fellow human beings in the celebration of Christmas is very, very great. You know, there's a spirit in the air, you know, peace on earth, goodwill towards men, the lights, the carols, the gift giving. We don't want to feel excluded. It's bad enough to be a beleaguered minority, but we have to compound it by our disengagement. It's very uncomfortable. And sometimes we rationalize that and we tell ourselves, look, Christmas is not a religious holiday anymore. It's been secularized, it's been commercialized. It's not about Jesus, it's about Santa. So why not? Why can't we participate? So this is a good question. As Jews, may we join in the celebration of the Christian holiday? Look, the issues over here run along the spectrum. At one extreme, would it be appropriate, for example, to attend a church service? Could a Jew have a Christmas tree? Should he give gifts to his non-Jewish coworkers, employees? Now, we know that we don't deal with these questions in a vacuum. We have a Torah. We have a Shulchanarach. We have a Code of Law. We have a Halacha. And that's how we decide issues such as this. But before jumping ahead to talk about legalities, I'd like to discuss this in a conceptual framework and talk about the issues in the most fundamental sense. I think all the dilemmas can be reduced ultimately to one philosophical question. There are many different religions in the world. Are they exclusive? Do you mean that there's only one true religion? And by definition, the others are false? Or is it possible that they're compatible with each other? That maybe they are all true in a certain sense? To illustrate, let's say I wanted to go to New York. There are many ways I could get there. I could fly. I could take the train. I could drive. Either way, I'll end up in the same place. So perhaps there's two religions as well. That they all have one objective, spiritual, moral perfection, and there are just differences in style. Jews do it this way, Muslims do it this way, Christians do it this way. But in a fundamental sense, they're all interchangeable. Or would we say that no. But really, it's not analogous to three different ways of getting to the same place. We're talking about three different destinations, in which case there can only be one place that you really want to get to. There was a great classic work, philosophical work, called the Safer Hoikarim. This was written by a Spanish philosopher, Robiosef Albo, who lived from 1380 to 1444. And he raises this question. And he says a fascinating thing. He says, in the most theoretical sense, it is possible that there could be a number of true religions. Believe it or not, speaking as a Jewish rabbi, he said it is theoretically possible that there could be a number of true religions. Different societies living in different places, having had different experiences, may need different types of conditioning to bring them to moral and spiritual perfection. So there could be one true religion for the people of this group, one true religion for the people of this group, and so on and so forth. And he points out that the Torah itself makes distinctions. We know that for the Benaynoach, for non-Jews, there is one set of observances, one set of mitzvos, the Sheva mitzvos, Benaynoach, the seven mitzvos, that all human beings are commanded to observe. The Jews have 613 mitzvos, apparently, even within the single system of the Torah, there can be such distinctions. We know that there are laws that apply specifically to Eretzis Royale, the land of Israel. There are laws that apply even outside of Israel. So there can be differences. And he says this is analogous to nutrition. Now we wouldn't say that there's a single balanced diet, which is good for everybody. What a newborn baby needs to be nourished is not the same that a strapping teenager would need to be nourished. For the baby, mother's milk is ideal. For the teenager, it doesn't provide enough, he needs more. So it could be that in this most theoretical sense, there would be a place for different religions and different observances and different rituals and different practices, because it wouldn't possible, again, in the most theoretical sense, to have religions that are unique and specific to their adherence. But, he says, it would be inconceivable that there could be several opposing theological systems. Because you couldn't have different theories as to the nature of God, as to the nature of revelation, and so on and so forth. Because that would be analogous of something else. Imagine if we would contemplate the possibility of there being various mathematical systems. So one group would buy into a system of arithmetic in which 2 plus 2 is 4. And another group would buy into a system of arithmetic in which 2 plus 2 is 5. That couldn't be. Because here we're dealing with a single truth. Doesn't lend itself to the possibility of alternatives. So again, different rituals, different practices, different prayers, that's possible. But to have different religions with fundamentally different ideals, that is inconceivable. So the question we have to ask ourselves is that when we compare the world religions, are the differences only cosmetic, our houses of worship look different, and our prayers are worded differently, and our rituals may be different, or are we dealing with fundamental differences in theological concepts? That's very interesting. When you study classic works of medieval Jewish philosophy, you see a very interesting thing, that Judaism and Islam share a lot in common. The Rambam, for example, and the Maureen of Uchim, the guides that are perplexed, relies very much on conclusions that were drawn by the Muslim philosophers of his time, and before his time. Because theologically, Judaism and Islam are very, very close, very close in their conception of God, very close in the ideals of what the religious life is meant to bring. Of course, in the details, there are big differences. But interestingly, Judaism and Christianity were always perceived as being poles apart. It's difficult to tackle this topic in a short presentation, but I think that we could identify five basic theological issues that separate Judaism from Christianity, which clearly establish the two as incompatible with one another. We'll start with the first. Number one is the definition of God. As we know, that Judaism is a pure, monotheistic religion. It believes with deep conviction in the idea of Hashem Echud. God is one, absolutely one. As the Rambam writes, this is not one in the way that the human race is one, but comprised of many individuals. Not one in the way that the human body is one, comprised of many different organs. It's a unity the likes of which is beyond our conception, an absolute oneness, Hashem Echud. And the Christianity, on their hand, has embraced the idea of the Trinity, that the Godhead, so to speak, can be divided into three distinct personalities, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And these personalities can even be in dialogue with each other, in conflict with each other, as if they are three separate individuals. I once talked about this subject years back in San Diego, where I Skodok mentioned that I had been there. So once it might have been on the same calendar date. We had a lecture on this subject. Now I was trying to explain this concept of the Trinity for the audience, and I thought I had explained it. And the lady came over after a lecture and says, Rabbi, says, I'm not Jewish. She says, I'm Christian. But I never understood the Trinity until you explained it. I was very flattered. But this is the idea that there are three different aspects to the person of God. And therefore, by a Jewish definition, Christianity is polytheistic, because we would not consider it monotheistic. They may say that it is monotheistic. They may say that the three are one. One is three. As you know, of course, that the symbol of Ireland is the shamrock, the three leaf clover, because when Saint Patrick converted the Celts to Christianity, he used this as a symbol to explain the Trinity. You see that it's three leaves and a single stem, three is one. And everyone said, ah, we understand. But we don't accept that. From our perspective, that is a polytheistic belief. Furthermore, one of our fundamental beliefs about God is that God cannot be limited. He cannot be constrained. He cannot be confined to a given space. The old question, can God create something that he can't move? This is a philosophical conundrum that has troubled many. But I think that Judaism would take the position that that is inconceivable. It was God being limitless. He could not make something that he could not move. He could not even impose limits on himself. One of those limits is that God cannot become incarnate in a physical object, in an idol, in a person. Can't be. Can't be. Now, the belief of Christianity that one of the three aspects of the Trinity, the sun, became incarnate in the body of Jesus, that is a concept that Judaism would reject 100%. It's inconceivable. The concept is inconceivable. And in reality, from a Jewish perspective, Christianity then would not only be polytheistic, it would be idolatrous. What differences are made whether you worship an idol of stone, or gold, or silver, or whether you worship an idol of flesh. The idea that God could become incarnate in the body of a human being is something that we don't accept. By the way, it's very tempting. It's very, very tempting. Because to relate to a God who is an abstraction, who is intangible, who is invisible, who can't be conceived of, is very, very difficult. You have to have a very, very sophisticated mind to be able to relate to such a God. To relate to a God who looks like me, and is comprised of flesh and blood like me, who I can envision, who I can depict, is very, very, very tempting. And maybe even conducive to a certain type of worship. I think this certainly was the temptation of the idolaters. The reason they were so tempted to worship images is because it's easier to relate to an image than to relate to an abstraction. Which doesn't mean that it's more true. It just means that it's more convenient, more accessible. But this is what Christianity did. And maybe Christianity did it because it wanted to win over the pagan world. And it did that quite successfully. And therefore, perhaps it incorporated elements of paganism into its own ideology. And accordingly, it developed a polytheistic idolatrous conception of God, which, from our perspective, is absolutely untenable. That, I think, is the first major difference between Judaism and Christianity. Number two is the idea of free will versus original sin. And we believe in Judaism that a human being is given absolute free will. As Maimonides puts it, you have the license, you have the permission to be as righteous as Moses, or you can be as wicked as the worst of the biblical villains. It's all in your hands. Now, the fact that we have this capacity doesn't mean that a lot of people are going to go to either extreme. You know, there's the bell curve. Everything tends to converge on the center. Most of us are probably somewhere in between the two extremes, not quite as righteous as Moses, and not quite as wicked as the most wicked people described in the Bible. But that doesn't mean that there can't be an outlier in theory. In theory, there could be a person who exercises his free will and makes good choices all the time, and is as righteous as Moshe or Abino, as righteous as Moses. On the other hand, you have someone who is as wicked as the most wicked. There are no constraints, no limits. And therefore, that means a person in theory could be justified and pure and clean and innocent in the eyes of God. Now, Christianity brought into an idea, and we'll see this idea has many corollaries, but an idea of original sin that somehow man has fallen to the extent that he cannot be justified. As hard as he would try, he could not be justified in the eyes of God. There is no law to which he could conform that would render him pure in God's estimation. And therefore, there has to be an alternative means, and we'll see what that means is in a moment. But this is a very fundamental difference. This is almost an unbridgeable gap. And Judaism has this, let's call it, optimistic view of the potential of a human being. And Christianity has this very, very dim view of what a human being could do by virtue of his own efforts. One of the consequences of this is point three, our attitudes towards the law versus faith. Now, in the Torah, in Judaism, the idea of the Torah, the idea of 613 commandments, the idea of mitzvahs, the idea of texts that we can study and be inspired by, is something which is very, very precious, very dear to us. Because if you read Psalm 119, which is King David's ode to the law, to the Torah, you see that this is his greatest fulfillment, his greatest joy, his greatest passion is the study of the law, the observance of the law. It gives meaning and riches to his life. And so every Jew, perhaps not as poetically as King David put it, but every Jew feels the same way. And that is a corollary of the fact that we believe that the law, the Torah, is our vehicle to perfection and an accomplished and meaningful life. But to the Christian, what is the law? So again, the extent to which this is true is a matter of theological debate, but there are certain chapters in the New Testament which give us the impression. I'll just mention the sources, and I just go back, I'm sure it'll all come to his mind. You think of certain chapters in the book of Romans, chapters 3, 7, 10, Galatians, chapter 2, and you're dealing with texts that seem to tell us that the law does nothing for us but burden us with guilt. No one could be justified through the law. And in Galatians, you have this astounding formulation that Paul made, which is that if man could be justified through the law, then Jesus will have died in vain. That the sacrifice of Jesus precisely is to provide an alternative, that man could be justified, God's eyes not through the law, but through faith and the acceptance of his sacrifice. That's an astounding difference. Whereas we, as Jews, we study Torah, we practice Torah when the holiday comes. We plunge into the observances with great devotion and attention to detail. And I don't think Christianity shares the same thing. No, the story is told. I heard of a Jewish family that lived in a two-story apartment building. So they lived upstairs, and downstairs was a Christian neighbor. And the children of the family used to visit downstairs neighbor, and they were very curious as to their practices this time of year. So it was December, and they brought a tree home, and they were decorating the tree. And the Jewish kids were asking the neighbor, tell me, how tall does the tree have to be? What's the minimum height? What's the maximum height? When you put the lights around the tree, do you put it around clockwise, counterclockwise? What color do they have to be? And so on and so forth. From their experience, they assumed that that which is the hallmark of our mitzvah observance, which is diktuk, which is precision, undoubtedly is shared there as well. It isn't just that this is something nice and gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. If it's a religious observance, there have to be requirements that are met. You've got to do it the right way. You can't do it the wrong way. There's a precision which is demanded. And they assumed this must be the case. Obviously, the comparison is a false comparison. The reason we have such observances, such precision, such halachic requirements is precisely because God says you can do it. So pay attention to the detail. Do it right. You can get it right. There's nothing stamping it. There's no obstacle. You do it the right way. I'll be pleased with you. And to the Christian, the concept is foreign. Because to him, the justification of God's eyes is through faith, through acceptance, or the sacrifice of Jesus. The rituals maybe give us emotional support, but that's not what it's all about. The fourth point is the definition of the messianic role. It was in Judaism, if you read the prophetic works, we're given the clear impression that the purpose of the Messiah is to gather the exiles to redeem us from oppression. He is the political leader of the restored Kingdom of Israel. We don't need deliverance from the burden of sin. That's within our capacity to do the right thing. And if we make mistakes to repent, to engage in chuvah, that's our job. By that definition, the messianic claim of Jesus is patently false, because he did not liberate the Jewish people from oppression. If anything, he ushered in an age of continued oppression. There was a redefinition in the role of the Messiah. The role of the Messiah is to liberate us from the burden of sin. And that is the basis of the messianic claim. And I think the fifth point of difference is the definition of chosenness. What does it mean to be the chosen people? No, to the Jewish people, there is a reality that we are a family. We are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Most of us are the biological descendants. Some of us are the adapted children, because we believe that the people that convert to Judaism graft themselves onto the tree of Abraham, Yitzchak, and Jacob through that process of conversion. It's like a family which adapts a child that becomes a member of the family, but we're members of the family. By the way, one of the interesting corollaries of this is that a Jew, even if he sins, and even if he becomes an apostate and rejects Judaism, is still a Jew. The Talmud says, Yisra'el, apopi shachata, a Jew, even if he sins, remains a Jew. It says, every family has a black sheep in the family. And the apostate may be that black sheep. He may be that person who doesn't share the ideals of the family, but he's a member of the family. He's my estranged cousin. He's a Jew, because Judaism sees itself as a family. And God's having chosen the Jewish people means he chose this family, this biological community. That's why you can have such things as Muslim Jews, or Hindu Jews, or Buddhist Jews, or Jews for Jesus, or atheist Jews, because Jews are Jews. If you're a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you're a Jew. It says, if you're faithful to the family's ideals, then you're a Jewish Jew. If you've estranged yourself from the family's ideals, you can be a Hindu Jew, or a Buddhist Jew, or a Jew for Jesus, but you're a Jew. But there's no such thing as a Muslim Christian, or a Buddhist Christian, or an atheist Christian. It can't be, because what it means to be a Christian means to be a member of a faith community. If you are estranged from the faith, then you are not a Christian. So it's an axiom to speak of a person as being a Buddhist Christian, or an atheist Christian, or a Christian for Moses. Can't be, the concept just doesn't exist. So we're dealing with, I believe, two religions that for these and other reasons are not two different paths of getting to the same place. We're dealing with two systems that are absolutely not compatible. So even if we accept, as the safer Icarum said, the possibility that there could be different religions that are both true, you cannot make this claim for Judaism and Christianity. There are too many points which are mutually exclusive. It's one or the other. Okay, so we are on the Jewish side. So what does that mean? What does that mean now? In terms of our sharing in the celebrations of the other side. Let's deal with some of the legal issues over here. And we'll come back to the philosophy. There is a verse in the Torah, the book of Leviticus, chapter three, verse four. In the Hebrew it says, al tifnu el hoeli lim, do not turn to the worthless gods. This is a prohibition not to turn to the false gods. What does that mean? So Romanides puts it this way. He says, there are many, many religions that have composed books and studies about their rituals and their philosophy. God commands us not to study, not to investigate, not to learn about those things. They are off limits. Now at first glance, this is a surprising thing. We would think that if Judaism is the true religion, it should be able to compete in the marketplace of ideas. We're not scared of anything. We'll investigate all the religions of the world and we assume that you'll come back to Judaism because it makes the most sense. It's the most reasonable and it's true. So why is God limiting our inquiry? He says, don't go there. Don't study this. Don't look at that. Off limits. Don't turn to the other religions. Don't turn to the other gods. Don't study their scripture. Don't even look at their idols. What's God scared of? They were gonna make a comparison and make the wrong choice. How can that be? The truth is the truth. The answer to that question is this. That yes, if human beings were totally rational and in life made all their decisions on the basis of pure logic, then you're right, there'd be nothing to be scared of. But the reality is, and I think psychologists are beginning to understand this, that people are not always rational. People make decisions sometimes on the basis of their wishes and desires. Not so much on the basis of pure logic. You may have heard of the work of a famous pair of Israeli psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahamaman. A few years ago, Kahamaman won a Nobel Prize. His partner had passed on already. And a lot of their work is devoted to this. But the reality is that the influence of the will on one's rational thought was already well established years and years and years before they came along. There was a famous essay written in 1886 by the famous American psychologist and philosopher William James called The Will to Believe. And he made the following argument. Not only is it a fact that our desire influences our decision-making process, he believed that in many instances that was justified. There was nothing wrong with that. He said there are certain questions that are unanswerable questions, unsolvable problems, especially in the area of religion. The great theological questions can't be easily answered. And therefore, if you choose a religious system on the basis of how it appeals to you and how it makes you feel and does it gratify your desire? And consequently, you have a rich, pleasant, enjoyable life. That's perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that. Maybe you're making a mistake, maybe you're making a mistake, what difference does it make? In the meantime, you have all the benefits of this richer life. Now he was a member of the School of American Philosophers called the pragmatists. And the pragmatists approached life this way, that your decisions should have cash value. In other words, it's not that you decide to embrace this position or that position on considerations of truth and validity. As you choose, what makes you happier? If this will make you happier, by all means, nothing wrong with taking it. And I think in the area of religion, many of us, I shouldn't say many of us, I don't wanna speak about people in this room, I think many people make the decisions on non-rational bases. They fall into a house of worship, they enjoy it, they're welcomed, they're embraced, this is for me. As I once asked, well, let's go back, many, many years ago, maybe he remembers this. I once asked him, tell me, what is the appeal of evangelical churches to Jews? Why did a Jew falls into an evangelical church and somehow he falls for it? So he said, I don't know if he'll remember having said this, but he said it's really like this, when a Jew goes into that church, they hug him, they embrace him, they welcome him, they roll out the red carpet, says when a stranger walks into a Jewish synagogue, all too often what happens is the first person he meets says, you're sitting in my seat. That's a terrible thing, it's a terrible critique. And we can do a lecture to that in its own right, but it's a painful fact. So if a person is not thinking rationally, not thinking logically, he's not weighing the various claims of the religions against each other, but rather, he's asking himself, where will I be happier? Where is it warmer? Where am I more accepted? He might make a choice, which is actually a bad choice. So God in the Torah, for our good, warns us and says, don't fall into that trap. As you think that you're gonna investigate the competing claims and you're going to do it logically and rationally and you're going to come to the truth, it might not happen that way. It may be that you'll find that the alternatives are more exciting, more thrilling. And when you think about it, the pagan rituals were very thrilling. There was a lot of blood and a lot of pomp, a lot of pageantry, they were thrilling. They were very exciting. So it's very easy to see people falling into that trap. So God warns us not to. So this is the first thing. The participation in a foreign ritual, God says, don't do it, why? Not because I'm scared, I'm not scared. But I'm scared of this, that you may be seduced by the beauty of it or the thrill of it or the emotional warmth of it. And that will take you away from what you know is to be true. Now there's a verse in the Torah that talks about this. This is in Deuteronomy chapter 12 verse 30. And the verse says, be careful that you should not be ensnared by the religions of the nations that you displace. When the Jews conquered the land of Israel, they were driving out seven nations that previously occupied the land. So God says, be careful not to be ensnared after their religions. So you might look at what they're doing and say, how do these nations worship their gods? And I will do the same thing. I will do the same thing. So we're warned, don't try to copy what the nations are doing. So the Ramban, Nachmanides in his commentary to the Bible raises a very fascinating question. So why wouldn't be tempted to follow the idolatries of the nations that are defeated? As you conquer the land, you defeat them militarily and now you're tempted to follow their gods? Why would you want to follow the gods of the losers? The gods of the winners perhaps. But if these nations were defeated, why would you be tempted to follow their gods? The Ramban says a fabulous answer. He says like this, you're gonna make the following mistake. You're gonna say, you know why those nations were defeated? Because they worshiped the wrong gods. They directed their service to the wrong gods. But the rituals themselves were magnificent. The rituals were beautiful. Rituals were sublime. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to observe their rituals and then I will do the same thing to serve the Ribbono Shaloylam, to serve God. So the Torah warns us, don't do that. Don't look at those nations and say, of course I'm not gonna worship their gods, but let me observe their rituals and then I will borrow those rituals and use them to serve God. The Torah says no. God has already told us how he wants to be served. That's what the Torah is about. To assume that wow, that the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Emirites practice these rituals. How beautiful it would be if I would take them and direct them to God. That's a mistake. God already has told us in the Torah how he wants to be served. Don't try to serve him another way. If you want to buy your mother a birthday present, ask her what she wants. Don't say, if I was her, I would want a power of saw. That's almost always a mistake. So here to say, God would want nothing more than to be worshiped in the way that the Canaanites worship their gods, that's a mistake. I think this has a little bit of practical bearing over here. Let's say a person says, I don't want to be left out. Okay, I'm not going to practice a Christian ritual that I don't, I'll tifnu aloha lilim, but let me borrow the practices. A decorated tree, it's a beautiful thing. So I will have a Chanukah bush in my house. Take their ritual and use it to serve God. Or I will hang blue and white stockings on my mantle. I'm practicing a Christian ritual. I'm just borrowing an observance and redirecting it to the service of God. I once had this experience, and once I lived in California, I was called to speak for a Jewish organization. And I said, sure, my pleasure. And they gave me an address, come to this address, it was this time of year. And I drive up to the address and I say, I must be in the wrong place. I say, this house has lights strung up around the house. So it can't be, I'm at the right place for the Hadassah meeting it was. So then I noticed, but you know, the lights are funny. They're all blue and white. Maybe it is the right house. So I went in and sure enough, there was a tree and there were blue and white stockings on the mantle. They had, it was a very Jewish house. It was the host for the Hadassah meeting and apparently the hosts were very Jewish minded, but they figured no harm done in borrowing the rituals of our neighbors and incorporating them into our own practice. That's what the Torah here is telling us, that we have our own Torah, we have our own Shulchan Arach, our code of law. God tells us how we should serve him. It says, don't borrow. Jewish observance has to grow organically from our own Torah. Now one last point I'd like to make is, there's another rule in the Torah, which says, those sailhub hukos agai, it says you shouldn't follow the statutes of the nations. And at first glance, this also seems to be a repetition of the previously mentioned concept. We shouldn't practice rituals that relate to idolatry and that certainly is contained in this concept too. But there's another idea, which is mentioned over here. There was a famous response of the great rabbi called the Marik, Rabbi Joseph Cologne, an Italian rabbi from 1420 to 1480. And he was asked to follow a fascinating question before telephones, before the yellow pages. So if you wanted to identify a person in a certain profession, how did you know? You're looking for an architect. Where do you find an architect? Or a doctor, how do you know who's a doctor? So it used to be the people in certain professions, they would dress a certain way or they'd have a certain item that they would carry. And in the street you could tell who's a doctor and who's a lawyer and who's a builder and so on and so forth. At this time doctors wore special coats in the street. So if you needed a doctor, you went into the street and you saw a person wearing this unique coat and you knew he was a doctor. So the Marik was asked the following question. Since the Gentile doctors dress wearing these coats, could a Jewish doctor do the same? Or is this a violation of the principle of following hukos hagay, the statutes of the nations? Marik said it's permitted, no problem. He says why? Because the underlying idea about hukos hagay is that Jews do not do things just for the sake of conformity. And if he says the following, if there's a good reason for it, then it all means do the same thing. You know it's snowing outside so all the Gentiles are wearing boots tonight. So their feet won't get snowy. So what would we say? So the Jews should not wear boots. No, no, no, you should go barefoot. We're wearing boots so we have to go barefoot. Nonsense. That's silly. It says you're not wearing boots because you want to conform to Gentile practice. You're wearing boots for the same reason they're wearing boots. They're wearing boots not to get their feet wet so you also don't want to get your feet wet. So wear boots by all means. The fact that they're doing it and you're doing it is not an issue at all. But what about a practice which has no reason at all? It's just, there's no rationality behind it. Like why do this? So why would you want to do something which has no reason? It makes no sense. Like why do it? Because everybody else is doing it. So that already is Chuka Sagari. And, you know, I'll give you an example. It comes to mind, you know. I have a Yashiva high school and we have a graduation ceremony every year. And every so often, time to time, I'm asked the question, why don't we have the students wear caps and gowns at the graduation ceremony? No, a nice robe and a square mortarboard with a tassel, you know, and they look formal. So to me it seems like this. Why should you wear a square hat? Because you graduated high school. Like is there a reason, like somehow the square hat symbolizes some level of academic achievement? I don't think so. So what's the temptation? Why do you want to do it? Because everybody else does it. That's not what a Jew does. A Jew does not do things for the sake of conformity. If it makes sense, if there's a reason behind it, we don't mean to do it. When it rains, carry an umbrella. When it's snowy, wear boots. Drive on the right side of the road, not on the left side of the road. You're not doing it because you want to conform to the ways of the world. You're doing it for the same reason everyone is doing it. It makes sense. It's logical. But to do something just because everyone is doing it, that's not what a Jew does. A Jew understands that he is a part of a nation which is different, which is unique, which has a special mission in the world. And therefore it's not just that you want to avoid anything that has to do with idolatry. That's true. Of course that's true. But it's more than that. It goes beyond that. We have to maintain our uniqueness. The desire just to blend, just to fit in, just to go along with the flow to be a part of what everyone else is doing, that is something which is alien. That is something which is foreign. A Jew has to be proud of his uniqueness, of his distinction. And therefore the Torah says don't do things just because everyone else is doing them. It goes without saying that we don't do anything associated with idolatry. That's a given. But even if it has nothing to do with idolatry at all, the mere fact that the motivation is to do it because I want to be a part of what everyone else is doing, that's not how a Jew should think. Now again, I don't know if this is a technical violation, but there are certain times there are events. There's the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl comes up. And it's very interesting when Super Bowl time comes, there are a lot of people that have no interest in football year round, all of a sudden have a big interest in watching the Super Bowl. And you wonder why that is. The whole season, the playoffs, no interest at all. Waste of time couldn't care less. Come Super Bowl Sunday, it's a hell of a lot. I'm not going to participate. Well, sure. If a few hundred million people are doing something, I'm going to be left out. I shouldn't participate. I shouldn't be a citizen of the world. The answer to that question is yes. You shouldn't participate. Because if you have an interest in it, if somehow you understand it and you appreciate it and it gives you pleasure to watch the athletic feats, then why not watch it? Watch it. To each his own. It's not my cup of tea, but this is the type of thing you enjoy and you really understand it and appreciate it and you see wisdom and skill and athleticism. That gives you satisfaction, nothing wrong with that. But if you really have no interest in it and you really couldn't care less and the motivation is because but everyone else is doing it. So I can't be left out. That's not how a Jew is meant to think. A Jew doesn't think that I have to participate because I can't be left out. A Jew understands that I'm special. I'm different. I'm unique. And I don't compromise in that uniqueness just for the sake of conformity. So I think that when we ask ourselves the question can Jews, should Jews celebrate Christmas? I think that there are several ideas we have to keep in mind. Number one is that even a cursory study of the theology leads us to the conclusion that it's only with a system which is alien. And to participate in its rituals really means making a concession to that which we believe is false, not true. Number two, it's a halachic prohibition. Number three, we should even avoid incorporating Christian rituals into our own daily life, but more than that. And I think this is probably the most important thing and it has so many ramifications for life. It says we should not go through life with a sense of being left out, a sense of being deprived. The desire to conform to what everyone else is doing to what a majority is doing is something that we should properly diagnose as being something which is alien, something which is not what we're meant to be and meant to do. We have to be proud of what we are, stand up for it, and strengthen ourselves in our own values, our own beliefs, our own practices.