It is Erev Christmas (Christmas Eve), and I’m at home.
No plans to go out to a movie.
No desire to eat Chinese food.
I’m feeling a little guilty but I’m not really feeling very religious this year.
Does this make me a bad Jew?
Many words have been written about why Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas. Rabbi Joshua Plaut penned an article about it. One researcher wrote a 100 page research paper on it.
We have the famous interaction between Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagen and ornery South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham during which he asked her where she had been last Christmas and she replied, “You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”
Oh, and there is the wonderful YouTube video Chinese Food on Christmas from a few years back.
I’m debating going for Thai food tomorrow on Christmas day, but I hear there is a ferocious debate raging in the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards regarding whether Thai (or Japanese or Korean) food fulfills the mitzvah. While I’m a proud Reform Jew, I am open to and often influenced by their decrees.
Traditions come and go, and observance rises and falls. Tonight I’m going to snuggle up on the couch and watch TV… There’s always next year.