The God of Jesus, The God of Israel

Note: I've submitted this story for the Winter Holiday's Story Contest 2016. If you enjoy it, please vote. Also, per the non-erotic focus category, there's no sex.

*

"You'll be fine, Stanley, until the kids come along," an older friend warned me before I married Jill. "Then there could be issues."

Now I know what he means. Like me, he's Jewish. Also like me, he married a Christian girl. Before we had Crystal and Michael, religion wasn't an issue. She went to church and I went to temple. We accepted our differences without argument, without pushing our faith on each other. We were both grounded in our faith, though I did it more out of ritual, while Jill really believed, heart and soul. She's no bible-thumping Evangelical, just a brilliant bio-statistician of Christian faith.

Now that we're parents, things have changed. Where we once ignored our different belief systems, we now talk about it. Respectfully, we sometimes even engage in debate. Still, we both look forward to celebrating our faiths' special holidays, Passover, Easter, Christmas and Hanukkah, especially the latter two because it's such a joyous time for us. I help Jill decorate the Christmas tree and she helps me light the Hanukkah candles. The kids spin dreidels.

Jill considers Jesus the "son of God." She believes in the virgin birth, the miracles and the resurrection—all so much hocus pocus to me, though I respect her faith and she respects mine (or lack thereof). But, now that our kids are getting older, (Crystal is nine, Michael eight), we'd prefer to raise them in the faith that our parents raised us, no mean feat because in the process, kids can get mighty confused. On Sundays, they attend church with Jill. On Saturday mornings, they attend temple with me. They want to know why the rabbi never mentions Jesus in the service, while in church they pray in his name. Jews don't pray to Jesus, I tell them, because they don't believe he was Devine. They quote their reverend and Jill, stuff about Jesus dying for the sins of the world, about him being the way to salvation, the Savior. I shake my head, then tell them that Jews atone for their sins on Yom Kippur, and that very devout Jews still wait for the messiah that Christians insist already came and went and will one day return.

The discussion gets more intense during the holiday season. It's a family affair, and this snowy Sunday morning is no exception. Last night we gathered around the menorah and lit the first candle, the first of eight that we light during the Hanukkah celebration. The big brass menorah, a gift from my parents, sits on the dining room table. Our tree stands in a corner of our living room, all aglow with lights and bulbs and topped with a plastic angel. The kids know those gifts wrapped under the tree came from us, not a jolly, pudgy guy dressed in red sporting a thick white beard who lives at the North Pole. Still in their PJs, Michael and Crystal, their faces beaming as only a child's face can on Christmas morning, begin to unwrap their gifts. Jill, dressed in a white robe over her blue nightgown, sits on the edge of the sofa, hands folded neatly in her lap. "Enjoy your presents, kids," she says, "but let's not forget what we're celebrating."

Crystal, half her light brown hair still in her face, looks up. "I know, mom. We're celebrating the birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ."

Jill smiles.

I wince.

Michael, though busy tearing at the silver gift-wrap that covers the book we got him, manages to look at me, his lightly freckled face a picture of curiosity. "Dad, did Judah Maccabee and Jesus know each other?" He already knows that Judah Maccabee led the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Empire. He also knows that the oil for the temple that was supposed to last just one day lasted eight.

"No, Jesus was born over a hundred years after Judah died," I tell him.

"Oh," he says, then finishes unwrapping his gift, "Charlotte's Web," E.B. White's classic novel about a pig's friendship with a spider. "My teacher recommended we read this." He looks a little disappointed until he unwraps his other gift, a skateboard. Crystal gets a talking doll and a pair of roller skates. In addition, we throw in a set of Lego building blocks for both of them.

As we watch our kids sort out the colorful plastic blocks, I figure they're too absorbed in play to inquire further into the meaning of the holidays. But then Crystal asks if Judah Maccabee rose from the dead like Jesus. "Nobody in Jewish history ever did that," I say. "Not even Moses, who the bible says talked to God face to face."

Jill cuts in with a gentle reminder. "Au contraire. Jesus was a Jew, remember. And so were most of his disciples."

Michael looks up, surprised. "Jesus was Jewish?"

"Yes," I nod, "but—ˮ

"So why don't you believe in him the way mom does, dad?"

"Well, because the Jews in Jesus' time expected the true messiah to free them from the yoke of Roman oppression," I explain, reiterating what one of my Hebrew schoolteachers told me years ago. "Jesus didn't do that, therefore, they couldn't accept him as the real messiah."

"That's not the way Christians see it," Jill says, addressing Michael. "Christ died for our sins so we could have salvation in the afterlife. He couldn't stop the Romans from doing bad things to people or the Germans from doing bad things in World War Two, the war your grandfather fought in."

Crystal finishes snapping some blocks together and looks up. "Penelope said that people who don't believe in Jesus will go to hell," she says, quoting one of her classmates. She looks at her mom, drawing a worried expression. "Will daddy go to hell?"

"Of course not," Jill says, emphatically. "Your dad is a good man, and good people go to heaven." She winks at me. "So you can just tell your friend Penelope she's wrong."

I can't say I'm a firm believer in heaven or hell. Still, it's nice getting my wife's stamp of approval in front of our kids. If she's right, then my soul's trip into heaven is secured. Crystal smiles, looks relieved.

"On the other hand," Jill continues, "he's only known one-third of God, the Father. He's missing the Son and Holy Ghost."

I raise my eyebrows, stunned by her comment. This is a new twist added to our past discussion on the subject. "Jill, the triple Godhead is another major sticking point between Jews and Christians," I say, my tone slightly testy. "We believe in only one God, not three." Then I quote the ancient watchwords of Judaism. "Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One."

"Stan, Christians believe in only one Supreme Being as well. We got that from you guys. Just think of the Godhead as an amalgamation of what you call Adonai. Not an easy concept to understand, I must admit."

"I'll say. Anyway, I can't accept it because for no other reason, I wasn't raised believing it. Again, we're taught that Moses is the only Jew who ever spoke with God directly. Moses never describes what God looks like because he can't, not in human terms, anyway. Our faith teaches that God would NEVER take human form, not even for Moses. "

"Except he did," Jill says softly, "two-thousand years ago, give or take. One day I believe you'll see that."

"When daddy's in heaven, right mom?" Michael says. He and his sister sit cross-legged on the rug, their attention diverted from their gifts to our discussion.

"Right, that's when," Jill says.

She looks so beautiful in the morning, with her long blond tresses stylishly mussed, her sparkling blue eyes and her skin, still soft and wrinkle-free as she nears forty. "Looks like an angel," is the way I described her to my parents when we first met. She still does. If all the angels in this so-called heaven look as stunning as Jill, I'll look forward to going there.

I leave it at that, feeling somewhat content that my family believes in my salvation, even though I have serious doubts that there is such a thing. As for their so-called savior, the Jewish carpenter who they believe was born from a virgin—it doesn't make much sense to me either. But then, neither does lots of what the bible says, and not just the New Testament. Consider Jonah and the whale, Noah and his ark, the burning bush, Moses striking the rock to get water, Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt when she turns to see Sodom and Gomorrah go up in flames. Even the Exodus, THEE major event in Jewish history is suspect in my eyes. I mean, with six-hundred-thousand Hebrews roaming the desert for forty years, you'd think they'd leave something behind to prove it, something archaeological we could grab onto. But no, they didn't. Or, if they did, we haven't yet found it. And did the Red Sea really part the way the bible explains it? Really?

Christmas day wears on. I surf the net, read and shovel the few inches of snow that accumulates on our suburban walkway. Just before dinner, we gather around the menorah to light the second candle. Jill also knows the Hanukkah story. Not only knows it, but also believes that it was God's intervention that caused the oil to last for eight days. I have my doubts about that, too. Jill notices my look of skepticism as she repeats the story. Her face looks even more radiant in the flickering candlelight. "It was a miracle," she says. "Just like the birth of Jesus, a miracle."

Try arguing unabashed faith with scientific logic. You can't, and therefore I don't. Instead, I turn and kiss her. "So that's what we're celebrating tonight, I guess, miracles."

"Yes, but maybe something more important," she says, "the true meaning of these holidays, at least what they mean to us, our family."

I turn from the glow of three candles (the middle candle is what we light the others with) and face her. "And that is?"

She takes my hand. "Tolerance and acceptance for what others believe. The joy of giving. Love of family. God's love for all of us, regardless of our beliefs. Because, believe it or not, Stan, we both pray to the same God. We might differ in our approach, our biblical interpretations might differ, but the God of Jesus is also the God of Israel."

I hug my kids and Jill. It's been a great holiday, and I look forward to many more. Looking ahead, I wonder what Michael and Crystal will believe when they're grown. Then I realize it doesn't matter. Jill's right; if a supreme being exists—Adonai, Ha-Shem, YHWH, Allah, Christ—whatever you want to call him, his love is for all. It shines on our close, loving family. It's the glue that binds us together, not despite the differences but perhaps because of them.

Sitting down to eat, we discuss less weighty topics, the Ravens' chances for making the playoffs, for example, and those celebs that vowed to leave the country if Trump won the election. The food is delicious and, like our family, decidedly interfaith in nature—potato latkes, gifilte fish and a huge Smithfield ham.