It’s 9am on Christmas morning and I am standing in a queue in a rather ornate, grandiose building in Sydney.
I am among the many worshippers at the Church of Mary Immaculate in Waverley. And I am about to receive Communion.
Except I am a Jew, a traditional Jew who only weeks prior had a candelabra flickering in my window for eight nights in celebration of the miracle of Hannukah, when the Greeks tried – but failed – to annihilate the Jews and our holy temple more than 2000 years ago.
The queue shortens quickly, and I only have a fleeting moment to ponder an exit strategy, a nanosecond to cut and run.
But before I can even try to rationalise religion, or ponder the fact that Jesus was in fact a Jew, I am standing face to face with the elderly priest, who is holding out a wafer that I’m told represents the body of Jesus Christ.
No, I’m not reneging on my religion, severing ties to my ancient heritage or converting to Christianity.
I’m reciprocating a favour to an old mate that dates back to 2004 when my twin girls were named in a synagogue in Melbourne.
He’s an Irish Catholic from a small town near Dublin who grew up in a school run by Carmelite monks. He and his wife came to our baby-naming ceremony and, because they were seated alongside us, the gentleman in charge of rituals assumed it would be reasonable to ask him to hold the holy Torah – an auspicious honour.
Before he could utter a syllable in his strong Irish accent he was up on stage holding the ancient parchment scroll of the Old Testament.
So when he asked me on Christmas morning to take him to church, I figured this was my moment of truth – time to see if I would be prepared to do what he had done for me.
He’s not religious per se, but religion enveloped his upbringing and people across the globe – especially in Ireland – had been saying prayers for him over the past seven months since he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.
Those prayers were answered just three days before Christmas when a neurosurgeon in Sydney removed what he described as a tumour the size of an avocado from the back of his head.
His wife and kids were staying at my place. They prayed he’d survive the surgery and be with his family for Christmas. Santa played his part.
Now, I was being asked to play mine. But I wanted to bow out. I knew intrinsically this was not a place for a Jew, let alone one who can trace his lineage back to a rabbi in Europe centuries ago.
“Just say ‘Body of Christ’,” my mate advised me.
I shuffled towards the priest.
“Body of Christ,” I muttered.
In return I received a wafer – not dissimilar to the crackers we Jews eat during Passover.
I put it in my mouth and managed to avoid the second priest offering sips of wine – the blood of Jesus.
“What does the wafer mean?”
“The body of Christ is in you,” said my mate.
My throat tightened. My brain scrambled momentarily, incapable of computing such a sentence.
On the way out of church, my mate dabbed his finger in the holy water from a basin and made the sign of the cross on his head and chest. Then he did the same to me.
Not only had I received Communion, I’d been all but baptised on Christmas Day.
As we returned to my house, a Christmas tree was proudly standing in the doorway in order that his wife and kids would feel at home on this very, very special day.
But my house is a Jewish home. I’ve never had a Christmas tree. It’s anathema to my religion. It’s not in my DNA. It represents another world, albeit one in which I exist.
When we first discussed a tree, I admit to being nonplussed, to put it diplomatically. To me it represented a red line, the crossing (pardon the pun) of the Rubicon. I seriously struggled with the idea, I worried about the mixed messages it would send my children, and yes what the neighbours would think.
Then my wife came home with a long narrow box. I called some friends for advice. Lights? Trinkets? A star atop?
On reflection, Christmas was a wonderful day. Not only did my mate live to celebrate it with his family and mine, I got a sneak peak inside the rituals of a religion that, frankly, is not so far removed from mine. The prayers and penitence, rites and rituals are virtually one in the same.
In the end, those who were praying on Saturday, December 25 – be it in church or synagogue – were all no doubt seeking a similar end game: purification, forgiveness, thanks giving, spirituality over materiality.
As Benjamin Disraeli, the former British PM who was born a Jew but baptised as a young child, once said: “Judaism is not complete without Christianity and without Judaism, Christianity would not exist.”
Still, I know there’ll be some in my tribe who would disown me, accuse me of heresy, blasphemy and other transgressions. And that’s OK by me.
All I can say to them is this: forgive me rabbi for I have not sinned.
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
Greece makes the final and Ireland gets in on a golden ticket. How awkward and embarrassing. Love it. #sbseurovision
The weird thing about #eurovision is you've got this massive collection of dorks in a room and no one is wearing Spock ears #sbseurovision
Europe has the large hadron collider which is light years ahead of its time and #eurovision, where the eighties never die
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Eurovision can’t drown out the human rights abuses
Last year, thousands of Azerbaijanis spontaneously took to the streets of Baku shouting and chanting.…
Revenge. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this
Last month, Katy McCaffrey boarded the Disney Wonder cruiseliner. At some point during the trip, a sneaky…
Friday dilemma: can school bullies grow out of it?
ClubsNSW is set to introduce a fresh new effort to combat schoolyard intimidation, insisting on a principal’s…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented