Christmas Music for Jews

No matter how much most secular pop Christmas music gets on my nerves (and it really gets on my nerves), I still appreciate traditional religious Christmas music and classical Christmas-inspired pieces.  That might seem odd, since I’m a convert to Judaism, but the traditional Christmas music touches the part of my brain that likes to think about spiritual matters, even though I don’t come to the same religious conclusions Christians do.

Consider the beloved choral piece “For Unto Us A Child is Born,” as translated for Handel’s Messiah.

“ For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

The lyrics are the King James English translation of Isaiah 9:6, as sacred to Jews as to Christians.  But the lyrics have a different significance to people of each faith.  To Christians, they are confirmation of the fulfillment of prophesy through Jesus.  To Jews, they are a promise that has not yet been fulfilled.  And the text is absolutely legitimate when imagined through either world view.

 

From my Jewish point of view, the idea that “the government shall be upon his shoulder” is a pretty clear indication that the literal and supposedly historical figure of Jesus could not be the promised Messiah.  But Christians have other ways of interpreting this phrase.  And in a way, it doesn’t really matter, because whether you see the Messiah as having arrived in a literal sense, or whether you see the Messiah as a metaphor for a new birth of spirituality and human kindness that is yet to take place, as I do, joy and hope are the end result.

Joy, hope, and peace are the hallmarks of traditional Christmas music.  The quiet beauty of “Silent Night,” the jubilance of “Joy to the World,” and the stately reverence of The Messiah are universal in nature, though not in the specific religious interpretations of their texts.  Rather, the large body of traditional Christmas music that has survived the decades and even the centuries has survived because it speaks to a broader spiritual yearning that the major religions all have in common. So, though I am Jewish, I still listen.