[HANASHIR:12390] Re: What d'ya think of this song?

[Freedabet <Freedabet...>]

Perhaps it's too bad that our temple summer programs are 'camps' focused on 
swimming and games and are not 'Bible Schools.'

In a vacuum I suppose you could take or leave this song, but, you should use 
this song precisely _because_ mixed-marriage kids might be confused, and make 
sure they know that it is a _Jewish_ story.  

And, I can't believe some of us are going to give up on the word 'Lord' 
because Christians often use it to refer to Jesus (but, since they believe in 
'3 in 1,' they are also always addressing God).  It's bad enough that many 
dance around it in the name of equality because it's "masculine" (even though 
there are both masculine and feminine names for God in Hebrew -- that's what 
you get with a language where each noun has a gender.)

We have borrowed many melodies from the surrounding cultures, and, of course, 
most of Christian practice comes in some way from Judaism.  Transforming 
various cultures' and religions' holidays is a very old practice.  The 
Catholic Church was successful in transforming the Winter Solstice into 
Christmas, from which I believe we borrowed the gift-giving aspect making 
Chanukah perhaps too important to our children.

Michael



-------- REPLY, Original message follows --------

> Date: Friday, 04-Oct-02 12:14 AM
> 
> From: HazzAnne (at) aol(dot)com         \ America Online: (HAZZANNE)
> To:   Hanashir Mail Server     \ Internet:    (hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org)
> 
> Subject:  [HANASHIR:12355] Re: What d'ya think of this song?
> 
> Sender: owner-hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Reply-to:       hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> To:     hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Hi - here's what I think - this is a Vacation Bible School song pure and
> simple. I believe it will confuse our interfaith-family kids in terms of
> differentiating between Judaism and Christianity at an age where they are
> ill-equipped to do so.
> 
> Anne
> 
> Cantor (and now -hooray - Student Rabbi) Anne Heath
> 
> P.S. I'm an ex-Episcopalian so I do know the "other" side  :)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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