THE ORIGIN OF THE CIVIL NEW YEAR
The 2024 New Year will begin tonight at 12:00 a.m. on January 1st. According to Christian tradition, New Year’s Day celebrates the circumcision of Yeshu (Jesus). Yeshu was obviously Jewish, and his family circumcised him according to the rules of the Tora on the eighth day after his birth, counting from December 25. Ironically, the practice of circumcision was annulled early in the early years of Christianity.
Because?
In his book “The History of Christianity”, Paul Johnson explains that many Romans were attracted to monotheism and Jewish ethics. But there were elements of Judaism that scared them and kept them away from conversion. Examples: They were not willing to stop earning money on Saturdays. They were also not willing to sacrifice pork (a very popular food in Europe). And the idea of being circumcised terrified them. Especially for this last reason, not many Romans converted to Judaism (it should be noted that Jews, although we accept converts, never actively seek them). Johnson says that the early Christian apostles actively sought to convert the Romans to their new variant of Judaism and realized that if they adapted it and made it easier, thousands of Romans would convert to a “light version” of Judaism. And this is how the church reformed Jewish law, allowing the consumption of meat from any animal, reinterpreting the prohibition of working on Saturdays, and replacing the feared circumcision with the comfortable baptism. It was ironically in Yerushalayim, at the Christian council of Jerusalem in the year 50, that circumcision was definitively annulled. Until then, the first Christians were not very different from sects of dissident Jews, such as the Tsadokim or the Mityavnim, for example. But after the annulment of the Berit Milah, circumcision, which represents the first act of loyalty towards God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants, Christianity definitively separated itself from Judaism.
THE CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YEAR
Rabbi Terumat Hadeshen (1390-1460) and Ramah (1530-1572), both from Western Europe, referred to the Christian New Year’s Day as a Christian religious holiday, which they called: “the eighth day of Christmas” ( Apparently this is also how Christians in the Middle Ages defined it (see Darjé Moshe, Yoré De’á 148: 12) and considered it aboda zará, an idolatrous practice. At that time it was evident that the Jews did not participate in the “celebration” of the new year, because it had an entirely religious meaning, like Christmas, and mainly because the new year implicitly celebrates the abolition of the covenant of circumcision, which was obligatory for Yeshu the Jew but not for his followers.
For Jews living in Christian lands, the new year was not a civil celebration, as it is today. It was a not very happy day, in which religious speeches from New Year’s masses called for an increase in persecution against the Jews.
THE POPE AND THE JEWS
To illustrate this point, we will examine what happened during the papacy of Gregory XIII (1502-1585), who instituted the new calendar, known as the “Gregorian calendar,” and popularized the celebration of the new year in Catholic countries. Each new year, Gregory enacted new laws against the Jews, symbolizing the abolition of circumcision, the fundamental covenant of Judaism, and its replacement. It is not surprising, then, that for Pope Gregory – remembered for having prohibited Jews from practicing medicine and treating Christian patients – the conversion of the Jews, that is, forcing them to abandon their original covenant, has been an issue. central during that day.
On January 1, 1577, Pope Gregory These proselytizing speeches were given by apostate Jews who had converted to Christianity.
On New Year’s Day 1578, Gregory forced the Jews to pay a special tax to finance a “House of Conversion,” conceived with the intention of converting them to Christianity.
On January 1, 1581, Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all Jewish books in the possession of the Roman Jewish community.
And this is just one example.
Our historical memory of the New Year is not precisely associated with the “celebration” mode, but rather with oppressive measures, intolerance and persecutions.
THE ORIGIN OF THE JEWISH NEW YEAR
We Jews celebrate our new year on the first day of the month of Tishri. Why? On that day, God created Adam, the first man. The creation of the material world (the universe, our planet, life, etc.) is celebrated weekly on Shabbat. And once a year, on the 1st of Tishri, we Jews celebrate the creation of humanity. For this same reason, the Jewish New Year is also known as Yom haDin, the day of judgment. According to our Sages, on that day, humanity is judged, individually and collectively. During the day of Rosh HaShanah, the Shofar is blown, the Jewish way of announcing that God is the King and the Supreme Authority whom we must obey without reform. Their laws. And committing ourselves to observe his commandments from the moment we are born through the practice of circumcision.
Rabbi Yosef Bitton
