It is easy to ignore the fact that New Year’s is a commemoration of the beginning of another religion. Many ignore the religious connections, though the Roman Catholic calendar calls Jan. 1 “the circumcision of the Lord.” The real problem is not that we use the civil calendar: the question is how much we use our own calendar. Although a certain measure of acculturation has been present in Jewish life in every age and place, it has generally been offset by the existence of a robust Jewish culture.

The use of the civil calendar is just a detail. It is a detail, however, that is one of so many details of the same kind: names, language, customs, and habits. This is more than a religious problem: It is a question about the whole of Jewish culture and, in a deeper sense, about Jewish identity. The Jew who counts the time in the same ways as the society that surrounds him, and has a name that blends in nicely with that same society, and speaks only the society’s language, and has no custom or way of a different lifestyle – What remains of his identity as a Jew, beyond an empty word that may still, somehow, adhere to him?

The Jew who counts the time in the same ways as the society that surrounds him, and has a name that blends in nicely with that same society, and speaks only the society's language, and has no custom or way of a different lifestyle - What remains of his identity as a Jew, beyond an empty word that may still, somehow, adhere to him?

The life of a people, like the life of an individual, is not created only of big deeds and exalted ideas. Small details contribute powerfully towards an identity. Most human beings have a nose, a mouth, a pair of eyes: we recognize individuals by tiny details that together create individual faces. The late Isaac Asimov (who was not, by any means, an observant Jew) wrote in his autobiography that p’tcha (an Eastern European food made of calves’ foot jelly) is the real ambrosia of the gods. One cannot build an identity on p’tcha and a Jewish name, but these things help.

Changing the lives of millions of people demands a very powerful jolt. But, still, there are little things that help preserve some connection

So, for those who care, strengthening the threads of memory has significance. A name, a picture, a Jewish phrase – all of these should be cultivated and enlarged. At the beginning, it may feel strange and artificial, but it may stick. When every Jewish home has a Mezuzah, that will be a great symbol, even if the people in the house do not know what it means. When there is a reminder of a Jewish date, it conveys somehow even for those who do not know how to pronounce it properly.

And having a Jewish name, even as a middle name, still serves to remind one of a Jewish grandparent. We have to keep the small things in order not to forget.

So, when was the 11th of Tevet?!!

Reprinted with permission from the author.