Today, Christians across the world celebrate Holy Cross Day, which commemorates the discovery of the cross that—their tradition holds—was used in the crucifixion of Jesus. It was, according to various legends, discovered at what is today the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 326 C.E.
Veneration of the cross and similar relics associated with early Christianity—including pieces of clothing and even body parts—can often seem distasteful to modern Jews. However, ancient Judaism possessed a somewhat murky reverence for artifacts. The Temple in Jerusalem was built around the Ark of the Covenant, which—according to the Torah—contained tablets of the law and served as a conduit for God’s power on earth. Through the course of history, many of our sacred spaces and relics have—by various means—left our possession: The Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Menorah, and the Ark itself.
However, Rabbinic Judaism, which grew directly out of our displacement from the places and pieces of our past, ultimately endowed new artifacts with reverence, from Shabbat candlesticks and mezuzot to the chanukkiah and the Sefer Torah. With these new symbols of faith and a new understanding of what it meant to be Jewish, the rabbis created a lasting tradition that sustains our community today. While there is no ancient synagogue built around a swatch of Moses’s swaddling cloth or Joshua’s shofar, Judaism continues to rely upon the use of relics and symbols.
When considering the holidays of other faiths, we would be wise to remember just how much we’ve changed since the beginnings of our own tradition, which has—throughout the millennia—evolved to make modern meaning from ancient agrarian—even pagan—rituals and relics, such as the use of the lulav and etrog.
Though we need not accept the historicity of our neighbors’ traditions, that shouldn’t keep us from sincerely wishing our Christian members and neighbors a blessed Holy Cross Day. Perhaps it can even help us consider how we’re constantly renewing our own traditions and histories—old and new—to give them new meaning.
—Rabbi Josh Knobel