A candy heart, a funny valentine and love letters from one’s intended...the most endearing aspects about this winter holiday seem to make Jews squirm uncomfortably. Valentine’s Day, as a rabbi may tell you, is not a Jewish holiday.
Can Jews Celebrate Valentine's Day?
But while many Orthodox rabbis will be quick to discount Valentines Day as a Jewish event, controversy still exists as to whether recognizing the date with a box of chocolate and valentine cards is against the religious precepts of Judaism.
The issue has in part to do with the confusing origins of Valentine’s Day, which is said to have at one time, celebrated the deeds of a little-known Christian priest from the 3rd century. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 a holiday in 496 CE in the name of “Saint Valentine.” Some legends say he died at the hands of the emperor Claudius II for aiding persecuted Christians; others say that it was his adoration for Claudius’s daughter that brought about his demise. No records exist to definitively explain St. Valentine’s origins or death and the identity remains a mystery.
The Origins of Valentine's Day Traditions
The saint’s day remained an official date on the Catholic calendar until 1969, when the Catholic Church did away with its official recognition as part of a church-wide reformation. Some researchers have suggested that the Catholic Church may have removed it from the calendar because of an assumed relationship to the pagan holiday Lupercalia, a fertility ritual celebrated around first century BCE.
Others suggest that it was removed from the calendar because it was unclear whom the Feast of St. Valentine was actually intended to commemorate. One researcher has traced the contemporary traditions of the holiday to a work by the 14th-century writer Geoffrey Chaucer, suggesting that they did not actually exist until after the publication of the Parlement of Foules almost 1,000 years after Valentine was said to have lived.
Clarifying the actual origins of Valentine’s Day therefore, has proved to be difficult. The name may suggest Christian origins, but the traditions that give it contemporary meaning (candy hearts, love letters and boxes of rich chocolates all in the name of love) suggest an entirely different significance.
But what does this have to do with whether it is appropriate as a Jew to acknowledge Valentine’s Day?
Judaism and Other Traditions
Rabbis have pointed out that the second of the Ten Commandments that states that Jews “shall have no other gods before Me.” Through the years, Jewish sages have interpreted that to mean that Jews are forbidden from celebrating the religious holidays of another faith. The rabbis point out that some of the holidays that are celebrated in the Western Hemisphere have strong links to other religions, including Christmas and Halloween.
Rabbi and scholar Michael Broyde explains that the Jewish litmus test so to speak, of whether a local holiday should be celebrated by Jews, lies in four questions that rabbis have applied to holidays over the years to determine whether a holiday can truly be called secular, and therefore, appropriate for Jews to celebrate:
- Does the debated activity have a secular origin or value?
- Can the conduct the individuals engage in can be rationally explained, independent of the non-Jewish holiday or event?
- Are pagan origins so deeply hidden that they have disappeared, and the celebrations can be attributed to some secular source or reason?
- Are the activities memorialized actually consistent with the Jewish tradition?
The purpose of these questions is to determine whether a) the holiday being described is a celebration of another religion’s precepts and b) whether the holiday has a rational basis (opposed to a frivolous intention), such as with the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving.
Chocolate and Sharing Love: A Jewish Tradition
Rabbi Broyde concludes that the contemporary Valentine’s Day, irrespective of its nebulous early Christian origins, is secular in nature, and can be explained logically: “[The] mode of Valentine's Day celebrations can be explained in our secular society completely rationally, grounded in such notions as sharing love, noting friendship and (perhaps most importantly) eating chocolate.”
However, for those who still feel uncomfortable with the origins of Valentine’s Day, Rabbi Broyde adds, “I think it is the conduct of the pious to avoid explicitly celebrating Valentine's day with a Valentine's day card, although bringing home chocolate, flowers or even jewelry to one's beloved is always a nice idea all year around, including on February 14.”
Tu B'Av and Valentine's Day
Rabbi Mike Uram adds to this interpretation, that “The academic work of [Jack B.] Oruch and other scholars further prove that Valentine's Day is not derived from the pagan holiday Lupercalia.” The expression of love, Rabbi Uram points out, is a Jewish tradition, as the little-known Jewish holiday Tu B’Av (the 15th of the month of Av) demonstrates.
Thus the romantic-at-hearts can be assured when they present that box of chocolates or accept that funny valentine that it is all in the name of love – and that is the most endearing Jewish quality of all.
Sources:
MyJewishLearning.com
Abacaximamao.blogspot.com
JewishVirtualLibrary.org
History.com
Ottmall.com
Jan Lee - Jan Lee has been writing for online and print publications for more than 20 years and have been published in five countries.
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