<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><pre><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">
</span></font><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Nittelnacht</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">A few centuries before Jews started observing the custom of eating Chinese food on x-mas <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Eve there was another Jewish custom which was observed on that</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">night called Nittelnacht. Its observance consisted of an avoidance of
studying Torah and people would do such things as play cards. In some
Ashkenazic communities religious study was actually prohibited on x-mas. Card playing was considered as a
form of gambling (or at least as a temptation to
gamble) so devout Jews would never do it the rest of the year. But on
Nittelnacht, it was allowed. Why this should be the case isn't clear --
one source says it was to keep the Jews alert in case of an attack, but this
seems a bit unlikely. In the terminology of those communities, x-mas is</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">referred to as Nittel. The simplest explanation of the word is as a variant
form of the Latin natalis, as in dies natalis or natale dominus,
meaning day of birth, the same word that gives us the French Noël. Nittel is also
the Yiddish word for x-tmas. My grandmother used the word Chrastmich
(scratch me – a play on the word). However, the Yiddish word also carries
another meaning. 'Nit' means 'Nothing' in Yiddish, so with the affectionate diminutive ‘l ending, Nittlenacht becomes
"The night of little nothing". </span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">However, later generations, for whom the original derivation was no longer familiar,
subjected it to their own imaginative attempts at speculative etymology.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">The most frequently cited theory traced Nittel to the Hebrew
form nitleh meaning 'hanged', a word that could legitimately be applied
to a victim of crucifixion.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Other writers favored a derivation from Hebrew nittal, meaning taken.
Though this produces a better similarity of sounds, its connection to x-mas
is harder to fathom. Supporters of this reading understood it in the sense of
the one who was taken from Judaism or the arrested one, though this designation
would apply more appropriately to Easter.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">The avoidance of Torah study on a gentile holy day is a
puzzling notion that seems downright pathological in its readiness to diminish
one's own spiritual growth in order to deny recognition to someone else's
faith. While such narrow-mindedness might have been understandable in the
ghettos of medieval Europe where it originated, it is particularly distasteful
to find it continued into our own days.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Evidently, this custom was not merely a marginal phenomenon
in Ashkenazic communities; The proscription of study on x-mas is mentioned
by several respectable halakhic authorities, and in some circles it was treated
as a quasi-obligatory practice.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Occasionally, the differing attitudes towards Nittel-nacht
were recognized as criteria for distinguishing between the Hassidim and their
opponents. Thus, we find that the scholarly orientation of the Lithuanian
yeshivas led many of their leaders to oppose any interruption of study on
x-tmas eve, whereas Hassidic lore depicted the night as a time of sinister
metaphysical foreboding that must be treated with grave vigilance.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">
It has also been said that some Jews fasted on that night,
as a sign of sorrow for the start of major troubles for the Jewish people,
though there are no sources to that effect.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Nowadays, Nittelnacht certainly isn't observed outside the Haredi communities, and
probably even by them either. Some of its customs - like playing cards - have
been incorporated, more positively, into Hanukah.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Not convinced that mere religious contempt provided a
sufficient justification for abstaining from such a vital mitzvah of learning,
some Jewish authors sought other rationales for the custom. Rabbi Nathan Adler
of Frankfort interpreted it as an expression of mourning, presumably for all
the persecutions that were inflicted on Jews since the inception of x-ianity.
In this respect, it was comparable to the prohibition of Torah study that is
observed on Tisha b'Av.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">His student, the Hassam Sofer of Pressburg,
objected that Rabbi Adler's explanation failed to account adequately for the
widespread practice of limiting the prohibition to the hours until midnight. He
therefore proposed a different theory: the real purpose of the custom was to
encourage Jews to resume their studies after midnight, because
otherwise they might (from a heavenly perspective) be compared adversely with
the devout gentiles who were spending x-mas eve in pious devotion in their
churches.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">A nineteenth-century scholar suggested that the custom had
evolved from what were initially pragmatic considerations. Because in earlier times,
x-mas eve had been an occasion for assaults on Jewish institutions, it had
been recommended that the yeshivas be left dark and empty during that night, in
order to keep potential attackers from being attracted to the lights. Such attacks often happened, and
the communities responded by keeping quiet and being ready.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Those who forbade study on Nittel night insisted that grave
consequences would befall people who transgressed the prohibition. One Hasidic
rabbi attested that irresponsible individuals who insisted on pursuing their
studies had their houses visited by dogs — a terrifying prospect for eastern
European Jews, especially since (as the writer hints) dogs have symbolic
associations with the demonic realms.</span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">An odd development in the nineteenth century rabbinic
discourse involved the identification of Nittel with the winter solstice.
Because the astronomical definition of the solstice is at variance with the
halakhic usage, and the disparities between the Julian and Gregorian calendars
lead to divergences in the computations used by different churches, this
interpretation has given rise to some peculiar Gemara arguments over such
questions as: the correct halakhic date of x-mas; whether the ban on
learning can override Shabbos; and how to determine the precise moment when
x-mas night begins!</span></font></p><p align=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik used to comment that "he is willing to see the Hell he gets for learning Xmas eve, and the heaven someone else gets for playing cards instead".
</span></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">In 1911 there was an infamous blood libel in the Ukraine known as the Beilis trial. One of the "expert witnesses" for the prosecution was the notorious anti-semitic priest Justin Pranaitis, the author of the anti-semetic tract The Talmud Unmasked. Louis Ginzberg was asked by Louis Marshall (constitutional lawyer and Jewish communal leader) to formulate a response to Pranaitis' testimony. In his response Ginzberg <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> noted that in at least one place in his book Pranaitis wrote that when the Jews called x-mas Nitalthey were actually <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> cursing Jesus. Ginzberg points out that it is actually from the medieval Latin Natale Domini, which means "birth of the lord". <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> Ginzberg goes on to say "Is it thinkable that a priest should not know the Latin forx-mas? Of course we have to admit, we have <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> no knowledge of the education of the Turkestan priesthood, and it is perhaps possible that Paranaitis does not know Latin". </span></font></p><p align=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">One time a Professor who explained the custom of not studying Torah on Nittelnacht said that it is
nice to know that, no matter how far away from tradition a Jew might be, it is
likely that he or she at least observes this one Jewish custom!</span></font></p><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Does anyone have an answer for: If one of the reasons for this minhag was the danger of getting beaten up outside, then why isn't there a such minhag for Easter? In fact, the danger was much greater on the latter day, since that was when anti-Semitic sermons were delivered blaming the Jews for the crucifixion. Any ideas?</span></font></pre><pre><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></pre><pre><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></pre><pre><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></pre><pre><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></pre></body></html>