Dear Friends:
Is it strange that every year as it gets colder I look forward to the release of Starbucks’ “Christmas Blend”, which is one of my favorite coffees?
The first Starbucks on the East Coast opened in March 1993 on Wisconsin Ave. NW in Washington, DC, near the National Cathedral. At the time I was the Hillel Director at American University and lived just off Connecticut Ave. in Cleveland Park. If I drove to work, this Starbucks was on my route, and it had a parking lot, so I would sometimes stop and get a cup of coffee. (This historic Starbucks location closed in 2012 to make room for the expansion of the Giant supermarket with which it shared a parking lot.)
Every year at the same time that Starbucks releases its Christmas Blend it also releases its holiday takeout cups, and every once in a while there is some kind of freakout when an attention-seeking televangelist claims that the holiday cups are not Christmas-y enough and are part of the “War on Christmas” or better yet, the “War on Christianity.”
In 2015, the Great Starbucks Christmas Cup Controversy was sparked by a YouTube video by a televangelist with the unlikely name of Joshua Feuerstein. At the time, it reminded me of one of the great moments in the history of interfaith relations in America.
One of the baristas at this first Starbucks was a young man named Tarek, an Egyptian-American Muslim who was a student at AU and had taken a course I taught as an adjunct in the History Department. On the day I came in to buy a pound of “Christmas blend” he paused for a moment and then let me know that they also offered the same coffee in a blue bag that said “holiday blend” and he offered to put the coffee in the holiday rather than Christmas bag. I told him that I was fine with the Christmas blend bag and we both had a little chuckle. It seems to me that if your faith depends either way on the presence or absence of the word “Christmas” on your coffee cup or bag, then Starbucks coffee is a lot stronger than your faith.
Today there are both “Christmas” and “Holiday” blends but they are not the same. While you can still buy beans or ground coffee at Starbucks, they are no longer kept in bins and weighed out for customers as they are ordered. Rather, they are kept in sealed and pre-weighed bags, so the offer that Tarek made to put the beans I ordered in a “holiday” rather than “Christmas” bag would not be possible today.
As a reminder, I am having drop-in hours on Thursday afternoons from 2 to 4 at the shul. For my drop-in hours, you do not need to make an appointment -- that would negate the whole point of drop-in hours -- but I’d urge you to check and make sure I am there regardless as sometimes there are unavoidable pastoral or other emergencies which might take me away from the building.
As always, if I can do anything for you or you need to talk, please contact me at rabbi@kehilatshalom.org or 301-977-0768 rather than through the synagogue office. I am happy to meet you at the synagogue by appointment; if you want to speak with me it’s best to make an appointment rather than assuming I will be there when you stop by.
Additionally, if you know of a Kehilat Shalom congregant or another member of our Jewish community who could use a phone call, please let me know.
L’shalom,
Rabbi Charles L. Arian
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