Imagine yourself in the following scenario: every other Friday, you get together with other people of your faith, say a prayer over candles, and eat a ceremonial meal together. What I have just described, roughly, is a Shabbat dinner, a Jewish celebration of the Sabbath, or when God rested from creating the world in the book of Genesis.

However, although the Torah (known by many Christians as “the Old Testament”) is a big part of Christian narrative and practices, many celebrations involving the stories of the Torah, such as the Shabbat dinner, are mysteriously absent from Christian culture.

Perhaps this a side effect of cultural identity - an attempt by Christians to make a statement of individuality. But personally, I find this practice both alienating and limiting. Both Jews and Christians include the Torah as part of their faith, yet Christians celebrate holidays based solely on the New Testament; this is an awkward separation, not a seamless or even necessary one.

If both Jews and Christians read and discuss the story of Exodus and the decalogue in their Sunday schools and temples, why is the Seder, the celebration of passover, only honored in Jewish tradition? While it makes sense that Christians would have additional holidays and practices based on their secondary doctrine, abstaining from celebrating holidays and practices based on the first only takes away from the complexity of the faith.

The alienation component is a problem as well - Jews and Christians share much when it comes to the origins of their faith; sharing an entire text as a key part of both faiths is no small matter. Yet, the religions, as they stand today, are far removed from each other, sometimes to the point of conflict.

The idea of sharing holidays based on the Torah between Jews and Christians would be a ways of connecting the two faiths in a meaningful and positive fashion, and would not necessarily have to come as a loss of identity to either faith. Both would still have their individual practices, ideas, and places of worship. Rather, these shared holidays, could come as a time of bonding, even if temporary, between two faiths whose origins come from the same place.