A time to celebrate light: How different faiths are marking the holiday season

Bright, glowing lights. Gathering with friends and family. Warming up with a cup of hot chocolate, against the cold Canadian winter. The holidays are a memorable time of year — both for people who celebrate the festive season and those who don’t.

While Christmas trees, decorations, and festivities are often the most featured, the season includes more than just this holiday. Other faith-based holidays from October onwards this year are Hanukkah and Diwali. Non-religious holidays are also celebrated, such as Kwanzaa and the winter solstice.

More and more Canadians are celebrating Christmas for non-religious reasons.

In 1988, 27 per cent of Canadians said Christmas was primarily a religious celebration, the Angus Reid Institute reported. However, a 2019 poll found just 10 per cent of Canadians celebrate the holiday from a faith-based perspective.

The updated poll also reported 53 per cent of Canadians said Christmastime is centred around fun and festivities, and 34 per cent believe Christmas is equally about secular joy and religious observance.

The colder months are a time to commemorate across many faiths.

Christmas is a major Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. It is most often observed annually on Dec. 25, however some Orthodox Christians celebrate on Jan. 7. Christmas observers will often decorate an evergreen conifer tree, sing carols, attend church services, and spend time with family. 

Hanukkah, or Chanukah in the Hebrew language, is the eight-day Jewish festival of lights. It is celebrated with a nightly menorah lighting, special prayers, and fried foods. 

This year, Hanukkah will be celebrated from Dec. 14 to 22. However, the dates change every year as Hanukkah is celebrated according to the Hebrew calendar on the 25th of Kislev — the ninth month in the Hebrew calendar. 

Diwali, or the festival of lights, is celebrated in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. In Hinduism, Diwali honours the Goddess Lakshmi and marks Lord Rama’s return to his kingdom. For Jains, the holiday marks the nirvana, or enlightenment, of Lord Mahavira.

In Sikhi, Diwali is also known as Bandi Chhor Divas and commemorates the release of the sixth Sikh guru (teacher), Guru Hargobind Sahib, from prison. Guru Hargobind Sahib did not leave the prison until 52 kings were released with him.

Diwali observers celebrate by lighting divas (clay lamps). This year, Diwali and Bandi Chhor Divas were observed on Oct. 20 and 21. The date for the celebrations can range from October to November.

Light is an important aspect in many holidays during this season, including Christmas, Hanukkah, and Diwali.  

“I once looked up that somewhere between the middle of November to the middle of January, I counted something like 17 different types of celebrations that take place around the world. They all have a certain thing in common — light,” says Philip Bregman, a retired rabbi.

“That’s because we’re entering into the winter solstice…. We’re looking for something to dispel the darkness. Both physically — whether it’s lighting candles or lighting Christmas trees or doing things of that nature — but more importantly, psychologically and sociologically by dispelling darkness in one’s life.”

Bregman moved to Vancouver in 1980 and became the rabbi of a small congregation at Temple Sholom. When he started as the rabbi, the congregation was about 65 families. By Bregman’s retirement in 2013, after 33 years at Temple Sholom, the congregation had grown to more than 700 families.

In 2021, Bregman became the inter-faith liaison at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and launched an inter-faith group called The Other People. The organization works to address systemic and individual racism and discrimination, often through education at schools in B.C.

“Judaism is a religion — it’s an ethnicity,” Bregman says. “Hanukkah is a celebration of light, a celebration of tolerance, a celebration of trying to dispel the darkness in the world.”

Hanukkah began when the Second Temple in Judaism was destroyed by the Roman siege of Jerusalem. 

“One of the things that we had in the temple was a seven-branch candelabra representing the seven days of the week — and it had to be constantly burning,” Bregman says.

Jewish people reclaimed the holy temple, but they needed oil to light the menorah. 

“We had to find light that had been, for lack of a better word, blessed,” Bregman says. “The oil would be put into [the cruse] and then it would be sealed with wax. The high priest’s ring would be stamped on it, basically saying this is kosher now.”

They were only able to find one cruse of oil — and it was only enough to keep the flames burning for a day. However, often referred to as the miracle of Hanukkah, the oil lasted for eight days.

After the great miracle, the Jewish people developed a Hanukkah menorah, which has nine branches — eight for each day of Hanukkah and a centre branch to light the others, Bregman says.

“This time of year is a great opportunity for us to really bring light, but it has to be a light of tolerance,” Bregman says.

Inderjeet Singh is the Sikh chaplain at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and other organizations across Metro Vancouver, including the RCMP, Surrey Memorial Hospital, and the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also a member of The Other People with Bregman.

“What I like to see happen at this time of the year is to celebrate the light,” Singh says. “I feel a lot of different festivals and cultures have the significance of that one element. Christmas has light. Kwanzaa has light. Hanukkah has light. Diwali has light.”

In Sikhi, the light within the faith is called the jyot, Singh says.

“The jyot is what we consider was within every guru that came — the body changed, but the jyot remained,” he says. “The jyot is this message of enlightenment, and for us, that is what we are celebrating.”

Sikhs recently celebrated Bandi Chhor Divas, but Singh says during this time, there are some things that were not so positive that happened within the faith.

The 350th shaheedi (martyrdom) of the ninth Sikh guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was commemorated in late November. In late December, Sikhs remember the martyrdom of the Chote Sahibzade, the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh guru.

“We never forget the martyrdom because the day you forget it, you’ll also forget the pain,” Singh says, adding the shaheedis are a time to remember the pain and celebrate the lives of the martyrs. 

“There’s a celebration, but it’s a different type of celebration. We’re celebrating the life that they lived and the messages they left behind for us,” Singh says.

Singh is from Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country. He does not personally observe Christmas, but he does celebrate by joining Christmas gatherings with friends. He also joins gatherings for other holidays like Lunar New Year and Diwali.

“What is the reason why kids want to have a Christmas tree at home? They don’t care about the tree because there are tons of those trees up in the mountains,” Singh says. “It’s what’s under it — the gifts.”

Marty Shoemaker is a non-theistic humanist and joined KPU as a chaplain when the Multi-Faith Centre opened. While never having taught at KPU, Shoemaker was a psychologist for 40 years and taught at Douglas College and lectured at UBC. 

He has been lecturing and writing about humanism for 15 years, which led Shoemaker to write a book about secular humanism. 

Humanism dates back to the Age of Enlightenment period from the 1600s to the 1800s and the Death of God movement. The Death of God movement was a radical Christian theological school, grouped into many views, but generally argued that a belief in God is meaningless in the modern world and fulfillment should be found through a secular perspective.

“Being a humanist is living according to natural law and by evidence, but also with a great commitment to kindness and to the creative instincts of every human,” Shoemaker says. “It is not necessarily in any way divinely inspired — it’s just human effort.”

Unlike other faith systems, humanism does not have one sole creator or teacher. Early philosophers who gave way to humanism include David Hume, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. 

While humanism is similar to atheism — the belief there is no higher power or God — and agnosticism — the belief the existence of the divine or God is unknown — they have their differences.

“I think it takes faith to be an atheist. You have to believe that something doesn’t exist, and in my view, you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist,” Shoemaker says. “If you’re evidence-based and you say, ‘I know there’s no God,’ to me, that’s a faith statement.”

Shoemaker grew up in a conservative Christian home in southern California. While he does not practise the religious aspects of Christmas anymore, he still celebrates the festival.

“We believe Christmas is a time of charity. I give a gift to every member of my family and to World Vision to support kids and their projects. It’s actually a religious organization that goes way back in my family,” Shoemaker says.

While he celebrates Christmas, Shoemaker also always participates in the winter solstice. He says it’s how many secular and non-religious people spend the holiday season.

“It’s a holiday that goes way back thousands of years in agrarian culture — maybe as far back as the New Stone Age,” Shoemaker says.

The British Columbia Humanist Association, which Shoemaker is a member of, holds an event for the winter solstice on Dec. 20 or 21 every year. 

“It’s the shortest day of the year, and the next day after that is a little longer,” Shoemaker says. 

“It is the beginning. It’s the end of the darkness and the beginning of more light — and that’s always a symbol for progress and wisdom.”