Word: menorahs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Sophomore year, with visions of the failed Christmas tree dancing in my head, I settled for just hanging my stockings and a string of chili-pepper red lights, and tried to ignore the holidays. Inspired by the previous year's success, junior year I decided that my roommates' Menorah was holiday decoration enough, and I did not even drag the tired stockings out of storage. I took the Charlie Brown approach to Christmas and deemed it too commercial and not worth all the effort. The season went by quickly and uneventfully...
...house life is certainly no less than that of a coffeehouse, an opera or a drag night. While we hold all of these communal activities (whether art or debauchery) in high esteem, we cannot regard religious observance with a lower degree of honor. Raise the nativity scene. Light the menorah. Celebrate a public Ramadan. Religious students should be encouraged by house masters and the administration to express themselves in this way, and funds within the budgets of house social committees should be made available for such purposes...
Besides the extreme nature of the menorah ban, it also seems somewhat hypocritical in light of other University policies. Students are currently permitted to light fires in their dorm room fireplaces, as long as the necessary precautions are taken. Many dorms permit smoking, an activity with great potential for starting fires, as was made evident in Dunster House before spring break. Further, each house and every new apartment on DeWolfe Street is equipped with a full kitchen, including appliances with definite fire potential...
...permit absolute freedom. For instance, we require automobile drivers to obey speed limits. We control for excess danger to society while permitting the maximum freedom to the individual. It is this personal freedom with which we should place our primary concern. In the case of the menorah ban, the solution to the problem does not allow the original freedom to exist...
...seems that Lewis has allowed his justifiable concern for fire safety precaution to outweigh First Amendment freedoms with the new menorah ban. Precautions must certainly be taken as intermediate steps between an outright ban and absolute laissez faire. But the current policy is hypocritical with respect to the legal use of other potential fire starters in the dorm rooms. The College is wrong to dictate the terms on which Jewish students may light their menorahs. It's time for the College to treat us as adults. Lewis should reverse...