Pls Hndle Thx: Party Like It's 5770

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

Dear ATL,
What are your thoughts on whether I should take off for the Friday of Rosh Hashanah and/or the Monday of Yom Kippur? I probably wouldn’t go to synagogue (yes, I’m Jewish), but I’d like to just take the day off to, ya know, just observe the holiday in my own way. I don’t want to get on anybody’s bad side at my white shoe firm by taking days off, especially since this place has been known to conduct stealth layoffs.
Do They Know It’s Christmastime At All?

Dear Do They Know It’s Christmastime At All,
When it comes to holidays (Jewish, Christian, Baha’i, Wiccan, whatever) you need to do what you feel is meaningful, law firm be damned. Your firm may penalize you for not showing up to work, but since there’s no hell in Judaism, you can rest easy knowing that God won’t.
The corporate slogan of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is “A sweet New Year.” For some that may mean going to temple for two days and being around family. I know for a fact that God does not want to me to go to temple and run into better looking, more successful people or the guy from my middle school class who invented topical Viagra and now has a license to print money. God wants me to start off the new year right by sleeping in and eating cheese fries. Instead of weeping and fasting on Yom Kippur, the Jewish answer to Lent, God may want you to punish yourself by reading Dan Brown’s new book or going to a Nickelback concert. There’s just no right way to celebrate.
If you choose not to take off, working through the holidays can still be a wonderful and moving tribute to your heritage. As you work through the night drafting disclosure schedules, you will experience firsthand the anguish of your ancestors who were slaves in Egypt building pyramids for the evil tyrant Ramses II.
May the New Year bring jobs for everyone and make us all repulsively rich.
Your friend,
Marin
After the jump, Death Match: Christmas v. Hannukah.

As the Goy in the room, I can promise you that all of your gentile friends and colleagues will be insanely jealous of your ability to these days off. Since you get these two days a year and Christians get everything else, I’d milk it. I’d flaunt the privilege until their little Christian faces glow red like the cheeks on Santa Claus.
Don’t just take the day, but constantly remind people that you are taking the day. “Oh, I’d love to help you out on that project, but it’s Yom Kippur — the Jewish Day of atonement. You’ve heard of that right? Yeah, it’s pretty heavy, so I’ll be at the spa that day.” Seriously, if you do that enough you’ll make people so jealous that they’ll forget that the entire calendar is organized around Christian holidays.
Of course, I’m a dick. But screw it. Take what you can when you can. It’ll warm your heart during the winter when everybody else has lush greenery bedecked with baubles and happiness — while your staring at a candelabra and playing with wood.
My cheeks never glow red,
–Black Santa

And getting EIGHT mandatory presents. Suck it, Christmas.
Do you have a question for next week’s Pls Hndle Thx? Send it to advice@abovethelaw.com.

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