Remember the Levy’s Rye Bread advertising campaign that said, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s?” Well, take it from this Jew: You don’t have to be Christian to love Christmas either.

It’s been my favorite holiday ever since I was little. But it wasn’t because of the presents (although I must admit that I never ever turned one down). And it wasn’t because of the carols, although I loved them and still do. It was because the hero of the story is a little kid. It’s a great story too, with everything you could possibly want:

Suspense: Will they be able to get him out of town before King Herod’s soldiers arrive to kill him?

Irony: If only those innkeepers knew who they were turning away!

Intrigue: Say, who is this kid’s real father anyway?

But the thing I love most about Christmas is Jesus himself. You may or may not believe he was God incarnate, but either way you have to admit that he was a really cool guy and a smart one too.

You don’t have to believe the miracle stories, like feeding the multitudes with a few loaves or fishes, or raising Lazarus from the dead. They may be true, but on the other hand they could have been inserted by later writers to impress the credulous common folk.

And I’m skeptical about Jesus being born on Dec. 25 because the Gospel of Luke says that when the shepherds saw the Christmas star, they were tending their flocks in the fields. But the Holy Land gets awfully cold in December, and being outside would be a quick way to freeze to death. Any sensible shepherd would be snug and comfy inside a manger along with his sheep. It’s much more likely that he was born in the spring.

But the Christmas star has some truth to it. Astronomers can track the movements of heavenly bodies backward as well as forward, and they calculate that in the year 2 BC the brightest planets in the sky, Jupiter and Venus, merged into a dazzling “star” near the western horizon. In countries to the east of what was then the kingdom of Judea, observers could have seen the fused planets as a beacon in the direction of Jerusalem.

So where did the church fathers get Dec. 25? Simple: It was already being observed as the birthday of Mithras, Jesus’ chief rival for the affections of the common folk, especially soldiers in the army. The early church often appropriated the holy sites of the pagan religions it was seeking to replace. For instance, the first thing St. Patrick did when he landed in Ireland was chop down the Druids’ sacred tree and build a church on the spot.

But one thing you can’t ignore is the genius of Jesus’ words, including parables like the prodigal son and aphorisms like the lilies of the field. They might seem simple at first; but the more you think about them, the more you realize they’re actually packed with truly sublime wisdom. Especially the Sermon on the Mount:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the Children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The great novelist Kurt Vonnegut, a confirmed atheist — I guess living through the Battle of the Bulge and the firebombing of Dresden might do that to you — said, “If it weren’t for the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being. I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.”

Merry Christmas to all, especially the Tap Dancing Christmas Trees I met in Berkeley’s Elmwood district on Sunday. They’ll be back in the district this Sunday and in Oakland at Children’s Fairyland on Dec. 22 (as dancing Christmas trees) and Dec. 26 (as dancing penguins because, as Director Pamm Drake explains, “It’ll be after Christmas.”)

Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.