Jesus Shaves By David Sedaris

In the short story “Jesus Shaves”, by David Sedaris, he expresses the difficulty in understanding different cultural holidays and how they are celebrated. As the main character, David, learns about grammar from his French teacher, it soon turns into a culture shock. Although the main character is usually introverted, when the teacher ask a question regarding a familiar holiday he becomes involved with the class debate. He realizes everything he was taught involving religion, holidays and cultures is not universal, but instead regional.
David is in his second month of French class and as he observes his classmates, it is obvious that he is rather quiet compared to his peers. He rarely raises his hand to answer questions the teacher

asks, “I was able to sit back confident that the same few students would do the talking (434)”. His classmates are diverse and curious; some of them know the answers to grammar questions and holiday traditions in France, while others are clueless to what is going on. Unlike the Moroccan woman in his class who is very knowledgeable about French, “She’d cover these lessons back in the third grade and took every opportunity to demonstrate her superiority (434)”, David is one of the students that are not familiar with the language. The class discussion began one sided until the instructor moved on to Easter, which soon engaged the entire classroom to offer information they knew about the holiday (435).
The once confident Moroccan woman was oblivious to the word “Easter” because of her Muslim background, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter (435)”.

Easter is a Christianity based holiday, which depicts why she was not familiar with the word and displays cultural differences with her classmates. She began asking about the meaning, who celebrated the holiday and the traditions that came with it. On the other hand, her classmates, including David, had a difficult time explaining Easter to her due to the language barrier. As each student tried to come up with the correct words to help the Moroccan woman comprehend Easter, David brings up that a rabbit gives chocolate on that day. The French instructor becomes confused by the statement and at one point questions whether or not he used the right word. The teacher expresses that in France the tradition does not include a rabbit at all, but instead a bell flies in from Rome and brings chocolate to people. David disagrees with his teacher’s beliefs and denies the capability of a bell to deliver sweets due to it not having eyes or mobility. As time went on, David realized it was not about who was right or wrong. Every culture has a different faith, religion, and tradition that sets one another apart, instead of passing judgment people should take everyone’s opinon into consideration. David came to conclusions that if he could have faith in a rabbit, why not give a bell the benefit of the doubt

(436).
In the final analysis, David experiences the ideas of numerous cultures as he attends his second month in French class. He usually shows no interest in participating because the same individuals answer the questions. David soon became captivated when the teacher brought up Easter, a holiday he was familiar with and could speak about. While some were confused on what the holiday was, everyone else spoke on how they celebrated it and the traditions that were involved. As the class discussion progressed, David became aware that every religion has different faiths, but one is not superior over the other.