Monday Morning Message – November 29, 2010

For a variety of reasons, Hanukkah has become the most widely celebrated Jewish holiday in America (Passover comes in a close second).  This is partially because of the American custom to give gifts on Hanukkah, something that has become a central to many of our Hanukkah celebrations.

Hanukkah is most traditionally related to very different themes & ideas: freedom of religion, the celebration of miracles, and living lives that bring more holiness into the world each day.  Though none of these themes really relates to the practice of giving gifts, I think we can all agree that this Americanized custom is here to stay.  And, in truth, this is not necessarily a bad thing.  After all, who doesn’t love giving and receiving presents?

The challenge is this: how do we avoid turning Hanukkah into a celebration of materialism? There is nothing wrong with giving and receiving presents, but how do we ensure that we are doing this in a Jewish way? With three young children in our home who are “catching on” to the centrality gifts have come to play in the celebration of this holiday, this is something I think about often.  But these questions are certainly not limited to parents with young children.

I was recently reading an article entitled  “Chanukah Gifts” by Rabbi Rona Shapiro, with a few very useful suggestions about the practicing of giving gifts on Hanukkah.  Here are some of her ideas that I encourage you to consider:

First, I send an email a month before Chanukah asking the grandparents to confine themselves to one gift each. If I know what a child really wants, I might suggest it to them. Then we designate nights for each night of Chanukah. They have varied from year to year but include:

• Big Gift Night (when each child gets one big gift from us)
• Grandparent Night (when they open gifts from their grandparents)
• Book Night ( a book from us)
• Music Night (when we sing, sometimes with friends)
• Cooking Night (when we make latkes and enjoy them with friends)
• Tzedakah Night (when we wrap presents to deliver to a children’s hospital or other charity)
• Homemade Gifts (lots are drawn before Chanukah and each member of the family makes a gift for someone else).

Since most gifts have a very short life span, another idea is to give gifts with a shelf-life:

• Make a family photo album or scrapbook.
• Begin a savings account for something for the whole family in the future.
• Buy Jewish books, CD’s or videos and expand your Jewish library.
• Give each child his or her own chanukiyah, Chanukah menorah, which s/he can light by herself. It is customary for each person in the house to light his or her own chanukiyah.

For adults, there are many ways to give meaningful gifts. Personal blessings can be written and offered to friends and family. Cooking a great meal is always a treat. Once, I came across some Emily Post type column which suggested that in this era of material abundance, giving someone something that they really didn’t want which would clutter up their already-crowded home was no gift at all. The article advised giving gifts that could be consumed – wine, food, candles, etc. One year, I bought my mother a subscription to a wine of the month club. Each month a bottle of red and white wine was delivered to her door.

Shapiro concludes:

I still don’t feel like we have completely solved the materialism problem – after all, we live in a culture besotted with “things” – but each night when there are no gifts, and we cook, or sing or read together, and watch our candles burn down, I feel that we have leveraged Judaism against our materialist culture rather than letting Judaism become another vehicle for materialism.

 

Hag Urim Sameach, have a wonderful Festival of Lights!