Find all posts in this 8-part Berkshire Chanukah series HERE.
You might have noticed that in these posts so far we haven’t mentioned presents–Chanukah didn’t use to be a gift-giving holiday. It always comes sometime in the winter, and in the last hundred or so years, has been lumped into the Holiday Season with an expectation of wish lists and receiving presents.
I remember that growing up people around me always assumed that I got eight nights of everything I wanted, and I would rival those with the presents my friends got for Christmas. This was not the case, but my parents always made sure that my brother and I didn’t feel left out because of our Judaism, so we got presents.
Every year growing up, my parents, brother, and I went to our family’s house to celebrate Christmas with our family that wasn’t Jewish. If Chanukah happened during Christmas, we’d bring our menorah to light and for dinner, there was always a festive ham. Even now, as a proud Jewish woman and an employee at a synagogue, I look forward to celebrating Christmas with my family because our different religions don’t divide us, they just bring more variety to our dinner table!
As we grew up, the gifts were less important than the tradition we felt of spending time together. It was harder to wrap what someone wanted in a box and we decided to stop doing that at all. Growing up, my brother and I would get a gift or two, always things we really wanted. And with our cousin, we would pick out an animal from Heifer International to give to people in need. I learned a couple years ago that in Judaism it is believed that there are six seasons and that while we revolve through, we are supposed to dedicate time to making our home a better place.
On the sixth night of Chanukah, many people dedicate their candle lighting to tikkun olam, repairing the world. The lights remind us to continue being a shamash: a leader, a servant, a sun. In the spirit of this season, we at Hevreh encourage all our friends to donate time, money, food, or whatever they can to making someone else’s experience just a little brighter, a little less scary.
Yesterday during our Sunday morning religious school, we had a gift wrapping party where we had donated items from the Newell Corporation like Goody hair accessories, Elmer’s Glue Slime Kits, and Contigo water bottles; and winter hats and gloves from another congregant. Our students brought new copies of their favorite books and decorated a hundred gift bags that we filled with all these wonderful things. We donated the filled gift bags to our friends at Volunteers in Medicine to give to adults and children who might not have gotten gifts this year.
Giving doesn’t have to be big–but it can always be part of your holiday tradition. Teaching our children to say thank you is just as important as teaching them how to show thanks, and the feeling you get when someone thanks you. From my family to yours, happy holidays and may you add to the joy in the world all six seasons of the year.
Sending good vibes and warm blessings,
Jodie
**********************
Jodie Friedman is the Program Associate at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire in Great Barrington. Hevreh of Southern Berkshire is a destination for Jewish Life, Learning, and Community in the southern Berkshires. The Hebrew word "Hevreh" means friendship — a word that states Hevreh of Southern Berkshire's purpose — to be a community of friends in a Jewish context.
