Celebrate Holidays’ Uniqueness

Dasee Berkowitz in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix


Some folks are taking the rare confluence this year of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah to heart, renaming it Thanksgivukkah, redesigning menus and refashioning ritual objects for the occasion.

Others are taking it one step deeper, celebrating how the combined holidays enable us to fully appreciate being both Jewish and American. It’s a perfect symbiosis: As we freely celebrate Hanukkah this year, we recognize that we directly benefit from the freedoms that were at the core of what brought the Puritans and Pilgrims to settle a new land.

But Jewish tradition doesn’t love conflating holidays. In fact, there’s a concept – “ein mearvin simcha b’simcha” – that we shouldn’t mix one happy occasion with another. No weddings during Sukkot or Passover – or any Jewish holiday, for that matter. At first glance it seems like a downer. Shouldn’t doubling up on our celebration just enhance our enjoyment?

For those of us with birthdays on Rosh Hashanah or New Year’s Day, we know that conflating celebrations doesn’t really work – one celebration usually gets lost into the other. Keeping celebrations separate enables us to be fully present for each.

So instead of conflating Hanukkah and Thanksgiving, let’s look at it another way: How can the unique aspects of each holiday help us more fully celebrate the other?

Thanksgiving teaches us to give thanks for the harvest and for all we have without the need to acquire more. How can that concept inform our celebration of Hanukkah, a holiday that has become overrun with gift giving that verges on the excessive?

Instead of being thankful for the plenty that so many of us experience – we mostly take the most basic things for granted, like waking up in a dry, warm bed each morning – we want more, and on Hanukkah we watch children tear through gifts wondering what else awaits them each night of the Festival of Lights.
Parents can help children appreciate that mom and dad’s presence in their lives can be present enough by giving the gift of time to their kids at Hanukkah.
Pick a night of Hanukkah and give your child a period of your undivided attention. Friends and significant others can also give each other the gift of an evening unplugged.

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