Monday, December 19, 2011

"What Gifts should I be giving for Chanukah"

In the past three weeks, we have had Black Friday, Cyber Monday, tax free shipping whatever day, and now I just heard on the radio that the industry experts are saying that Black Friday has really turned into Black December!

It is really impossible to turn on the tv, open your newspaper, drive on the street without being bombarded with companies trying to get you to buy a gift for someone else.

This of course has me asking the following question: What is the Jewish Attitude towards Giving Gifts? This question can be asked with regards to Chanukah gifts specifically and more generally, what is the Jewish Attitude to giving and receiving gifts.

First question - Chanukah gifts. I promise you that if you look in the entire Talmud, Rambam, Shulchan Aruch you will find no discussion of giving gifts on Chanukah.

The first mention of this concept is in the Magen Avraham (17th century commentator on Shulchan Aruch) and listen closely to what he says:

מגן אברהם סימן תרע

נוהגין הנערים העניים לסבב בחנוכ' על הפתחים


There custom is that children who are poor go door to door on Chanukah [and collect gelt - money].
The original concept of chanukah gelt was to give it to the poor. It was then extended to giving Gelt to our Children and then Christmas Presents came on the scene and the rest is history!
So there is no Biblical Law, Rabbinic Law or even Custom which would mandate parents giving gifts to their kids on chanukah!

But just because it is not a halakhic requirement to give chanukah gifts, doesn't mean that it is forbidden. So what is the Jewish Attitude in general to gift giving?

Let us first begin with a story from the Talmud (Megilah 28a):

שאל ר"ע את רבי נחוניא הגדול במה הארכת ימים...א"ל מימי לא קבלתי מתנות.... דכתיב (משלי טו, כז) שונא מתנות יחיה

Rabbi Akiva asked Rabbi Nechunya: What did you do to merit to live a long life?
Now think about all of the wonderful things the great Rabbi Nechunya could have answered. He was a great Torah scholar. I am sure he was scrupulous in mitzvah observance. He was probably a wonderful father, husband etc.
Yet, what does he answer? He says: I merited to live long because I never accepted a gift in my entire life. As it says in the verse from Proverbs: “One who hates gifts, will live.”

Now this gemara understands the words “will live” literally. If you hate gifts, you will live a long life.
But there are other interpretations.
Rashi - “Will Live” means will live the ethical life. Rashi says:

"מי ששונא מתנות, כל שכן ששונא גזל"

If you hate gifts (which you have a right to accept) then you will certainly hate items obtained through theft. Other commentators talk about bribery, corruption and any other financial impropriety. In other words, if you are someone who always craves the next gift, you depend on material acquisitions, then you will be prone to bribery and corruption. So for Rashi, Hating Gifts is a strategy to make sure that you live the ethical life.
שונא מתנות יחיה - If you hate gifts, you will live the ethical life.

The Vilna Gaon interprets “will live” to mean you will live a happy life; you will be content.
"מחמת שהוא מצפה תמיד למתנה, אם לא יתנו לו, אפילו פעם אחת, יושב בצער"
“If you always expect people to give you gifts, then if they do not come through even once, you will be devastated”
This is true in many areas of life. It is all about expectations. If we expect too much from other people, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. The Vilna Gaon teaches, it is better not to expect anything. If people come through, wonderful. If not, we will still be happy.
So for the Vilna Gaon, שונא מתנות יחיה means, if we hate gifts, meaning we do not expect people to give us gifts, we will always be happy and content.

So far, it seems that Judaism has an anti-gift ethos! But how is this possible if there are Talmudic Passages which say that G-d Himself gives gifts to the Jewish People.

Of course the answer is that Gift Giving is not universally Good and not Universally Bad. It depends on the content of the Gift.

So let us look at the Gemarot which say that God gives gifts to find out what kinds of gifts G-d gives us. After all, we are supposed to imitate God so if we want to know what we should put on our Gift list for this chanukah, we have to see what kinds of gifts G-d gives to us and then we must imitate G-d.

One Gemara teaches us:
שלש מתנות טובות נתן הקדוש ברוך הוא לישראל... תורה, ארץ ישראל ועולם הבה
G-d gave us three Gifts; … Torah, Israel, and a share in the world to come.
Another Gemara says that G-d said to Moshe. “I have one gift in my storage house and I would like to give it to the Jewish People and Shabbat is its name.”

Here is what G-d gives us as gifts: Torah, Israel, World-to-Come and Shabbat.
This means it is our obligation to imitate G-d and give these gifts to other people. Share these gifts with others.
Let me take the first two; Torah and Israel.
Last Night we had a tremendously inspiring Kabbalat Shabbat led by Sam Glazer. Sam is a Jewish Miusician par-excellence. He told us that in 1980, he was completely irreligious. Someone offered him a ticket to Israel. He went to Israel, studied at Aish Hatorah, become Observant and now he inspires many thousands of people every year. All because someone gave him a gift of a plane ticket. That gift gave Sam both Israel and Torah in one and now he shares that with so many others.
Think about the $1000 spent on that plane ticket. It could have been a gift of the newest computer, ipad hdtv etc. But all of those things would be an old model in just a few years and sold on Craigs List for $20. The gift that Sam received is eternal and priceless.

Lets take the last one, Shabbat. Let me tell you a story.
The Chozeh of Lublin (18th century - Poland - Hassidic Master) and his Rebbetzin (wife) were extremely poor. One Friday afternoon about 10 minutes before shabbat, the rebbetzin had set the table with a very modest meal but she could not even find two pennies to purchase two candles for shabbat. She looked all around the house, behind couches and in every corner, but she was out of luck.
So she runs out of the house to the street corner, she looks up to heaven and she starts crying, “Master of the Universe, please give me two pennies so I can be blessed with the shabbat light.”
Just then, a beautiful carriage is speeding by and it comes to a screeching stop right before the Rebbetzin. The driver opens the door, and low and behold it is one of the wealthiest men in town who is very kind but has left Jewish Practice many years before.
He says to the Rebbetzin, “Please tell me how I can help you, I cannot bear to see you in pain.” The rebbetzin says, I need two pennies for shabbos candles.” The man says, “Two Pennies! I am very rich. I can give you whatever you want. I will give you 100 rubles for all your needs.” The rebbetzin says, no, just please give me two pennies for shabbos candles.
He gives her the two pennies and then the Rebbetzin says, “You dont know how much this means to me. You just gave me the Gift of the Light of Shabbat so I bless you, that you should also have the Gift of the Light of Shabbat.
The man says, “you know I do not believe in that stuff but please enjoy the candles and he then rushes off on his way out of town.
The Rebbetzin quickly goes and buys shabbat candles just in time for shabbat.
Half an hour later: The Chozeh is in the middle of davening Maariv (Praying the evening service). He is taken to the heavenly court and they say: “Chozeh: We have a problem with you and your rebbetzin. Your rebbetzin just gave a beracha to a very evil person. Look at him now.” The Heavenly Court gave the Chozeh a view of what he was doing. He was about to get out his carriage in front of a nice hotel as (in the words of Shlomo Carlebach) he was about to visit his “Fancy Lady Friend.”
The Court continued: “He is such a sinner and your wife blessed him with the Light of shabbos. He doesnt deserve that gift.”
The Chozeh says back: “How do you know? Maybe he is only sinning because he never experience the Light of Shabbos. Give it to him for one hour and lets see what becomes of him.”
The Court agrees and instantly, the man feels different. He starts thinking about his life. He remembers that today is shabbos and he is about to commit a sin. He realizes that he doesn't even understand the true beauty of shabbat but he wants to learn and he knows who can teach him.
He turns around and goes right back to the house of the Chozeh and the Rebbetzin and knocks on the door. They invite him in for shabbos meal and rest is history. According to the legend, we do not know this man’s name but he became one of the greatest students of the Chozeh (and Rebbetzin) of Lublin.
The Rebbetzin Gave him the Gift of the light of Shabbos.

We are starting a new initiative here at Beth Sholom. It is called:
“Share the Gift of Shabbos”
Every Friday Night at Beth Sholom, we have a wonderful Kabbalat Shabbat, full of ruach, dancing and singing. I want you to think of someone in your life who does not have the gift of shabbat like you have it and share it with them. Invite them to come to shul on Friday night with you and then invite them to your house for shabbat dinner.
This initiative is for everyone in this shul regardless of where you live and whether or not your observance of shabbat is perfect. You have a shabbat table, you light candles, you make kiddush and Hamotzie. You know something about Judaism. Well there are thousands and thousands of Jews out there who know less. who do not have the Gift of shabbos like you have it. Please share it. Think of someone you know from work, from the Gym, from your kid’s school and make a commitment right now to invite them for shabbat sometime in the next two months.

Give the Gift of Torah. Perhaps you go to a Torah Class that you know someone else would benefit from. Take them. You could change their lives. Maybe you just read a book that was very inspiring. Give it as a gift to someone else. It could change thier lives.

As we buy gifts this Chanukah, lets think about giving gifts jewishly. To give a Jewish gift doesn’t mean one jew buys a gift for another jew from a jewish owned store.
It means to imitate Hashem. Hashem gives the gifts of Torah, Israel, World-to-Come and Shabbat.
Lets be creative this year. Lets think of ways to give these same gifts to each other.