Eight Ideas for a Meaningful Hanukkah

Here are eight ways to make each night of Hanukkah more special and interactive with your friends and family. They also work for congregational events. Please share on social media to help deepen the meaning of Hanukkah world-wide. 

1. Family History Night. One night of Hanukkah invite family of reference and/or preference to come over for candle lighting. Family of reference are the people we are related to by birth or adoption; family of preference are the close people we add to our lives to enhance our sense of expanded family. Be sure to have a video camera or tape recorder. Ask each person to come prepared to share one story about someone in "the family" who is no longer alive or able to share their own story. Done each year, this will result in a rich treasure chest of family memories. The next year give copies of the previous year's video as Hanukkah gifts to those who attended, as well as family who could not make it.

2. One night have a personal or family check in with questions like: How are we spiritually alive and vital as a person/family? How are we suffering under the norms of the larger culture? How can we dedicate ourselves to spiritual vitality? Brainstorm a family list of exciting and helpful options for a more alive, soulful existence. Set a few dates for implementation of important ideas which arise and perhaps give individual assignments.

3. Study Readings on the Theme of Light. By yourself or with guests, gather all of the things, poems, writings you can, which bring light into the world. Ask each person to bring one object, poem, idea or something that has brought the pleasure of light into their life. They might bring it to share and show or to swap with someone else to experience light in a new form!

For example, one year I brought a kaleidoscope, another year a beautiful sun catcher, another year a poem about light, this year my son brought up something improbable that turns out to exist: a solar flashlight! A story about Nelson Mandela was brought by one person and that of Rabin by another, Hannah Sennesh by another.

4. Israel Night. This is where everyone brings a clipping, item or idea about the modern Maccabees and their state: Israel. The clippings would be about both amazing and challenging things that are going on in Israel or about Israel. Let each person present what they brought and figure out a way to bless it after a thorough discussion. 

For example, a recent article talked about a plan to destroy the mosque on the Temple Mount. My guests that particular night decided a blessing would be to pray for the persons who intended this to refocus on dialogue about how to share sacred space. Another article talked about seeds for new high protein foods developed by Israeli scientists, which could help feed people in Ethiopia and other struggling nations. Our blessing was for the nations to experience the light of our love through the energy in each seed.

5. On one of the nights of Hanukkah open all of the tzedakah boxes (collection boxes for charity) in the house and count the money in preparation for giving to a worthy cause. I keep a tzedakah box on the counter by my desk at work, many mitzvah-centered Jews and non-Jews who come through the building help to keep it brimming.

A lovely practice I learned from my teacher, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, is to take all change out of my pockets before lighting shabbat candles and put it into a tzedakah box. (His family had a "Shabbos box" where wallets and keys would also go to be retrieved after Shabbat ended.) When everyone in a household does this, the tzedakah boxes get very full. (One year we collected over $1,500 dollars. Sometimes we would put in even more than pocket change to celebrate someone wonderful in our lives.)

6. On another night of Hanukkah decide on the important causes to which you will send the money. Have every person bring a clipping about a cause they believe needs funding in the most immediate way. Each person also brings three blank checks with them. Have everyone present their cause and reasons. Have each person privately fill in each of their checks in the amount of their choice for the causes which most strike them as important to send light to on this Hanukkah night. Families who are doing the tzedakah box collection described earlier in this list can regroup on the last night of Hanukkah to allocate the funds to the causes presented tonight.

7. Bring light into someone's life. Find a shelter for battered woman, or homeless persons or elders (etc.) and bring your menorah over there for lighting. Listen to the Torah of each person's life with care. Invite them each to light a candle and express their greatest hopes for their future or most precious memory of light in their lives. Bless them to attain their dreams. Talk to the center director and find out what is needed, with money from the tzedakah box project above, obtain something needed by that community and bring it over—often this would be feminine hygiene items that are so costly for those with few resources. If you have children in your life, make sure they come along with you and help with the blessings and decisions!

8. A long-standing practice is to silently watch the candles burn, it is a form of Jewish meditation practice that goes as far back as the Talmudic period. Loosely focus your eyes on the menorah and savor the minutes of pure light. Notice what comes up for you, even after the last flame has sizzle-fizzled out. What blessings have occurred for you during the eight nights of lights? Share your experiences or journal on them. If it is a lonely time for you, please email me, I would love to know you are there sharing this time with me.

Have some ideas of your own?—please write so we can post some of them for the benefit of all.