Every year it’s the same. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, and the stores are already filled with Christmas lights. After Thanksgiving, it just gets worse. For me, and for many Jews, this makes entering the so-called Season of Lights difficult. I, for one, get a pretty bad bah-humbug attitude.
And I wish I didn’t. After all, whether or not I celebrate Christmas, which I don’t, I want to have an attitude of giving and cheer. I want to take in the light and open to miracles. That’s what Hanukkah is all about after all. The Jewish and Christian holidays dovetail in their message of hope and belief that something extraordinary is possible.
In today’s chaotic world, we need that hope in something miraculous. We need to believe there is light in the world and that something out of the ordinary—something Divine—can happen in our personal lives and in the world—that it can touch us, that we can feel it, see it.
The bah-humbug attitude doesn’t help that happen. I know it closes me down to the possibility of light entering my life. Any negative attitude will do that.
Kabbalists call that extraordinary aspect light. That’s why during Hanukkah we candle gaze, soaking in the light, watching the candles flicker and reach higher and higher towards the heavens. We want to be in that light. We want it to touch us and enter our lives.
We Jews—myself included—need to look at the Christmas lights in the same way. Look at them with awe, with wonder. They too speak of the Divine light. Soak it in (even if it is just a light bulb’s glow.)
Ditch the bah-humbug attitude. Welcome the lights—any lights.
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