Eight Gifts

My neighbor shared this lovely verse from Anita Silvert of the Chicago Jewish Community Center in Chicago.  It is meant for Hanakkah, though it seems to be relavent to many of us of other faiths.  We are reading on gift each evening this week - I changed the last gift to faith to give it broader meaning.


Below are eight “free” gifts, in no particular order. We encourage you to read them, adapt the language to fit your family situation if you’d like, and share them with your loved ones this year around the Hanukkah hannukiah (menorah). One suggestion is to print them out on cards and laminate them, to read year after year.

Each night, pick one to read, beginning by saying, “Tonight I (or we) give you the gift of___________”


Tonight I give you the gift of LOVE
This is the first gift first. I love you. I will always love you. This is unconditional and non-negotiable. Gibraltar may crumble, the Rockies may tumble, but I will love you always and forever, no matter what.

Tonight I give you the gift of HOME
As in, you can always come home. As in, you can bring your friends home. As in, this is your home. You have a place in the world, with us, a shelter, both physical and psychological. It looks just like any other home, maybe more chaotic than some, but it is your home, your safe place, where you started and where you can come back to.

Tonight I give you the gift of FAMILY
This is the other part of your roots, the groundedness you get when you know who you are and whose models you can follow. This is what can make you feel both suffocated and free, alone and never alone. This is your blessing. This is your four beloved grandparents, whether alive or not. This is the family we choose for ourselves, and the family that we’re born into. This is the extended relations that seem endless, but are so dear to us, that every chance we get, we gather together. This is the other departed members of our family whom you hear us talk about. This is what you will be to your children. This is the people who show up to celebrate moments with you. This is growing up in a setting where we try hard every day to show you how a parent and a child, a grandparent and a parent, a Mom and a Dad, should treat each other.

Tonight I give you the gift of KNOWLEDGE
This includes both schooling and street smarts, a house full of books, and the give and take of active debate. We read. You read. You take classes and so do we. But it also includes the music, the museums, the dance and the theater, the family trips and the family conversations. It’s the richness of every experience whether it’s camping or hammering, baking or doing your own laundry, giving tzedakah, or donating clothes. We are filling your minds all the time, even when you don’t know it. This gift you can keep giving yourself all the rest of your life.

Tonight I give you the gift of SECURITY
Well, at least as much as is possible. Your true, long-range security has to come from within, from being and becoming trustworthy. Meanwhile, we will do all we can to give you the foundation of composure, of knowing without question that you are capable. We are proud of your innate abilities and goodness; your good sense, and your willingness to try. You do not have to follow the crowd to gain self-esteem, because you already have from us, and from within yourself, the seeds of true confidence. Just nurture them.

Tonight I give you the gift of OPTIMISM
This includes both a sense of perspective and a sense of joy. Life will be hard enough, so relish the good moments. Be a joyous presence in the world. These other gifts will help you stay strong in the face of adversity, this one will help you savor its absence. Focus on hope, calmness, and a positive outlook, instead of worry and pessimism.. Count your blessings. Have fun.

Tonight I give you the gift of FREEDOM
Freedom within boundaries that stretch as you get older, and freedom within guidelines you can keep using as you mature. It seems this gift comes, for now, in painfully measured doses. But by the time you are an adult, and out in the world of unlimited independence, you will know how to use it, and how to be true to your own standards.

Tonight I give you the gift of FAITH
We give you Faith, your own personal connection with your heritage. This great gift comes with spiritual strength, stories, a strong moral code and values, and an incredible gift for survival. Faith gives you inspiration, scholarship, protection, compassion, a way to live and a community to belong to, wherever life takes you.


Anita Silvert