How Is Your Financial Health?
The Beholder’s Eye by Doug Brook
Regifting holidays
Eight hours of sleep. Daily exercise. A diet rich in fruit and vegetables. Each of these is ingredients for a health lifestyle. Did you add financial health to the list? At Berk Cleveland Rathmell Wealth Strategies, we can assist you with wealth management strategies to create a solid plan that supports your life and priorities today and in the future. And that is the ultimate recipe for good health. Norman Berk Sandra Cleveland Marshall Rathmell Harold Sasnowitz Kristen Shaw
Your Life In Balance.
205.298.1234 Birmingham, AL 607.238.7718 Binghamton, NY
www.bcrwealth.com
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46
October 2013
Southern Jewish Life
Once upon a time, Purim was the Jewish holiday for gift giving. Chanukah was the holiday of gelt giving — not to be confused with guilt giving which, in Jewish culture, has never required a holiday of its own. The shift to Chanukah of gift giving occurred largely due to external socio-cultural pressures, and some really good sales in December. Chanukah gift giving arose soon after Christmas became a national American holiday in the late 1800s. This is one example of how religious practices periodically shift, sometimes to match the world at large. So, what would happen if gift giving were to shift again? This time from Chanukah to another Jewish holiday? Or, to ask it another way, what would Jewish gift giving look like if Christmas had fallen near a different calendar milestone in the first Does “Happy place? Yom Kippur” Let’s begin with the September sound right? holidays, as that’s the timeframe when researchers commonly say Jesus was really born, rather than late December. (Of course, biblically, the new year starts in Nisan, the month of Passover. But, like politicians, let’s avoid getting sidetracked by research or facts.) Rosh Hashanah is already a holiday where Jews indulge in apples and honey. Even though Rosh Hashanah is not actually a gift-giving holiday, Apple’s annual September announcement of its latest iPhone, iPad, iMac, or iEverything would horn in on the holiday faster than you can blow a shofar. Would gift-giving on Rosh Hashanah have changed the fundamental theological intent of the holiday? Sure, but not as much as its successor… Yom Kippur. With presents. But, wait. Don’t give up on the idea too fast. We’re not starved for justification. Yom Kippur is traditionally about receiving the gift of your X inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. What’s more, Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, and how do many people atone? By giving stuff to the people they’ve wronged. Even the Yom Kippur service involved a large afternoon ritual of sacrifices to the Big G. Just think of it. If Christmas fell in September, there might have been volumes of rabbinic dispute about whether it’s best to give gifts before Kol Nidre (thus distracting all day by wanting to play with them) or after Neilah (thus distracting all day with anticipation of what they might be). Also, people too eager to open their gifts might forget their post-fast apple juice and collapse in mid-unwrap. Worst of all would be, “Happy Yom Kippur!” If Sukkot were the gift giving holiday, it would look a bit more like Christmas. Gifts could be piled in the sukkah, under a bunch of festively arranged green branches. What a lovely image, until it rains. Or outdoor pests invade the wrapping in the evening.
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