Hanukkah and Optimistic Sacrifice

By Josh Tobias
Brown University
KOC Assistant Editor

Every year around the start of the holiday shopping season, a news story appears about "shoppers gone wild." In the most recent version of this story, desperate shoppers across the country have resorted to stampedes, riots and even stabbings to secure the latest "hot" holiday gift—a Playstation III. The blatant materialism, the obnoxiousness selfishness and embarrassing aggressiveness of our fellow Americans reminds me of a famous line by Thomas Hobbes. At least in our malls, life in 21^st century America, is "nasty, brutish, and short."

This type of behavior reveals the disparity between the materialism of the holiday shopping season and the supposed "spirit of the season." Commercials bombard us with shallow platitudes about generosity and then tell us to share our good fortune by buying their product. Want to show someone you really care about them? Then buy them a Lexus. Want someone to fall in love with you? A diamond is a girl’s best friend (especially if it’s from DeBeers). The whole culture of the holiday season is one of empty sentiments and crass materialism.

Though Hanukkah has been grouped with Christmas in the "holiday season," the two holidays could not be more different. While Christmas celebrates Jesus’ birth and the coming of "peace on earth," Hanukkah commemorates a military victory. Christmas glorifies the universal humanity of man, while Hanukkah recalls the Jews’ fight against assimilation. Hanukkah seems like the cynic’s answer to the gooey sentimentality of the Christmas season. Sure we will embrace the universal humanity of mankind, it says, once you stop trying to destroy us and let us practice our religion.

But the message of Hanukkah is not one of unbridled pessimism. After all, the Maccabees fought for the idealistic vision of the future. Sure the Maccabees were not perfect people, and their later attempts at government were unsuccessful, but the vision of the Maccabees was inspiringly optimistic: They wanted to change the world. And they were willing to sacrifice for change.

The word sacrifice has taken many different meanings over time. Originally a noun, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word also came to be used as a verb meaning to "to surrender or give up (something) for the attainment of some higher advantage or dearer object." When we "sacrifice," we give up something in order to get something better. In chess, a player might sacrifice their knight in order to nab their opponent’s queen. Baseball teams might bunt, sacrificing one out to move a runner from first to second. Sacrifice implies the expectation that one’s loss will result in something better.

In our cynical post 9/11 world, "sacrifice" is not a particularly popular concept. We’re suppose to be concerned only about what’s in our "self interest": Realpolitik is back in style, commentators discuss the conflict in Iraq as if its effect on the United States is the only relevant issue at stake and George Bush’s only recommendation for Americans in the War on Terror is to spend more time swiping their credit cards. Individualism has trumped community and global interests. It is seen as politically naïve to care about the needs of other people and nations. Why should we care about other people when no one seems to care about us?

I think one of the most important aspects of Hanukkah is the idea of "optimistic sacrifice." It argues that success does not come with out a price. Slogans alone don’t change anything. People need to work hard and sometimes even fight in order to make improvements. But at the same time, we should not become cynical and believe that this work is pointless. We should keep our belief that our actions do make a difference and that people still can change the world—even in our very disturbing world. Otherwise we risk falling into the crass individualism that leads to riots over video game consoles.

And no, I don’t want a Playstation for Hanukkah.

[Posted 12/21/06]