Dear Chanukah,
Hi. My name is Shavuos. Some people call me Shavuot. Many have never heard of me at all. I’m a pretty quiet holiday, so this outraged letter is really not my style. But honestly, things have just gone too far.
Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a REAL holiday. A Biblical one. I don’t like to flaunt my pedigree, but people just have to know these things. Like, the type of holiday you don’t drive on. You make kiddush on. Y’know?
Chanukah, we can be friends and all. I like you. Your latkes rock and you sure know how to throw a party. Your theme is beautiful and your prayers contemporary and relevant. You’re a lot of fun and we actually have a lot in common. Dairy foods and all. But in some ways, we are so opposite. I’m a summer kind of thing and you’re a winter kind of thing. I’m really short and you’re… not. Is that any reason to show off?
I’m not really sure why you need to hang out in the middle of the mall decorated with gifts, starting from like November. Really?? I think you’ve been hanging out with Christmas a little too much. Not that you asked, but you guys have nothing in common! Why are you always trying to upstage him? I know you share a birthday (sometimes). You’re not even related. Your themes are different, your customs are different. Lose the gifts, okay? It’s so not you. You’ve always been a gelt kind of guy. That means money – cash. When did you become such a follower?
If anyone should be in the middle of the mall (which we shouldn’t) it should be us. The threesome. The Three Major Holidays. And maybe especially me, the holiday of receiving and accepting the Torah! Where it all began! You just seem to have forgotten your place. Me, Pesach (Passover) and Sukkot. Yep, it’s always been the three of us – no offense meant.
So why don’t you get out of the mall and do your job: fighting Jewish ignorance and apathy, and introducing people to us? It would suit you well. Oh, and by the way? Figure out how to spell your name, because it’s becoming awfully confusing.
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Shavuos
the forgotten holiday
Well said. I have this on going discussion with family and friends about Chanukah and the way it overshadows other chagim.
This is a BRILLIANT post, Ruchi. I love it!!!!!!!
(I've been moaning for years about the lack of love for Shavuos.)
maybe shavous needs to hire a better PR firm like chanukah did.
I, for one, would LOVE to see a sukkah in the mall.
Brilliant! going to FB and tweet it!
Yo Shavuos! Cut me some slack brother. My ironic relationship with Christmas is my strength. That I commemorate a miraculous triumph over assimilation while stealthly hiding in the pose of assimilation is genius. If Jews didn't live as a minority in a non-jewish environment, you Shavuous would be the centerpiece of the mall. But alas my time is now. You are a remnant of a bygone age and I am the synthetic substitute for revelation. No thunder or mountains suspended over your head. Just a flame that should have gone out awhile back shimmering over the Action Spongebob e-giftpack, mini usb cable not included.
Randy and Ruchi -you are both brilliant and hilarious – love it, love it!!
Hi Ruchi! Hilarious! And I shall now put this on FB and RT. I just sent you a DM about #HanukkahHoopla! This could have totally been your post! Maybe you have another one in you! 😉
🙂 thanks so much everyone! Randy, hilarious! Here is a comment that inadvertently got deleted :
I apologize in advance, having a two month battle with blogger, I might have to leave my comment as "anon." I am Florence Fois, a friend of Nina Badzin. My good friend Nina posted this on FB. If she gets to read my comment, I hope I put another smile on her face. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and along Ocean Parkway during Sukkah, houses and small apartment buildings all had the "house" built. As one of "those" … you know? First gen-Italian-Amer. it was fun to have all my friends teach me what the different Holy Days meant, the dif. btwn our holidays and of course, some of the similarities. I love Nina's posts and I was glad I stopped by to read this one.
Randy that was awesome 🙂
This is great! LOVE IT!
Love it.
I didn't even know Shavuos existed growing up. How sad is that!
Love it! I always think that if American Jews want to Americanize Chanukah, we need to celebrate it like its proper holiday partner it needs to go with its real holiday partner–the 4th of July. Freedom, baby! The victory of the few over the many. Throwing off the shackles of tyranny and repression. Let's set off some Roman candles in the front yard and play U.S.M.C (another small, often outnumbered fighting force) songs along with lighting the menorah and singing Maoz Tzur.
Personally, I love Shavuos. Of the shalosh regalim, it's the only one with no crazy cleaning and no assembly required, so I come into it with a much lower stress level. Plus, there is the yummy dairy menus and learning Torah. Little kids come home with awesome crowns and cute flower crafts they are ultra proud of. Three cheers for Shavuos!
Two of my favorite people, Ruchi and Randy, totally entertaining me at 5 am in the morning. What a great way to start a day!
I've never formally introduced myself. Hello Shavuos. I am Heather. I only came to know you recently and I guess because the Sunday school year ends prior to summer, you never made it into the curriculum. It's a shame, as I've really enjoyed celebrating you these past few years.
Hilarious!
But there are so many solemn holiday already.
Chanukkah is just needed, placement on the calender is perhaps a bit unfortunate…
This is brilliant; yasher koach to you for writing / sharing it!
yeah – 3 cheers for shavuot! (don't forget, here in EY it's only one day – it's over almost before it starts.)
love this post!!!
btw, shavuot, you shouldn't be so smug – there are several ways to spell your name, as well (shavuot, shavuoth – or is it Pentecost?)
Absolutely love this post!
Spot on.
Thanks everyone!! in 24 hours this has become post #3 out of my 84 posts since July… wow! Inspired by a stroll through the mall yesterday.
Now to your comments:
Amanda, Paul, Paula, and Pragmatician, welcome to OOTOB. I look forward to checking out your blogs.
Paula and Heather: you're not alone… hence this post!
Amy, totally agree about loving Shavuos – but perhaps the 4th of July is more partners with Pesach?
Pragmatician: very interesting what America has done to Chanukah. I wonder what the holiday would have looked like if not for its placement, as you state. On the other hand, Easter coincides with Pesach (literally) and it doesn't seem to have made an impact. ???
Rachel, thank you!
Rena: good point… I hadn't thought of that!
This is AWESOME and exactly why I've always had a chip on my shoulder about Hanukkah. It's NOT Jewish Christmas.
No, Jewish Xmas (along with Jewish Halloween, and Jewish Irish Wake) is Purim.
Greatest. Holiday. Ever.
Love this post!
I think many people find the gigantic public menorahs inspiring. Me? They make me cringe. It makes Chanuka feel cheap. What's wrong with the menorah at home at the window? Why does anyone feel the need to compete? The worst is the lawsuits because the tree is bigger/better/brighter than the menorah and that's not fair, blah, blah, blah….
A day without "Out of the Orthodox Box" is like a day without sunshine. Thanks for the "illumination".
Ruchi – just thought you'd like to know that after I linked to your post from Facebook, it sparked a lively thread of comments, which then sparked a long post on my blog. Thanks for getting the conversation going!
Bethany, welcome to OOTOB!
Anon: agree! Many Jews don't get to see the revelry!
Ayelet : wow do I agree!
Belinda: aww… thanks! 🙂
And Scj: wow! Would love to check that out… thanks for reposting, and I've subscribed to your blog ( what took me so long?)
Great post! The thing I find so ironic about Chanukah is that it's so widely celebrated by secular Jews, when the whole thing the holiday commemorates is the victory of the religious Jews over the Hellenized (secularized) ones. The lyrics of Maoz Tzur are what one might even call fanatical.
And regarding the situation in the malls, it's one of those things I love about living in Israel. Chanukah gets its time in the limelight, but Rosh Hashana, Sukkot, Pesach & Shavuot definitely get their fair share. (Okay, Shavuot may get less mall time, but the grocery stores go NUTS with the cheesecake and blintz kits and dairy stuff on sale. Yum!)
Michal, welcome to OOTOB! I loved that when I lived in Israel: following the Jewish calendar was so easy and natural.
I think though that the victory of Chanukah was over the Greeks – a "victory" over a fellow Jew is no victory – civil war yields only losers.
Agreed, though, that the secular manifestation of Chanukah today as Christmas's tagalong brother is highly ironic in light of the fact the message of Chanukah is to resist imitation of other cultures at all costs!
Ruchi, i loved the post. I must say that I somewhat disagree with your last comment. "I think though that the victory of Chanukah was over the Greeks – a "victory" over a fellow Jew is no victory – civil war yields only losers." Historically i think it was the hellenized jews that began all the problems and ultimately, the "orthodox" (rabbinical?) jews won out after a revolutionary/civil war broke out.
To take a quote out of wikipedia:
" in 175 BCE, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus III invaded Judea, ostensibly at the request of the sons of Tobias.[12] The Tobiads, who led the Hellenizing Jewish faction in Jerusalem, were expelled to Syria around 170 BCE when the high priest Onias and his pro-Egyptian faction wrested control from them. The exiled Tobiads lobbied Antiochus IV Epiphanes to recapture Jerusalem."
"The Tobiads were a Jewish or Ammonite faction at the beginning of the Maccabean period. They were phil-Hellene, in other words supporters of the Hellenistic tendencies in Judaism in the early years of the 2nd century BCE." So there you go.
Anonymous, I hear ya but I gotta say I've always been taught that Chanukah was a victory over the Greeks. Although Hellenistic Jews were certainly key figures in the story, I've never gotten the message that Chanukah represented a victory over our fellow Jew – no matter what he may have done. Too, your average "secular Jew" of today bears little to no resemblance to the hellenized Jew of yore, who knew better and was raised with a strong education, identity, and a mitzvah-observant ideology.
Ruchi
My family has sure not forgotten about Shavuoth. It is the holiday for which my wife and our family make more preparations for than any other, even Pesach. So, if you want to bring everybody to the Baum Family Annual Shavuoth Ice Cream Social, thrown by my wife, AKA the "Ice Cream Lady",you know were we live, and it's always the afternoon of the first day of Shavuoth. And come milchig.
Been there and it's amazing!! Thanks for visiting OOTOB!