Tag: gifts

A Gift for the Rabbi?

One search string I’ve noticed more than once on the list of terms that brought people to this blog from a search engine: “What to give a rabbi for a gift?”

A donation to the rabbi’s discretionary fund is always a fine thing to do; it’s a gift that allows the rabbi to do something good for others. (Discretionary funds cannot be spent on personal purchases of any sort.)

Here are some other ideas:

  • Donation to their honor to a charity you know they support
  • Gift certificate to a bookstore
  • Gift certificate for the rabbi and spouse to attend a sports or cultural event (Tickets for a particular evening can be tricky – rabbis work many evenings.)
  • Gift certificate for restaurant
  • Gift certificate for something you know they enjoy
  • Gift certificate for something you think they would enjoy with their family
  • Homemade preserves or baked goods.
  • A bottle of good kosher wine.

The key to this, as with all gift-giving, is to think about what the person might enjoy. If you know of a particular interest or hobby that your rabbi enjoys, then that will make this an easy choice. Things that they can enjoy with their spouse or family are thoughtful gifts, as time with family is often particularly precious. Something that will provide a small comfort: a free cup of coffee, for example, can be very nice.

You might be surprised that Judaica is not on this list. Many rabbis have all the candlesticks, kippot, tallitot, seder plates, and so on that they can use. The same is true of Jewish-themed ties, earrings, and so on. The exceptions to this are things made by children: if your child colors something for the rabbi, it will be treasured.

A Tale of Two Grandmothers

My Two Grandmothers
My Two Grandmothers

A student asked me today, “What can I do, when both sets of grandparents go crazy with gift-giving in December? It’s as if it is a competition!”

The question set me to thinking about my grandmothers. Before I go any further, I want to be clear: I loved both my grandmothers and I know that they both loved me.

Due to circumstances, I didn’t get to see much of one grandmother. She traveled a lot, and sent me beautiful dolls from every place she visited. Those dolls enriched my life: I learned about other cultures, about climate and geography. I kept the dolls in a cabinet, and enjoyed looking at them and dreaming about all the places they represented.

I have only a few vivid memories of that grandmother. She hated waste (we’re alike that way) and she thought I should take French in high school (I took Spanish.) The conversations I remember best are from a train ride we took from Chicago to San Francisco. I remember that she taught me how to play canasta. She always kept ginger ale for children. Other than that, I don’t remember a great deal about her, which is really quite sad.

My other grandmother took me along on errands. I learned a lot of my values from her, just watching the way she treated people. I saw her give money to poor people when they asked for help. When there was an obituary in the paper about someone she vaguely knew, she’d say, “Get dressed up, we’re going to the funeral home!” She taught me the power of simply showing up.

She loved to drive a little (maybe a lot) too fast, but she taught me to drive after my father had given up in despair.  I still hear her voice when I have to wait a long time for a left turn: “Just wait, Punkin, the right opening will come. There’s no rush. You’re doing fine.”

She always told me what I was doing right; her silences told me what I was doing wrong. When I became an adolescent, she had a lot to be silent about, but she persisted in telling me when she was proud of me. The only painful memory I have of her was my own failure: when she was dying she tried to talk to me about death, but to my eternal regret, I changed the subject.

So this is what I told my student: If the grandparents want to compete, you can’t stop them. But remind them that the way to “win” the competition is with relationship: get to know your grandchildren. Let them get to know you. Share your values by example: don’t tell, show. Expensive gifts are not memories. Tell stories. Take them along.

My grandmothers died two months apart, in the spring and summer of 1974. One I remember faintly with fondness and gratitude; the other is key to the person I grew up to be, and I mourn her still.

The photos above are the only ones I have of either grandmother. Neither conveys their true beauty. 

 

The Gift of Attention

Christmas lights on Aleksanterinkatu.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I noticed it last night – I logged in to maintain things here on the blog, and spammers had been everywhere, leaving “comments” to advertise things.  The tsunami of advertising for the holiday season is upon us.

What do the people you love really need? What do you genuinely need? These are good questions to ask right now, before the advertisers take over our brains. Most of us do not need more gadgets, more clothing, more dust-catchers. Some are already drowning in things they do not need.

When I am in a public place, I can’t help but notice the children who act out to get attention. I was lucky in my new motherhood that someone pointed out to me that I only paid attention to my toddlers when they did things I did not like – so they were very aggressive about doing things I didn’t like.  It took some practice, but I learned to use my attention as the potent reward it was, paying attention to behavior I wanted to encourage and removing my attention (with time-out, if need be) to discourage misbehavior.

Children need attention. The very best time to give them attention is when they are doing things that we want to encourage. But if the only attention they can get is negative attention, they need attention so badly that they’ll settle for that. The choice is up to the parent or caregiver.

We all need attention. When was the last time you felt like someone truly listened to you, and took in what you were saying? When was the last time you sat quietly and listened to someone else? What if, instead of giving gifts, we paid attention to the people we love?

What if instead of receiving gadgets and tchotchkes, we got the pure undivided attention of those we love most? How lovely would that be?