Chanukah Gelt: The Significance of Giving Money on Chanukah

To quote Adam Sandler, "Chanukah is the Festival of Lights. Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights." In American culture, there is this pervasive myth that during Chanukah, Jewish children receive an awesome present each night. Giving Chanukah presents was not a practice until the late nineteenth century when Christmas became a federal holiday in the 1870s. The trend of exchanging Chanukah gifts did not really take off until the 1950s. The idea of Chanukah gift exchange is both modern and in response to Christmas so that Jews could better assimilate and not feel left out during the holiday season.

Before this Chanukah gift-giving extravaganza, there was a precursor: Chanukah gelt (חנוכה געלט). Chanukah gelt refers to money given to children on Chanukah. Looking at the history of the practice, giving money for Chanukah dates back to the sixteenth century. The practice itself came in a couple of variants. One was the Italian and Sephardic practice of money to purchase clothes for poor students studying Torah. In eastern Europe, it was either done to do outreach for Jews in more remote areas or to fundraise to keep yeshivas afloat. Another variant is that is a time to give tzedakah (charity). This is particularly the case when reading the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (139:1), where it states that one is to give lots of tzedakah during Chanukah because the days of Chanukah are auspicious to correcting the flaws of the soul. What is it about Chanukah that allows for tzedakah to have such power? At least when looking at the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, giving tzedakah is supposed to avert the Divine decree (assuming you read Unataneh Tokef literally, which I don't). So what is the connection between money and Chanukah? Perhaps looking at explanations behind the practice could help:

1. In Hebrew, the word Chanukah (חנכה) has the same three-letter root as "education" (חינוך). After the Greeks were defeated, the Jews had to reeducate their people, especially the children. Providing education takes funding. Giving money is to remind ourselves that children are an investment in the future of the Jewish people (Sifsei Chaim). This would explain why younger individuals were the typical recipients of the original variants of Chanukah gelt. 
2. One of the major motifs of Chanukah is the cultural clash between the Greek hedonism and Jewish spirituality. With this motif in mind, the Greeks treated wealth more as an ends than anything else. In Judaism, we treat it as a means. We remind ourselves that with so many other things, we have the power to do good or evil with money. We have the choice as to whether to elevate something as seemingly mundane as money to something holier. By giving money on Chanukah, we illustrate what sort of good we can do when we give [money].   
3. The Talmud (Shabbat 22a) discusses a case where a poor person does not have enough money to buy Chanukah candles and Kiddush wine for Shabbat. The candles took precedence over Shabbat, interestingly enough. To make sure this hypothetical did not turn into reality, one is to give enough money to make sure all Jews have enough money for both (Magen Avraham). This argument falls short with regards to connecting money to Chanukah. The reason for that is that giving money to make sure there is enough to celebrate holidays is not unique to Chanukah. Plus, the practice of giving money on Chanukah started centuries after this Talmudic debate. 
4. R. Josh Flug suggests that after the war, the winners would distribute the loot to the soldiers and the poor. Giving gelt can be seen both as a commemoration of winning the war and helping those affected by the war.
5. After the war between the Maccabees and the Greeks, the Hasmonean dynasty minted coins in 142 BCE with an image of a menorah. This minting was meant to represent a high point of Jewish freedom in the Second Temple era.

How do we tie these ideas together to get a clear picture behind the meaning of giving money on Chanukah? In the Chanukah story, we are taught that the ancient Greeks were obsessed with aesthetics. It was a "thinking culture that appreciated beauty." The issue was not with beauty so much as it was the extent to which it was admired. Having the physical valued at that extreme resulted in hedonism.

When applied to the idea of money, that sort of thinking typically results in splurging on material items. The Lubavitcher Rebbe (Likutei Sichot) believed that when the Greeks came into the land of Israel, it was not an issue of taking the possessions so much as it was infusing their values with the possessions so the possessions could be used for egotistical and ungodly purposes.

Money is a medium of exchanging for goods and services. It is a vital part of an economy. With Judaism, it is not about amassing ridiculous amounts of wealth for its own sake. At the same time, a Jewish live does not mean living a monastic or aesthetic life. Money is a means to an end, and as these explanations show, we are to transcend ourselves by using that G-d-given free will to disperse that money.

When we interact with something such as pervasive as money, we have to ask ourselves what our potential is. We can use Chanukah money to help Torah scholars, children, or the poor. We can use the practice of giving Chanukah gelt as a means of making us more generous or more grateful people. Chanukah teaches a lot about potential and what it means to be the best version of ourselves. A ragtag team of soldiers took their potential and fought against a well-trained army against all odds. While G-d gave us potential by being "created in His Image," potential goes to waste if it is not acted upon. To paraphrase R. Jonathan Sacks, we will be remembered for how we give, not on how we spend or take. We have to be willing to put our money where our mouth is if we are to actualize our potential. The Maccabees lived their lives not just in dedication, but also in giving.

A few questions to ponder as you give Chanukah gelt this year: Do we want to live according to our values?  Does being free simply mean doing whatever you feel like or does it mean taking that free will and transcending oneself? Do we want to make an impact on the world by what we give? Ultimately, can we put our money where our mouth is so we can not just "talk the talk" but also "walk the walk?"