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A Hanukkah Carol: How the Christmas Movie “Spirited” Taught Me a Hanukkah Lesson

I never thought I would find a Hanukkah lesson in a Christmas movie, but that’s exactly what happened when I saw the new film, “Spirited,” with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds.
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December 21, 2022

I never thought I would find a Hanukkah lesson in a Christmas movie, but that’s exactly what happened when I saw the new film, “Spirited,” with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds.

One element I’ve often found missing in Hanukkah commentary is a discussion of personal growth. The holiday is so full of big ideas and religious symbolism, we don’t seem to ever get to the inner dimension of self-improvement.

Jewish holidays, however, are not just monuments in time with rituals and religious fervor; they are opportunities for us to improve ourselves and leave the holiday better than when we entered it. Watching the Christmas film, “Spirited,” helped me uncover that personal, more intimate aspect of Hanukkah.

The film is a modern, light-hearted musical retelling of the Charles Dickens book, “A Christmas Carol.” It’s funny and sweet and hits all the pleasant notes of a classic holiday movie. The story revolves around a few “irredeemables” – people who are so terrible that they can never change for the better. But after experiencing targeted dream sequences and countless cheesy showtunes, the heroes of “Spirited” discover what we know instinctively to be true – nobody is irredeemable.

But how do terrible people find their way to redemption? Surely, it would take years of intense work to truly change one’s entire personality and break dozens of horrible habits and fix myriad broken ways of thinking to really be redeemed.

“Spirited” answers, as always, in song:
“But even if you lost your way
You don’t have to stay a lost cause
So can we do a little good?
Maybe give a little more?
Work a little harder than we did the day before
It only takes a little good
And some doin’ what you can
Takin’ every chance to make the choice to be a better man
So do a little good”

Nobody can transform from bad to good in one fleeting moment of inspiration. Real lasting change takes a long time and hard work, but you’ll never get there if you try to flip the switch and become a perfect version of yourself overnight. Can you do a little good? Give a little more? Yes – of course we can. That is how the irredeemable is redeemed.

But it’s at the end of the song, when Ferrell and Reynolds sing “a little is enough, a little is enough, a little is enough” that it hit me: They were singing about Hanukkah!

When the Maccabees reentered the Holy Temple, they found the place literally irredeemable. They did not even have enough oil to light the lamps for long enough to restock their supply of pure olive oil. It was impossible to flip the switch and transform a contaminated Temple into a gleaming House of God. A lot of people in that situation would have said, “Let’s wait until we can get this Temple up and running before we restart all the Temple rites.” It would have been justifiable to wait for at least a few days to get the place cleaned up and looking respectable.

Just like the irredeemables in “Spirited,” the Maccabees believed that even when faced with an overwhelming challenge, “a little is enough, a little is enough, a little is enough.” And they were right.

But just like the irredeemables in “Spirited,” the Maccabees believed that even when faced with an overwhelming challenge, “a little is enough, a little is enough, a little is enough.” And they were right. A little was enough! Miraculously, one day of oil lasted for eight days.

We shouldn’t underestimate the spiritual fortitude and wisdom it took for the Maccabees to say “a little is enough.” We tend to focus on the miracle of the oil and the big picture implications of the story. Perhaps the more powerful and rarely spoken lesson of the Hanukkah story is the Maccabees’ belief, when faced with a monumental task, that even a little is enough.

This year, when I light the Hanukkah candles with my family, in addition to the familiar themes and lessons we review every year, I will share the Hanukkah lesson I gleaned from “Spirited.” Each night, with each candle we light, we will remind ourselves that no matter how big a problem looks, or how much a habit needs to change, “a little is enough.” And after eight nights, we will see through the eight gloriously lit candles that a little can indeed become quite a lot.

How ironic that a “little” Hanukkah lesson I picked up from a Christmas movie can turn out to be such a big idea.

Happy Hanukkah.

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