In my childhood, December was a time that typically included eight nights of visits from the “Hanukkah Fairy.” After lighting candles on our menorah and singing a few prayers in the living room, someone would say “Oh! What’s that I hear upstairs?! It must be the Hanukkah Fairy!” And then my sister and I would scramble up the stairs to see what thoughtful gift might be awaiting us that night.

This year — with millions of refugees fleeing genocidal wars, and inter-religious and interracial tensions and violence erupting in our own country, and when nearly every conversation about these topics can easily turn vitriolic — it seems like there is something so lacking in our human family that material gifts can ring hollow when that thing is so lacking — that thing is peace, and it can be cultivated, and it can be built.