Sunday was the last night of Hanukkah, and the kids in the preschool and Hebrew school programs at Chabad Jewish Center rounded up the festival of lights with songs, dance, arts and crafts, and, as is custom, treats.
Lots of treats.
Guests enjoyed latkes, a donut buffet with cream and pastry injectors, and a menorah made of s’mores.
“We like to do something fun and unique that they’ll remember,” said Tzivie Greenberg, who is the center co-director and manages the preschool.
This year, for the menorah lighting on the first night of Hanukkah, Chabad organizers made a giant balloon-structure menorah. Another year, they took clear plastic tubing to make the menorah, put a spout at the bottom, and filled it with jelly beans to pour into dreidels. Rabbi Shmulik Greenberg assembled the blocks of graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate — made by one of his sons — using frosting as mortar.
The Chabad Jewish Center has a special eighth night of Hanukkah event for the preschool and younger Hebrew school students there every year, Tzivie Greenberg said.
The eight-day event commemorates the rededication of the second Temple in Jerusalem by the Maccabees after their victory over the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century, B.C.
After the Maccabees led their successful revolt against the Seleucid emperor, they set about rededicating the temple with an eight-day festival. Religious dictates demanded ceremonial olive oil for the temple’s menorah. They found, goes the story, only one flask of oil, enough for a day, yet it burned for a miraculous eight.
Kids from the preschool dressed as Maccabees and sang a few songs for guests, then families got together with menorahs they brought from home to light the final candle together and get family photos.
The menorah, Tzivie Greenberg said to the crowd, shows what happens every time someone does a mitzvah, which might be understood as good works. It could be giving tzedakah (charity, loosely), helping friends or celebrating holidays, she said.
“When you light a candle, and the room is dark, the room becomes light from one tiny flame,” she said. “Whenever we do those things, we make the world brighter. When you do something kind for your friends you see how their face gets happy? Because you just made the world brighter, you made that person’s world brighter.”
