Warwick residents celebrate at 13th annual menorah lighting

WARWICK - The public menorah lighting was held earlier in the day this year because Friday night, Dec. 15, was the Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) and according to Jewish law, the lighting of the Hanukkah lights must precede the lighting of the Shabbat candles. Last year there was heavy rain on the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, and to make matters worse, the ground at Warwick’s Lewis Park also was covered with wet snow. But this year, the weather was almost like spring and a large crowd of local residents including Mayor Michael Newhard and Village Trustee Roger Metzger arrived at the park at 4:30 p.m. for Warwick’s traditional menorah lighting ceremony. In 1994, Moshe Schwartzberg, owner of Forever Jewelers and then president of the Warwick Merchants Guild, began officiating at a menorah lighting in Railroad Green. Since that time Schwartzberg and his wife, Doris, and their daughters, Sarah and Amy, continued to improve the celebration adding music and serving traditional potato latkes. With the exception of those times when the weather was extraordinarily bad, attendance has grown each year. Just prior to the lighting of the first candle, Schwartzberg explained the religious significance of the festival in words that the children could understand. Using terms like “the good guys” and “the bad guys,” he told the story of how the Temple of Jerusalem was about to be rededicated following its recapture after occupation and defilement by Antiochus IV. A small band of fighters, led by Judah Maccabee, he said, fought to preserve the Jewish religion and culture and their right to worship God. Schwartzberg explained that it was like an army of 100 defeating an army of 2000. They recaptured the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which the Syrian-Greeks had defiled with idol worship and pagan sacrifices. When the Maccabees sought to rededicate the temple, however, they found only one cruse of oil to kindle the eternal light. Schwartzberg pointed to the nine lights and asked the children to imagine they were real oil lamps and that all of them had to be filled using only one tiny glass of oil. Miraculously, because God was pleased with what they had accomplished, the oil lasted for eight days providing enough time for the holy oil to be replenished. Before lighting the center lamp and first lamp of the eight day festival, Schwartzberg read all the sacred prayers, first in English so that everyone would understand, and then in Hebrew, according to the tradition of the ceremony. “Blessed are you Hashem our God, King of the universe,” he read aloud, “who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this season ....” Schwartzberg continued: “Baruch ata Adonai ....” Then, according to a centuries old tradition, he first lit the shamas or ninth candle, which is used to light the others and then lit the first candle of the eight-day festival. Additional photos appear on page 60 and online at www.warwickadvertiser.com.