Warwick residents celebrate Hanukkah at Menorah lighting

WARWICK - It was bitter cold on Tuesday evening, December 4, the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. But nevertheless, a respectable crowd of local residents including Supervisor Michael Sweeton, Mayor Michael Newhard and Village Trustee Roger Metzger arrived at Lewis Park at 4:30 p.m. for Warwick’s traditional Menorah lighting ceremony. This year’s Menorah lighting was again graced by the presence of Rabbi Meir Borenstein, Rivkie of the Chabad Center of Orange County. Chabad is an international outreach organization, inspired by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and dedicated to serving Jewish communities. “We are pleased that Rabbi Borenstein has joined us again,” said Schwartzberg. “And because it’s so cold we are especially grateful that he brought us hot kosher latkes.” Thirteen years ago, Moshe Schwartzberg, owner of Forever Jewelers and then president of the Warwick Merchants Guild, began officiating at the Menorah lighting, which was held then in Railroad Green. Schwartzberg and his wife, Doris, and their daughters, Sarah and Amy, have continued to improve the celebration by adding Hanukkah songs, games, gifts and by serving traditional potato latkes. With the exception of those times when the weather was extraordinarily bad, attendance has grown each year. 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. “This, in itself, was a miracle,” he said. A small band of fighters, led by Judah Maccabee, he explained, fought to preserve the Jewish religion and culture and their right to worship God. Schwartzberg said 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. That provided enough time for the holy oil to be replenished. Before lighting the center lamp and first lamp of the eight day festival, Schwartzberg read 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 . . .” And then 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.