Festival of lights begins

STROUDSBURG — Tradition was renewed, as a festival that has gone on for more than twenty-one centuries continued Tuesday in Stroudsburg. A crowd of about 150 people gathered around Rabbi Mendel Bendet at Court House Square as he recited a Hebrew blessing on the first night of Hanukkah. Hanukkah began when a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land and reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. When they sought to light the Temple’s Menorah they found only a single cup of olive oil, enough for only one day. Miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days. To commemorate this miracle, the sages instituted the festival of lights, Hanukkah. On Tuesday, each person was given their own candle to be part of the celebration, as the large Menorah was lit in the square. Rabbi Bendet, with the help of his younger brother Yossi, a rabbinical student from New Jersey, lit the first of the eight candles to celebrate the eight-day festival. Yossi Bendet used a long pole which had a glowing flame on the end to light the first and center candle of the large Menorah. A Hanukkah Menorah actually has nine candles on it. The center candle is lit each night and the others are lit beginning from the Menorah’s left side (the right side as you face the Menorah). Some of the Hanukkah customs other than candle lighting include eating food cooked in oil such as potato pancakes (latkes), and doughnuts (sufganiot). Other customs are playing with dreidels (a spinning top inscribed with Hebrew letters), and the giving of Hanukkah “gelt” and gifts to children on all eight days. While he doesn’t have “the usual large temple,” Bendet told the Courier that he serves some 5,000 Jewish people in the Stroudsburg area.