arrow_backBack

Chanukah

Author:

Cheryl

Date:

July 18, 2019

Tags:


Chanukah

December 7th – 15th, 2023

Chanukah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after a group of Jewish warriors defeated the occupying mighty Greek armies.

Join us for Chabad Intown’s GRAND MENORAH LIGHTINGS & CHANUKAH CELEBRATIONS!

Sober Chanukah + Comedy Show

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Join your Jeff’s Place peers and allies for a joyous celebration at our Sober Chanukah Party! Held in the CTeen Lounge, experience the warmth of the festival of lights accompanied by comedians Liz Derr, Gayle Lewis, and Jason Zaremba. Rabbi Schusterman will open the party with the Menorah lighting. Embrace the spirit of togetherness and celebration while enjoying the festive atmosphere. Enjoy a menu including latkes, donuts, and experience our hot cocoa bar. RSVP today!

YJP Flame Chanukah Party

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Come celebrate Chanukah at Midtowns hottest new event space! Jewish unity is something we all need right now. Gather on the first night of Chanukah for an incredible evening of light. Kick-off the night with a Menorah Lighting followed by an epic after party with hundreds of young adults. RSVP Today!

DECATUR

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Join Chabad in Celebrating Chanukah at our annual Menorah Lighting in Decatur Square! Enjoy music, entertainment, Dreidels, doughnuts, hot latkes, crafts for the kids and more! RSVP today!

VIRGINIA HIGHLAND

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Join us for a Chanukah Celebration! Enjoy music, live entertainment, pre-packaged Chanukah treats, dreidels, music and more with the wider VaHi community at Chabad Intown’s annual Virginia Highlands Menorah Lighting! RSVP today!

ATLANTIC STATION

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Join us on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 6 pm for a Chanukah Celebration! (Event will take place in the Atlantic Green) RSVP today!

PONCE CITY MARKET

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Join us for a Chanukah Celebration! Enjoy music, live entertainment, pre-Join Ponce City Market and Chabad Intown for a traditional menorah lighting ceremony on the Yard beginning at 6:00pm. Attendees will celebrate the Festival of Lights with an evening of food and drinks, activities for the kids and music. RSVP today!




Enjoying what
you've read?

Here's more.

arrow_backBack

Chanukah: Who Needs to Justify its Utter Delight?

Author:

Chabad Intown

Date:

December 21, 2016

Tags:

Holidays


Chanukah is utter delight. Why, then, examine the origin of the delight? Why tempt joy with analysis, especially when the analysis may cause some folks to bristle by philosophizing about the nature of miracles and faith. Regardless, let me take a chance of looking more analytically at Chanukah’ delight in light of spiritual integrity and the Torah’s truth eternal truth.

 

Some years ago there was an article presented locally that mocked the childish belief of educated adults in the possibility of miracles?

 

It asserted that faith ought not to be based on the naĂŻve fantasy of candles burning miraculously for eight days. Rather, the celebration of Chanukah should be about religious freedom.

 

I disagree. Miracles happen around us every day. The rising of the sun, the changing of the seasons, the smile in my child’s eyes, or the breath we take every morning. Tell me, please, why a flame surviving eight days against all odds is any less a miracle than a ball of gasses many times the size of our earth giving light, warming our planet, growing our plants for thousands of years without changing course?

 

“Religious Freedom”? What does that mean? Freedom for what? To eat Challah? To go to shul? Do you think the Greeks really cared about Matzah balls or a bunch of Jews fasting on Yom Kippur? The Greeks persecuted us for our faith, the religion that says there is a G-d that transcends our day-to-day reality, yet who permeates it at the same time. They persecuted our right to believe in miracles and our right to live a life that is founded on those beliefs.

 

Why do we have a difficulty believing in miracles? Because it shatters our perception of reality and it challenges our source of comfort. That is precisely why we have no problem with the sun rising and setting each day; it has become a perception of reality with which we have come to feel comfort. But isn’t that what makes us unique as a people and as a religion?

 

Is it not that we are forever breaking out of our comfort zone to believe in something transcendent? It is to believe in the stories that have allowed us to outlive the Greeks, the Romans, the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Nazis. Have those very stories not given birth to advances in Torah study, the establishment of the State of Israel, the miraculous rise of a people who repeatedly defied tyrants who were committed to turning us into a pile of ashes?

 

Most importantly, miracles give us the ability to move beyond out daily comfort to become a better example to the world around us. Not to be intimidated to do those things that the society around us might see as strange: eating kosher, keeping Shabbat, sending our children to Jewish schools.

 

That is not naive or childish, but the essence of the transcendent miracle of Chanukah!

 

More next week.

 

Come celebrate with us!




Enjoying what
you've read?

Here's more.