Menorah Lighting Opens Festival of Lights

If being outnumbered 100 to one wasn’t enough to stop the Maccabees from driving Antiochus from their land, certainly a little rain in Red Bank wouldn’t be enough to stop an outdoor menorah lighting ceremony.

Rabbi Harry Levine and about a dozen congregants of Rumson’s Open Synogogue gathered at the Red Bank Train to usher in Hanukkah with the lighting of a menorah. The small gathering cheered and sang Hebrew prayers as the two lights were lit, first the shamash, and then the first candle signifying the first of the eight days of Hanukkah.

Though the menorah’s oil has been swapped for electricity, the message of the season still remains. When Levine asked three-year-old Dakota Diehl about what is most important to remember, with a little help from her older sister Jaiden, 7, she answered, much to the delight of Levine and the gathered crowd, God and, of course, family.