Each year, Chabad of Columbus does something spectacular during Hanukkah to make the holiday fun and exciting for kids and families in the community. We’ve had Judah the Maccabee sky diving out of an airplane right into our public menorah lighting; helicopters dropping chocolate Hanukkah gelt (money) and dreidels in a cascade for children to collect, and this year we are hosting a reenactment of Judah the Maccabee on horseback fighting in a mock-battle against the “Syrian-Greeks.”
I love these events, but every year, I get the same question “Rabbi, is it really worth it to put on these Hollywood-style Hanukkah productions?” The answer is undoubtedly “Yes” and lies in a 50-year legal battle in which public Hanukkah gatherings were under attack.
Post-Holocaust, there was a question of how Jews should behave and practice their religion in America. Many people believed that Jews should keep their Judaism quiet and hide their identity to be able to blend in and not be conspicuous or even recognizably Jewish. In the words of American Jewish Congress leader Arthur Hertzberg, “You should be a Jew at home and a citizen on the street.” Nowhere was this more apparent than on the holiday of Hanukkah, which, until the 1970s was celebrated in the confines of homes and synagogues.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, had a different vision. He believed in being a proud Jew on the street as well as in private. In 1973, he launched the Chabad Hanukkah awareness campaign to bring the holiday out of the home and into the public sphere. In 1974, the first public Hanukkah menorah lighting was held, and, in subsequent years, the phenomenon spread like wildfire, with hanukkiot being set up on the streets of small-town America, and in iconic spots such as the White House Lawn, the St. Louis Gateway, Mount Rushmore, and many other locations around the world.
In the beginning, several groups mounted fierce opposition to the public menorah displays, claiming they violated the separation of church and state. Over the decades, an intense legal battle was waged, and in 1989 the brave Chabad menorah warriors won a landmark Supreme Court case which ensured their right to have the public Hanukkah gatherings that have become ubiquitous today. This past week, on X, Abe Foxman, former director of the ADL, took to social media and courageously posted that he had been wrong to oppose the public menorah all those years ago.
So, what does this have to do with Columbus’s "eight nights of fun"? When I moved to Ohio in 1991, I ran with the late Rebbe’s directive to “make Hanukkah exciting.” I believed that if a single Jewish child were to become inspired to live a prouder and mitzvah-filled Jewish life, we would have succeeded in our job. A child is like the one pure jug of oil found in the Temple over 2,000 years ago. That one tiny cruse of oil has become one of the most valuable jugs of oil that ever existed. It not only burned for eight days and nights but has inspired millions upon millions of hanukkiot to be lit around the world and throughout history. In that regard, one child has the infinite potential within them to light up the world with acts of goodness and kindness and the unique talents with which God endowed them. That was the opinion of the Rebbe and can be clearly seen in the enormous impact his work has left on the world, especially the public lightings which brighten the night and fill our world with hope for a time of redemption brought about by carrying out acts of goodness and kindness.
The writer, a rabbi, is co-director of Lori Schottenstein Chabad Center of Columbus and co-director of LifeTown Columbus. For more information visit www.chabadcolumbus.com