Candle Power
Chanukah fun takes place all about town.
Engine Kagan ofTest Bloomfield
lights the Lego 711010171h, with the
help of Rabbi Ybstf Alisholovin
West Bloomfield, while Elizabeth
Kgan, 4, looks on.
SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Staff Writer
C
hanukah in the Detroit area began this month
with a electrical-powered blaze of light that
burned in unique ways and unexpected places.
At the Jewish Community Center in Oak Park, a
line of cars and vans — each with an electronically lit
menorah affixed to the top — lined up just before the
time the first Chanukah candle was to be lit.
"The menorah-crowned cars were followed by three
Hummerzines [Hummer limousines] and five
Michigan State Police cars," said Levi Stein, 16, of
Oak Park, who organized the event, arranged through
the Lubavitch Yeshiva in Oak Park.
With the vehicles in place, Levi Greenberg, 18, of El
Paso, Texas, addressed the crowd in front of a large
freestanding menorah, whose candles were lit with
12/17
2004
16
long torches.
"He stressed the fact that the main lesson of
Chanukah is lighting up the darkness," Stein said.
"This may serve as an example that we must light up
the world, as dark as it may be, with the light of
Judaism, fighting against assimilation — the message
delivered time and again by the Lubavitcher Rebbe,
[the late] Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, in accor-
dance with his goal that the everlasting message of
Chanukah reaches every single Jew around the world."
Those involved in the Dec. 7 event may not have
reached every Jew in the world, but they certainly
made their mark, traveling — to the sound of music
blaring — in the parade of cars from Oak Park,
through Huntington Woods and Birmingham then to
their final destination, the Sara Tugman Bais Chabad
Torah Center in West Bloomfield, where the partying
continued to the sounds of live Hebrew music.
.
Throughout the remainder of the holiday, the
Lubavitch Yeshiva students distributed menorahs and
Chanukah literature to groups including Jewish shop-
pers in area malls, residents in senior centers and stu-
dents at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
More Celebrating
On the other side of town, at the Chabad Jewish
Center of Commerce, the lighting of a 10-foot tall
menorah marked the first giant menorah lighting cere-
mony ever in the township.
Amidst the latke eating and song singing, guests of
the Dec. 12 event were invited outside for the light-
ing. "It was a great feeling, a warm feeling, even
though we were outside," said Estie Greenberg, center
program director and wife of its executive director,
Rabbi Schneor Greenberg
"The highlight was when we all stood in the snow