Rabbi Chaim Hanoka of Chabad of Pasadena leads the lighting of the Hanukkah menorah at City Hall on Sunday. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]Pasadena’s unique character was on full display on the first night of Hanukkah at City Hall Sunday.
As young Latino girls were photographed for their quinceañeras in the rotunda and the courtyard, and Pasadena’s famous parrots emerged from the surrounding trees to loudly strafe the event, more than a hundred members of the Jewish community watched as the first night of Hanukkah’s candles was lit by Rabbi Chaim Hanoka of Chabad of Pasadena.
On a day marked by a horrific antisemitic shooting on Bondi Beach in Australia, and the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, Hanoka said, “Irrespective of what’s happening in the Middle East, and what’s happened today, basically whenever you have evil in the world, no matter what form it takes, it’s important to know that evil has an end to it, its not gonna last. And therefore, the message in general is one of bringing light and adding light to the spiritual darkness of the world.”
Having now celebrated Hanukkah in Pasadena for a number of years, Hanoka recalled the original ancient story of the holiday, detailing at last year’s ceremony, that “the ancient holiday represents the rededication of the Temple in the second century BCE when it was largely destroyed by the Assyrian Greeks, or the Seleucid Empire, as they were known.
“A small Jewish army known as the Maccabees came in and was able somehow to miraculously defeat this great mighty Greek army,” said Hanoka. “When it came to the temple, they had found that all of the jugs of oil, which typically had a wax seal from the high priest on them, had been broken. But the actual jugs still had oil.”
“They weren’t all busted apart, but they had broken all the seals on it, knowing that the Jews wouldn’t use it unless it had that proper seal, because it would be ritually impure.”
“But there was one sealed jug of oil,” Hanoka continued. “It still had the wax seal on it. Typically, that would last for one day, but miraculously, that one jug lasted for eight days. So it was a great miracle. And subsequently we have been celebrating the holiday of Hanukkah for eight days.”
Following songs from the children’s chorus of the Chabad, and the honoring of Pasadena’s first responders, Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin climbed a ladder to light the middle candle of the large display menorah. Then Hanoka ascended the ladder himself, to light the first of eight candles for the eight nights of the holiday.
The crowd then broke out in song once again, sharing the Hanukkah message of light and love in an extraordinarily dark time.
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