‘Spreading light into the world’

On an unusually warm December evening, children impatiently scrambled around the front steps at the Central Synagogue-Beth Emeth. People brought their dogs and whole families came to watch.

They came out for the annual Rockville Centre community candle lighting on Dec. 27, where congregation and community members participated in the Synagogue’s fourth menorah lighting ceremony of Hanukkah.

Rabbis Marc Gruber and Elliot Skiddell along with Rabbi Howard Diamond from Congregation B’nai Sholom - Beth David, led the event. After some songs and Torah readings, they lifted up a handful of children so they could light the candles on the menorah that was too tall for them to reach alone.

“It makes me happy,” said congregation member Ann VanPraag who was delighted to have her two daughters and three grandchildren come out with her to watch the lighting. “It’s a tradition I think should be followed,” she said about the Hanukkah event.

“Fun,” said her young teenage granddaughter, Adela, somewhat sarcastically.

Johanna Boyes, 20, was home from college at Binghamton University and decided to come out with her mother to participate in the ceremony.

She appreciated being welcomed home by the congregation. She had been going to the synagogue since she was a small child. “It was sweet,” she said.

Town Supervisor Anthony Santino and Councilman Anthony D’Esposito attended the lighting, as well as State Assemblyman Brian Curran, Village Trustee Edward Oppenheimer and Village Mayor Francis X. Murray.

“Hanukkah reminds us that light will overcome darkness, that goodness will overcome evil and that faith can accomplish miracles,” Mayor Murray said in his speech. “Hanukkah is a time of spreading light into the world.”

As the ceremony wrapped up and the oldest and youngest congregation members went inside for refreshments, children who were old enough to go unsupervised ran off into the night, laughing.