Luminaries set menorah candles aflame
Vice Mayor Kerry Donley lit an oversized menorah in Old Town on Sunday, the fifth night of Hanukkah, to commemorate the Jewish Festival of Lights.
Residents and other luminaries gathered outside the Crowne Plaza Old Town, joining Rabbi Mordechai Newman of Chabad Lubavitch of Alexandria-Arlington in the lighting ceremony. Revelers listened and danced to contemporary Jewish tunes and ate in celebration of the of the day’s worth oil that miraculously burned for eight days as Jews escaped persecution 2,100 years ago.
“Fire is a powerful thing. It can either warm, illuminate, glow and sustain, or it can burn, disintegrate and destroy,” Newman said. “When you light a candle for the purpose of bringing about illumination and goodness, all you need is that one flame to continuously light the flame in others and in no way will it diminish your own.”
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