Here comes Chanukkah!

DETROIT, MI — Can three menorah-topped Hummers really help lift the world? They can’t hurt.

Upward of 100 cars — each topped with a blazing electric menorah that plugs into the cigarette lighter — will crawl through the cold night from Oak Park to West Bloomfield Township at slowpoke speeds in the annual Hanukkah Parade, which starts at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Grab the keys and the kids and join this exuberant holiday tradition that stretches back to the mid-’80s. Everyone’s welcome at this funny, glittering, somewhat nutty season ritual that, nonetheless — for all the buoyant spirits — aims to send a serious message of hope to Jews and non-Jews alike.

Parade organizer Levi Stein reminds everyone that Hanukkah’s message “is to spread light over darkness. It’s one of the things we do physically by lighting the menorah. It physically puts light out in the world, and that’s a universal for everyone, not just the Jewish people.

”By adding light, we automatically push away the darkness. That’s a very big part of Hanukkah,“ says Stein, who in the past has helped organize Hanukkah celebrations in Siberia and Scandinavia.

The ”Festival of Lights“ celebrates the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C., after it had been invaded by Hellenist Syrians. When the temple was cleaned and ready for re-dedication, the celebrants could only find one small flask with enough oil for one day. But miraculously, it burned for eight days, allowing the Jews to keep it burning uninterrupted. Hanukkah is spelled Chanukah by some.

The annual parade is put on by the Chabad-Lubavitch, an international movement that grew out of Orthodox Hasidic practice, and has branches all over. Its mission is to promote an awareness of Judaism and its traditions among Jews.

Most years, Freida Kesselman doesn’t get to go to the Hanukkah Parade. The Oak Park mother has a large family, and car space is, well, limited. But, she says, kids trump adults every time.

She says the ambition behind the parade resonates, even with the children.
”Actions speak more than words,“ she says. ”We keep telling and teaching them about reaching out to others, and this is something they feel they are doing also. So to be a part of it — they just love it.“

Plus, she adds, the boys are nuts about the Michigan State Police escorts.
”Girls also are participating,“ Kesselman says, ”and I would definitely say it’s an equal joy. But for the boys, it’s more exciting.“

She laughs. ”The police cars! It’s a boy kind of stuff. The noise and the excitement.“

The parade, which takes about an hour and a half, will terminate at Chabad Shul in West Bloomfield Township, where a Hanukkah party will get under way.

Kesselman’s husband, Rabbi Josef, has been taking their kids to the parade since its inception, and still recalls the giddy feeling of that first-ever nighttime parade.

”Nobody had seen it before. Everyone was waving — white, black, Hispanic. I was so amazed,“ he says. ”It’s almost like I didn’t remember I had a menorah on top.“

Turning philosophical just for a moment — as befits a rabbi — Kesselman speculates on what the sight of this parade means to elderly Jews whose connections with persecution and official oppression in the old country are much closer than for the young.

In Wednesday night’s cheerful, gaudy menorahs, he reads the American promise.

”It’s the freedom of religions in this country,“ Kesselman says, ”the good part of it — that you can really observe in a fun way, and you’re not disturbing anyone. You’re not offending. It’s just this idea of freedom and celebration.“

He adds that ”quite a few“ of his non-Jewish friends always look forward to the date. ”Some of them come to look on the parade, and then they tell me, ‘Ach! That was great!’“

You might assume that a Hanukkah car caravan was an exclusively Detroit phenomenon, but you would be wrong.

Chabad-Lubavitchers (www.chabad.org) have sponsored parades across the U.S., notably in New York, where they rent RVs and plaster the sides with glowing Hanukkah messages.

So if you’re in the vicinity of the Jewish Cultural Center in Oak Park Wednesday evening, keep an eye peeled for those Hummers.
Well, hopefully Hummers.

”In the past we got Hummers,“ says Stein with the cautiousness of a man still working out the details. ”They attract the most attention. But every year it’s different models. It all depends on what the company has available,“ he says, laughing, ”and, what we can afford.”