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Prepare to get verklempt: World’s largest menorah lighting set for Saturday – Metro US

Prepare to get verklempt: World’s largest menorah lighting set for Saturday

Prepare to get verklempt: World’s largest menorah lighting set for Saturday
Shimon Roumani/Chabad.org

Hanukkah starts on Saturday evening this year and New York will celebrate by lighting the world’s largest menorah in Midtown Manhattan.

TheLubavitch Youth Organization will light the 36-feet-tall menorah at 5th Avenue and 59th Street at 8 p.m. and the celebration will continue for eight nights, according to Chabad.

Every night, the event will feature hot latkes, Hanukkah donuts, music, draidels and Hanukkah gifts for children, Chabad added.

“The menorah stands as a symbol delivering a timely and poignant message of freedom, strength and inspiration,” said Rabbi Shmuel Butman,Lubavitch Youth Organization director, in a statement. “It serves as a symbol of NYC’s dedication to preserve and encourages all citizens to practice their faith, worshiping G-d freely, openly and with pride.”

RELATED:How to make your very own Hanukkah candles

The menorah lighting will take place at 5:30 p.m. the following nights, except Dec. 30, when the lighting is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and Dec. 31 when the lighting will again take place at 8:30 p.m.

At 5 p.m. on Monday, more than 300 menorah-topped vehicles, including 40 “mitzvah tanks,” will leaveLubavitch World HeadquartersinBrooklyn and at about 6:30 p.m. The Grand Menorah Parade will pass by the “world’s largest menorah.”

The menorah lighting tradition, started by the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, has been taking place for 39 years, Chabad said.

In 2006, Guinness World certified the 28-feet wide, 4,000-pound menorah, designed by Israeli sculptor Yaacov Agam, asthe largest menorah in the world.

A taller Brooklyn menorah, erected by Chabad of Park Slope Rabbi Shimon Hecht, tried to claim the “largest” title, but a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical court ruled that Butman’s menorah claimed the title first, the Jewish Week reported.

“Every Hanukkah operation is meant for publicizing the miracle in a way that sanctifies God’s name and the name of Chabad, and not, God forbid, the opposite,” the judges wrote in the Dec. 1 decision, according to the Jewish Week. “So when another organization in the same city uses the same descriptor without permission from the plaintiff, it could cause the opposite of respect to Lubavitch.”

Both menorahs have a 32-feet tall base, which is the maximum allowed by Jewish law. The Brooklyn menorah’s shamash, the central candle, extends 4.5 feet —half-a-foot higher than Butman’s Manhattan shamash.