HARRISBURG, Pa. — Religious services are exempt from new coronavirus mitigation measures that Pennsylvania issued Dec. 10. Many houses of worship, however, are still limiting their in-person capacity and adapting winter holiday celebrations during the pandemic.
Chabad Lubavitch of Harrisburg was forced to cancel its annual Hanukkah celebration in the Capitol East Wing Rotunda, which usually includes singing, games and potato pancakes called latkes. Its director, Rabbi Schmuel Pewzner, instead is lighting the public menorah alone each evening.
“We gather in public that we should recognize that it’s Hanukkah, so we also light the menorah in public,” Pewzner said. “But the root of the mitzvah, the way our rabbis instituted it and wrote it into the Talmud, was that each person at home lights the menorah.”
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