By COLlive reporter
The Mill Hill Synagogue in NW London, England, welcomed 36 new babies in their annual Chanukah baby blessing ceremony which has been organized for the past 20 years.
Newborns this past year in the local Jewish community were in attendance along with their parents and grandparents for a special “baby blessing.”
The blessings included the recitation of several passages in davening and Tehilim of shevach vhoido’oh, Menorah lighting (a torch handed from one father to the next and likewise by the women) with which the menorah is then lit.
The parents then received a special poster with the Shema and their child’s name and Birchas Kohanim.
“It’s been a difficult 18 months where we underwent pain and loss,” Mill Hill’s Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, who initiated the ceremony 20 years ago, told all those assembled.
“But today is about birth and renewal with a focus on the future. Like the Chanukah candles, each of your children shines a light towards a bright future.”
Rabbi Schochet, a sought-after lecturer and speaker on Jewish values, noted that it was twenty years of baby blessings accounting for 617 babies born into the community during that time. The event has become a community tradition.
