Chabad of Hunt Valley sets up quite the spread for its annual Chanukah celebration. At last year’s event, said Rabbi Shalom Zirkind, his wife “ordered [between] 150 donuts and 150 latkes to 200 donuts and latkes … and we came home with zero,” he said.
Similar feasting is expected on the first night of Chanukah this year, Sunday, Dec. 14, when Chabad of Hunt Valley hosts a menorah lighting ceremony at the Hunt Valley Town Centre in Cockeysville, sponsored by LifeBridge Health. Lifebridge CEO Neil Meltzer will have the honor of lighting the first candle.
Zirkind, who is co-director of Chabad of Hunt Valley together with his wife, Nuchie Zirkind, said the organization hosted its first event nine Chanukahs ago, a menorah building at a boat dock. The event was successful, attracting about 40 families. For this year’s event, he said, Chabad expects more than 250 people to attend.
While a Chanukah party is a typical celebration for Jewish families, Chabad of Hunt Valley, a division of Chabad Lubavitch of Maryland, hosts more unique celebrations as well.
Before the first night of Chanukah, the Chabad is inviting families to the Cockeysville Home Depot for a menorah building workshop. “We usually bring Chanukah cookies, and there always is a different twist to it,” said Nuchie Zirkind. “This year, the kids are going to learn how to squeeze their own olive oil from real olives, so that’s going to be fun.”
Home Depot will sponsor a Build-Your-Own Candle-Carry Kit and the Chabad will present the menorah building, keeping it cost-free for attendees.
Perhaps the most unique event that Chabad of Hunt Valley organizes is its annual Sky Zone event.
“[Every year] we rent out Sky Zone on one night of Chanukah, usually a Sunday night, so it’s family-friendly,” explained Rabbi Zirkind. “It’s ours. We play Chanukah music, and it’s the Great Chanukah Glow Party. There’s a menorah lighting, there’s pizza for the kids with some snacks and drinks … and kids get to jump and bounce it out to Chanukah music for about two hours, uninterrupted.”
Nuchie Zirkind added that the kids get glow-in-the-dark T-shirts with a Chanukah logo on the back.
Every Chanukah event has generated high turnouts, according to Rabbi Zirkind.
“My father always [said] every challenge is an opportunity. I would say our biggest challenge, which I now view as an opportunity, is that, thank God, we’ve outgrown all these little spaces that we’ve rented from,” Rabbi Zirkind explained. “Our challenge, or our opportunity, at the moment is we’re looking for a permanent home, our brick and mortar, to host events, as we have, thank God, outgrown our [current] home.”
Rabbi Zirkind and his wife originally moved to Baltimore in 2010 and founded the local chapter of The Friendship Circle, a nonprofit affiliate of Chabad for children with special needs.
While running the Baltimore chapter, they noticed a need for a Jewish organizational presence in the Hunt Valley and Timonium area, 15 to 20 miles north of Baltimore.
“While we were serving families … we met families in the Lutherville, Timonium area,” Rabbi Zirkind explained. “That’s when we noticed, Owings Mills has Chabad, Downtown [Baltimore] has Chabad, other neighborhoods we’ve been to has Chabad, as well as other organizations, but Lutherville, Timonium and Hunt Valley had no Chabad, no one to serve that part of the community.”
In 2017, the couple planted themselves as the Chabad emissaries to those neighborhoods and have stayed ever since.
Rabbi Zirkind is currently nearing the halfway point of a new Torah course he’s teaching, “How Happiness Thinks,” through the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. The six-session course encourages participants to delve in their own mind and psyche, drawing on classical Jewish and mystical teachings, and promises to present students with a deeper understanding of themselves.
On a lighter note, community members wrap tefillin and play golf on Sunday mornings at Hillendale Country Club, in a weekly tradition known as “Putts & Prayers.”
Chabad of Hunt Valley also offers lunch and learn sessions, a weekly Torah class for women and Jewish youth programming.
“Our goal was and still [is] … to reach every single Jew and within the area: Lutherville, Timonium, Cockeysville, Hunt Valley,” said Nuchie Zirkind. “There’s still plenty of Jews that we haven’t … managed to reach yet, and we’re still working on it.”
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