Cherry Hill’s BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir temple kicked off its five-day Diwali celebration on Oct. 18 with food, prayer and religious offerings.
The holiday marks the Festival of Lights and the triumph of good over evil celebrated by the Hindu community. The temple also welcomed non-Hindus from throughout the region.
Congressman Donald Norcross, Mayor Dave Fleisher and other elected officials at the BAPS Cherry Hill temple for Diwali.
“It was a pleasure for me to visit the Cherry Hill BAPS Temple … to celebrate Diwali,” said Mayor Dave Fleisher, “and I wish all who celebrate a joyous and peaceful holiday.”
He and other officials wore colorful garlands known as mala around the neck, a Diwali tradition.
“Cherry Hill is a diverse community that welcomes and embraces people of all faiths,” Fleisher noted. “For our Indian community, Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is one of the most important and widely celebrated holidays with a message for us all, that there is always light waiting to shine through the darkness.”
For Diwali, early worshippers would leave offerings of food on tiered platforms in front of the temple altar. Each of the five days of its celebration represents an aspect of the Hindu religion by honoring gods and methods of worship.
The night of Oct. 20 at BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir was set aside to pray for business owners, with several of them bringing their financial books to the temple to be blessed for the coming new year.
Temple head priest Ashok Dave explained the meaning behind Diwali as a way of cleansing a person’s spirit.
“It drives out the darkness,” he pointed out. “Not physical darkness, but the darkness of when one has bad thoughts or does bad actions.”
As Diwali wrapped on Oct. 22, temple members gathered for prayers and some headed to the BAPS temple in Robbinsville to worship and pray.
