From Our House To Yours . . .

Here's hoping this Holiday Season finds you safe, warm, and happy 

 - regardless of your choice of celebration.

And may your new year be better than the last.

Happy Hanukkah

Today is the first day of the Festival of lights,

and my best to all who are celebrating.

HANUKKAH Begins At Sunset Tonight. May Love and Light Fill Your Hearts.

Chanukah in a Nutshell

Chanukah -- the eight-day festival of light, celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.

More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.

When they sought to light the Temple's menorah, they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.

On Chanukah we also recite Hallel and the Al HaNissim prayer to offer praise and thanksgiving to G-d for "delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few... the wicked into the hands of the righteous."