Judaism has always been open to what the world is learning and saying. It has fallen to every generation of Jews to determine how much openness is necessary, and how much is too much. That's the miracle of Hanukkah.

Jews around the world are marking the start of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, which celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C. after it was defiled by Syrian Greeks.