It technically begins at Sundown on Dec. 8, 2012.
You may have also heard of this Festival / holiday by its other name ‘the Festival of Lights.’
As noted on the Chabad website, this holiday is a celebration of two miracles:
1) “The 2nd century BCE victory of a small, greatly outnumbered and out-armed army of Jews, known as the "Maccabees," over the mighty Greek army that occupied the Holy Land. The rebellion was in response to the Greek attempt to force a Hellenistic G-dless lifestyle on the Jewish inhabitants of Israel.”
2) “The kindling of a seven-branched Menorah (candelabra) was an important component of the daily service in the Holy Temple. When the Maccabees liberated the Temple from the hands of the Greek invaders, they found only a small cruse of pure and undefiled olive oil fit for fueling the Menorah. The problem was, it was sufficient to light the Menorah only for one day, and it would take eight days to produce new pure oil. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days and nights.”
To learn more about this significant Jewish Holiday as reported on the Chabad website, HERE’S THE LINK
And to get Wikipedia’s ‘take’ on this holiday, HERE’S THE LINK
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