How did Hanukkah, celebrated this week, actually come to be?

The popular explanation is that the eternal flame of the Temple in Jerusalem burned for eight nights on a supply of purified olive oil that should have lasted for only one. This was after the Temple had been rededicated following the Maccabees Revolt, in which a Jewish rebel army ousted the Seleucid Empire, which had outlawed the practice of Judaism, from parts of Israel.

In 2006, when I was running to represent you in Congress, I offered a concise, clear plan on Iraq. I was the only candidate on the ballot to present a specific exit strategy from that morass.

You might think it is hard being a legislator: You have to come to work on a Saturday, read thousands of pages, debate, vote — what a mess! Those poor congressmen and senators, sacrificing their weekends and doing all they can to save a troubled nation, right? Nope. Being a legislator is easy. If you're having a hard time, you're doing it wrong.

"Non-violent criminals should not be imprisoned," says Lisa Wexler.

All of them? I ask her.

"All of them. The only people who should be locked up are the ones that we don't want on the streets, the ones who mug or murder or rape." She pauses. "Wow, that's quite a statement I'm making. As a lawyer, I'm already thinking about the exceptions to the rule, but I do think that should be the general rule."

On Greenwich's liveliest and most decorated street, one house was dark on Halloween. Cars slowed to a crawl against the mass of trick-or-treaters and their parents enjoying the bright lights, spooky noises and buckets upon buckets of candy, but nobody turned into the single undecorated house, where every last light was off. It wasn't an abandoned or a haunted house; it was the rabbi's house.