Chanukah: Where to Light? - Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

where you supposed to light your candles right botanica that's what we're doing where where are you supposed to light your candles so the best place to light your candles again i'm going to give you that a lot of them will work out what happens over here in the yeshiva because of course in in a public place like this it's not exactly the same as doing it at home but the best place to like you shut your chanukah candles is outside the front door pointing towards the street now if for example you have a you know lots of homes for example I have a garden at the front right so it would actually be better to light your manner if your menorah can't release be seen that very well from the street it would be better to actually light it at the entrance to the you know to the gate leading to the path that goes up to the house rather than by the front door right why is that because what we mentioned before that the midst of Chanukah is Pierre assuming Nyssa to publicize the miracle so the more people who can see the lights are better it is now there might be a couple of practical problems with that the first problem might be that if you live in an area where your light start lighting things like that in public it may bring unwanted you know unwanted attention to you so then you can like you should like the candles inside we'll talk about that in a moment the other alternative that might be a problem is that sometimes people live in areas where they like something like that outside by the morning it would have disappeared so if that's the case and you know it would be best to light somewhere that's safer if the Indian over here is just you know you don't want to leave things like that burning outside because you don't know what the neighbors are going to say then the best place to light the candles would be in a window that faces the street if you're living in an area it's it you know it's interesting in Jewish history lighting your chanukah lights could sometimes be a very dangerous thing to do right if you're going to have them in public over there and people are going to see non-jews are going to see and then it might set off like myself a program of some kind and I you know we had a few years ago I mean going maybe maybe I can't never ten years maybe there were a couple of guys from Chicago believe it or not who said that people you know he lived in a road where there were Orthodox Jews that were living over there and he said that the Jews that the Jews are lit their maneras outside their front doors so you know people threw bricks through their windows they had swastikas dogged on their you know on their front doors so I you like it doesn't sound it doesn't sound very neighborly to me I mean maybe that's why things are done in Chicago i'm not sure but i don't know anyway so the thing to do is if you are living in an area where lighting or candles you know it's not it's not great to light your candles in public there are probably places in Paris where it's it's probably not better not to draw attention to yourself right so then you should light inside your house not next to the window where's the best place to light so the best place to light would be next to the front door on the inside all right if your honor you know you want the you want the candles to be lit but you don't want to be lit in such a prominent way that it's going to draw unwanted attention towards you so like them next to your front door it's enough that there are people in the house that are seeing the candles being lit and there's your peer something it's a your publicizing the miracle when you when you light your candles next to the front door so there's a very beautiful halacha which says that you should light the candles on the left hand side right why is that because on the right hand side you have a mezuzah and on the left hand side you'll have the menorah and that way when you go in and out of the door you're going to be surrounded by mitzvahs I don't detect it walking in right on the left and walking video of course if you're I'm sorry if you're if you're lighting your Hanukkah candles on the inside those apps which bit from where after you said important it's important to publicize sometimes a vehicle say where are you I'm sorry yeah let's go back when you're when you're lighting your candles on the outside of your front door so you should like them on the left-hand side of the door right and again why is that because you've got the Mozilla on the right-hand side and then you'll have the menorah on the left-hand side and you're going to be surrounded by mitzvahs when you light the menorah inside your house next to the front door so then you should light the candles on the light on the right-hand side because obviously you want to have the buzzers are on the other side that way you're going to be surrounded again here in Israel lots of people the majority people live in apartment blocks all right where are you supposed to light your menorah when you're living in an apartment block what's the problem if I light outside my thigh here for example i live on the seventh floor right and if I light my candles outside my front door that no one's really going to see it because nobody's coming up to the seventh floor and that's that and that's their coming to see me right which I can't imagine why they would do that and if they do is probably not something I want to see so therefore what what there's no public no publicizing the miracles what we do is that we light the Chanukah candles actually using the kitchen window which points back and there are apartments behind us so the people in the apartments behind us can see the kanaka lights we can see them inside the apartment as well of course and that way we get to fulfill the mitzvot the problem is if we were to light them at the front the window out of the front of the apartment we're so high up that it's not so simple to see these things from down below which means that the pizza mean it's the publicizing miracle is not going to be there what happens over here in the yeshiva so first of all it is completely and absolutely forbidden to light your menorah in your bedroom not for how laughs it reasons whatsoever simply because the yeshiva has not been paying its fire insurance policy over the last of the while and you don't want to burn the place down it's just you know practical practical stuff where where the people in the yeshiva light their candles so the majority of the people are probably like them in the huddle huddle has got a whole bank of windows that point out into the street so that's perfectly a good a perfectly good place I'm sure that there'll be a lot of people are going to light their candles also up you know up the stairs right coming into the part where it's whether the gate is locked over there because that's also you know a nice open space where this all there's no danger or setting anything on fire and secondly its seen by the street so it's a it's a very good place to be lighting your candles over here in Israel you combine menards that most of them are very cheap now let and actually gonna go off the way saw something very ornate right but you know you could just buy sort of like simple metal things that can take all different kinds of candles or oil depending on what it is that you want to what you want to use and you know it this whole thing this whole thing will probably set you back you know maybe thirty shekels if you're going to somebody for shabbos you've got two options you can either take your menorah apparatus with you right bless you add the sweet although all the paraphernalia you can take it with you or I think that kind of provision is but you could you could give a you know symbolic amount of money to your host okay right shove a printer which is you know what like I said half a shekel maybe and that way you could you can then become a partner inside of his candle lighting and that means that you're fulfilling your obligation if you're going if you're going away for shabbos that probably makes more sense i would have thought unless you unless you want to you know take it with your hosts will be very happy to add your menorah into their menorahs in order to allow you to fulfill the mid stroke that's what you want to do the menorah itself when it's placed it shouldn't be too high and it shouldn't be too low to high is you know we're talking about 3 to 14 which is about 12 inches you should try to if it's more than 20 hours witches which is quite a quite a quite a height but nevertheless if it's more than 20 hours then you can to fill the bitter because people can't see the the watchman corner I can't see the light now in every menorah that you buy em it's a sham I hope there will be eight lights eight places for the candles and then another place as well for an extra candle that extra candle is called eight shamash the word shamash needs to serve right LeSean eshe you know shawl sometimes have a shaman he's the one who makes sure that everything is running smoothly the word for the Sun in Hebrew is a shemesh because it serves God continuously in a very obvious fashion and the shamash is there to serve the other light what's the problem the problem is that the Chanukah lights can't be used for anything you can't get any benefit from them which means you can't get benefit you can't read from the light you can't toast marshmallows on them you can't do anything with them they're just there in order to fulfill the mitzvot and that's what you're supposed to be concentrating one that's what's supposed to be important for you what's the problem the problem is that the kanaka lights are going to give light by definition right once you've lit them they're going to be strangely enough a light and therefore they're giving off light in the room and that could be a problem because now you're getting benefit from the light that's being given so along come the idea of adding an extra candle called the shamash and the candle is there to give its light as well the shamash candle light mingles together with the other light and then it's less problematic to get some kind of benefit right so if you don't have a show mesh if you don't have a shalosh burning over there you don't have a sham is burning then it's going to be a problem to be looking at the candles and getting benefit from the candles and all some people use their showmanship orders like the other candles as well right so let's say for example on the on the the second night you know what on the fifth night you could use a match but you need a pretty long match to be able to light all those candles off in one go so people use the shamash and again whatever whatever you do it's going to be fine when you buy your boxes of candles they're going to come with 44 can was in then 36 are for the the candles that are needed for the 1 + 2 + 3 until you get to plus 8 and the the watchamacallit the shamash you're going to get another 81 shemesh for each day and i can say the shamash is pretty it's pretty important ok when you come to light the candles you should endeavor to light all the candles by yourself right so you're if you're you know i'm not saying is clearly but let's say you know the sixth night of chanukah there's a lot of candles that need to be lit then you should really make sure that your lighting all the candles unless you've got to rush to do another Mitzvah so for example you've got to rush to go to daven you have done yet then you know then you can let somebody else take over the the you're fulfilling the obligation in its simplest form right the obligation is being fulfilled through lighting one candle we spoke about that yesterday we'll talk about the Broca's of insertion soon but how do you like if you like you like make the broth and you like like one candle you fulfilled your obligation somebody else can I take over in order to let you perform a different a different lid too if needs be right but preferably the best thing to do is to allow is to give yourself enough time to be able to do this now this is important for error of showers Eric Chavez's a little air of chávez's if there's a lot to do in a very limited amount of time arrows Chavez can occur is one of the shortest air of Chavez's of the year right Chavez's going to come in very early what do we say we spoke around around around four o'clock maybe even a few minutes before four o'clock just start getting rid oh yeah after December the 21st no think so it started a five or six after that it will eat each week it will become later right so but only only by a few minutes so let's say for example Chavez is a four o'clock then the next week it will be at 40 you know 405 and the week after that for 10 and then at some point of course i'll change the clocks and then the the difference will be enormous yeah but that's over here in israel right in in in other countries the difference is from week to week a very and actually very marked a very big so for example in London in the summer for example in London you can have a 20-minute difference between one showers to the nexus because it's been determined by the Sun setting right and as a summer days get longer right so you've got more time until the Sun sets and that gives you you know along a long a day then you had the week before and that means that instead of Shub is coming in at whatever instead of it coming in at let's say at eight-thirty it's going to come in the next week at quarter tonight instead so something you know you get calendars that have all the times in them and you have to you know follow the times to make sure that you're doing things correctly in all in all events right on erev shabbos you've got to you've got to get your shabbos has got to be got ready that can occur candles have to be lit the Shabbos candles have to be led and you've got some linker so what most people will do an arrow shabbos is that a government or early just to give themselves a little bit more time because you know it really it really is tight and time wise it really is tight so what you'll probably find is over here in the yeshiva for example they'll have an early man early Miniver or maybe even too early miniatures right at some point and they're there for your convenience right just to make sure you can get this all done in time otherwise it really is a problem some places have some shoes have a minyan early familiar and then the other minyan at the regular time for minister and if you know then you've got to squeeze everything in and go rushing off to shore whatever you'll do the best that you can right okay no one one one more halacha for today and the nura's come in all different kinds of sizes and shapes as well and some menorahs come they have a back to them right so they're here they look they look like that right and the candles be at the front and the back it's like a decorative thing if you've got an vanora that looks like that how are you supposed to light it hit the problem if I if I light it like this so that the people in the house get to see it get to see the candles then the people in the street can't see the candles if I light it fly this so that the lights are facing the street then the people in the house can't get see the candles so because of the halacha appear assuming Nyssa of publicizing the miracle it's better that the lights face the street the more people that can see it the better it's going to be however my son-in-law showed me a little a little idea which is really very simple and makes you wonder how come you never thought about it yourself but if you if you light your candle if you if you light it like this at an angle that way the people in the house can see the candles and the people in the street can see the candles as well and maybe maybe that's an even better way of lighting the candles because that way you're publicizing the miracle to everybody out and in as well the other menorahs are less complicated if you don't know this doesn't have a back right then you don't have to worry about anything because it can be seen from both sides and interestingly enough there's even a locker that two people can share one the Noah at the beginning of Hanukkah so you can like on one side they can light on the other side and the next day like that on the third day then when you get to the full stats of problem because if everybody's lighting for candles then the whole tomorrow is being used and it looks like it's the eighth day when it's not the AIDS Day which means that for the first three days you can share the menorah itself with somebody else using your own each one using their own candles because there'll be a gap between the two sides by the fourth day you can't do that anymore and you'll have to share in a different way altogether