The Downtown Chanukiah: Publicizing the Miracle or Blessing in Vain? By Rabbi Anthony Manning

than you so much for coming it's good to see people um wish everybody in advance of course tonight begins Kaneka it's quite late in the year um and I wanted to give a a sh today which was very Kaneka focused it's good that we get back to a bit of Hala we haven't been so Hally focused but there'll be Hala and hashkafa but it's largely Hala um it hasn't escaped my notice that there are other religions in the world which are celebrating festivals around about now um and uh that's something we might uh we might talk a little bit about next week uh so next week will still be khah it'll be towards the end of Kaneka but we will have some other opportunities to investigate those those connections and relationships today I want to speak about something which is a a big part of a lot of people's lives init which is that there are these giant Manas I'd actually just like to ask you to turn off your phones as well please um there are these giant manouras uh which are kanot I should say not Manas which are erected all over the world in Time Square they have in the White House not such a big one but they have a Kaneka lighting ceremony I assume they're doing it this year as well um and uh in Trafalga Square in London they put a big uh kukia up they actually just put it up and took it down again this year apparently due to high winds um I don't if they are meterological winds or political winds uh but uh nevertheless uh there there's something else going on um but the origins of this minhag are very interesting and the origins as everyone here probably knows are with kabad starting in 1974 in Philadelphia actually kabad decided to have a kanakia underneath the Liberty Bell and that spread I remember as a child kabad in Leeds my hometown used to have one of these enormous kanuki in front of the town hall and they used to have one of these Cherry Pickers that uh that went up and there used to be kids in the community that were given uh the opportunity and I remember once or twice being hoisted up 30 40 feet in the air to to light the this Kan which which I I enjoyed a lot uh the question is can you have a child do that we'll talk about that in a minute uh and uh we I want to talk a little bit about how this works what's it based on and how it connects with the Minh that we all know which is in which is an unusual minhag and even more unusual that we make a broa on that and not everybody does even in SCH and whether we should be making a br on the kanuk in town and also public Gatherings it's become very common now someone has AA on on Kaneka so they have a khah lighting at the and someone stands they make a br they light the Kan is is that is that right I mean no one no one lives there it's nobody's house um why are they doing it is it okay to do Etc let's have a look at some of these Origins and it will help us to understand some important Halas of khah as we come into the khaka festival so let's start with number one um the gamorra quite famously defines the the Mitzvah of khah as being anchored in the home and this is very important number one the Mitzvah OFA is that each head of the house each part familias each person who runs the home has one candle lit in the home for the household so there should be one candle in the household for the whole household together then it saysin if you want to beautify the Mitzvah mahadin doesn't mean strict that's mahadin means beautiful if you want to beautify the Mitzvah which is why this word mahadin has now been used as a marketing word everything is mahad mahad and mahadin it's really it's it's like the word glat you know glat is used now for anything that you want to sell as being higher quality one of my students was from Woodmere um I don't know if anyone hears from the five Town CED or Woodmere but they have a shop called Gourmet glat there so one of the students said uh I was researching what what the word glat is based on in Yiddish but which Yiddish word is the word Gourmet you know they thought maybe it's related to din de gmet uh like in in in momus but I thought it was a very sweet question okay fine um so one C so Mah if you want to be mahy everybody in the house gets one candle on every night and they each Light One Candle the M if you want to beautify it more than ever so then there's a famously so the first day you light eight candles and you go down each day when the first day you light one fine there is of course a debate as to this last stage of mahad Min mahadin is that that every single person in the house just like they got one candle each on the second level they now get 1 2 3 four 5 six seven eight candles each or do we go back to the first which is there's just one for the house but now instead of being one candle it's eight candles and of course that's the difference between the one for the household and the ashkenazim light one for each person there are various different minhagim within those communities it's fine but the key thing here is it's anchored in the house look at number two in the r how many lights do you have to light on each house it's not even the person he says the bi it the bi it has to light the candle whether there are many people living in this house if there's only one person in the house it doesn't matter the house has one candle if you want to go mahadin he repeats the the that you have one candle each this focus on the house is very important because the house is the center of the Jewish Family the Jewish morality the home the idea of the Greeks as being that my my castle if you like my home they breached the home the secularizing nature of the Greeks was one of the things that we fought against and then for the Jewish people as always uh morality is very very clearly anchored in the home so it's not surprise that the Mitzvah of kanah is focused on the home a person who is homeless God forbid doesn't have a Mitzvah of khah what if they're staying in someone else's home of course they do but that's we're not really getting into this today so KHAK is clearly related to the house so why why am I lighting in short why am I lighting in the middle of trafala square or Time Square now you know it's not a bi it the whole point is the bi it number three because there's another idea says the in shabas number three because even though it's anchored in the home it has to be says the gor at the front of the entrance of the home facing out and rash explains what I think we all know there is a there is a publication uh publicization of the miracle the library you can't put it in the middle of the public Square because that's not the bi it has to be in the bi you put it in the front yard you put it somewhere just past the front door so it's in it's connected to the house but it's it's also facing the street because they had a yards that the house opened into a into a yard shared space and that's where you put the C and therefore is very very important look at number four if you have a choice the gar says quite famously between you only have enough money either to light to buy Kana candles or to buy wine for KES so candles take precedence you can make KES on something else make K on the okay takes precedence because this idea of publicizing the next so the really the sheer today is about how we balance those two imperatives how we balance the need for the B it which is the anchor in the home and how we balance the need for so let's use is our test case Lighting in sha so Lighting in sh interestingly is not mentioned anywhere in the gamarra and the question is why why they had shs why did they not lighten the shs in fact they even called the sh a mikash that's in already so you would have thought well just when the basa Mish was destroyed so then they instead of lighting the B of mish had Li in the but they didn't and that's one of the questions we going to need to solve over the next few minutes why was this not raised in the gamorra as an option uh we'll see in a few minutes look at number five you have to light candles and you make the and says but no one actually fulfills any Mitzvah of with those candles of the you have to light when you go home even the person who lights in the shw and makes the BR has to go home and light again so the question well what's the point what did we just line in sh for if nobody does that Mitzvah so let's have a look now let's look at the BET behind this see what he says see how it works number six so as you know the BET ISO his his long kind of analysis of what he passed and in brief in number five says number six and we're going to have to identify up to six different reasons for lighting in sha okay it's not always as clear when you just see that this piece but there are six different reasons brought down and we have to work out which of those reasons are going to justify as lighting in the street in Time Square let's have a look he says now let's look at this this Min to light in the shore near it seems to me says the B YF in the 15 1500s the reason for this originally he says was because they were guests they were people lodging in the shore and they don't have a private house just like they said you have to make in the and he quotes the which is a sort of medeval collection of different so what is he comparing this to he's comparing it to Kish on Friday night if anybody remembers back to's days or has visited recently and refresh their memory it's pretty consistently the case certainly in ashkanazi sches I'm not sure what s sches do on Friday night night I have a feeling they do not make kiddish but ashkanazi sches on Friday night all make Kish in SCH the question is why why do they make kiddish in SCH if you remember they make KES and they give it to a kid to drink if there's a kid there to drink it why do they make KES nobody's Yu without KES you have to have Kisha you can't have Kish and then just eating down the road in another place so the the the the um betev here is saying well it's a similar idea there were people who were living in the sh lodging in the sh the sh was like an inn of some kind people who didn't have anywhere to go could go and sleep in the shaw so they're also eating in the Shaw and they're drinking in the Shaw and they're sleeping in the shaw so the Kish is for them which is why the betal says that nowadays when there's no there's nobody sleeping or eating or staying in the sh or drinking in the shw so you don't make Kish on Friday night and in fact the Betos is very very clearly against the Minag of making Kish on Friday night which is why they don't do it in Israel anywhere that's the Min of the bet they don't make kidish and on Friday night I think it's a shame I like Kish and Sh on Friday night it's a bit more singing and the kids get some some fun to drink but he says no we don't do it today because we don't have people sleeping and eating in the shore yeah but we don't have people sleeping and eating in khah either so why did the BET as we'll see soon says that you can't make kidish and schul on Friday night but you still do like the Kania if the reason is for the orim there must be other reasons not just for the guests so that's his first suggestion maybe it's because of the people who used to sleep in the shw that is effectively their home okay fine another reason because of odam he in second line towards the end he he gives another reason here a different reason this is a great opportunity to publicize the miracle in front of everybody everybody comes to sh and you can publicize the miracle since Puma is one of the platforms of lighting candles maybe that's the reason even if it's not technically speaking a home okay that's interesting okay and he says and to set out the before them is this a third reason or is this part of meaning he said it's helpful that you you teach people how to make the broas you show them this is how we light the KH candles that's part of the the reason that we're doing that in SCH well if that's the reason we're doing it in SCH why do we need to do it more than the first night after the first night everyone's got it right unless you say there are people who come to SCH on second night or third night that didn't know what to do beforehand that's a bit of a stretch okay so we're laying out the bras and there it seems to be this is a in a very big Public public place it's a there's a lot going on there fine um it's a big it's a big and if you make the BR there in public it sounds like making the BR is part of the which is very interesting because we're going to be asking on the Brock in fact look at how he worded it in number five he didn't say m and then and you make a he said you light and you make a br in the sh because of P it sounds like making the BR is part of the P which is interesting people people take a Mitzvah much more seriously when you take when you say A you know even though it's got nothing technically to do with a Mitzvah you tell people that they missed the night counting it's okay you can count now but you just can't make a br n nobody wants to count when without making what are you talking about it's a completely different thing the counting is the Mitzvah and the BR is a no it doesn't feel like a Mitzvah if I don't make a br people feel the need to make a that some of the say that if you think that the person is not going to continue counting if you tell them not to make a br maybe you should tell them yes to make a br so that they'll continue counting because it could be a midor for Sly for a man to count I'm not getting into women and Counting now right fine so that's another reason V and now he quotes the r in the 15th century before him who it's it's a it's a TI what's it a TI what are we putting right and it's so that we can publicize the miracle since we're not even in Spain Maybe especially in Spain he says we can't light outside anymore in the because of anti-Semitism he's living in the 14th century there's a lot of anti-Semitism in Spain the Riots of 1391 was the 100e lead up to 1492 we can't do that anymore because there's so much anti-Semitism the Spanish authorities won't like like us let us so it could be that the the the manura migrated the Kania migrated from outside the home into the sh and the the reason we started Lighting in the shaw is simply because we couldn't light in the home now if that's the case why should we be Lighting in the shore in Israel because everybody lights in the home outside there's no reason why you can't light the kanak outside in England when I was growing up we never lit the kanakia outside okay one of my friends uh moved in and he said well I want to put my kanakia in the window and I said to him I don't think that's a good idea put the kanak on the dining room table where I grew up the kanak was on the dining room table table and everybody you know L there he said no I'm going to put it in the window so on the first night of kanah he had in his window a kanakia and a big brick that was thrown through his window okay so that's the Min that's the Min you you get a you get a break okay so I think after that he he put it in so he said look we can't do it in our home so we do it in the sh yes sir oh yeah so so you're saying the other way around I've I've done the P yeah correct that's what he's saying we li in sh now it's a feel that we did it like publicly because we can't do it publicly or meally so here you've had a number of reasons you had at least four reasons there number one it could be because of the guests oh but we don't have any guests okay number two it could be p number three it could be to teach people the brod number four it could be because we couldn't light in sh it couldn't lights outside the home rather now number seven we see another reason number seven says this is a safer a man even older Source from the 12th century in southern France there's no to light in the only in a house that people live in don't we say you have to have the muza on the right that's very interesting we we used to seeing muas on the doors in in a Sha but a sh doesn't need a mza why does it need mza nobody nobody lives there it's not a sh and it's not a bi it it's not it's a it's a public building you know nobody lives there it's not the gate to the town so you don't need mza but we put muas there now so you know we can lie toi but he said you don't really need one there has to be someone living there the gab lives there maybe the gab lives on top of the sh so then the sh is his home but why do we light in sh by the way there's a big sh live on top of the sh you know there's there's a not meant to live on top of the sh and the Taz there famous case in the Taz where he lived in a sh and then the place burnt down and he said it's because I lived on top of the shaw I shouldn't have done that there's another she not for now so he thinks it's nothing to do with any of the reasons we've said but it's because the nce was in the mdash in the in the in the Eternal mdash so we do in our little mdash in the in the Exile okay so now we have a fifth reason which is the is like the BET mikdash and therefore we lie in the bet but as I said before so why did it take until the middle ages to work that one out they should have been Lighting in the bedet at the time of kazal they also had no big bash in in the time of kazal but they never did it so all of these you know for something for sure whenever there are five or six reasons for something you know there is no clear reason for it because otherwise they just give a reason and not five or six reasons so each of these reasons makes sense but has a problem with it so it's a bit of a cetch already to light in the sh okay light light in the what harm does it do but what about making a br in the sh you going to make a br in the sh so okay now the stakes are high because once you start making broas for no good reason then you're in a risk of doing something seriously wrong because you know making a br is a serious issue for the this is one of the Ten Commandments they hold it's a Mitzvah not to say a in the wrong situation okay so the ashaz are going to be a little bit more lenient on this because they hold that is not a Torah prohibition at the end of the day if I walk in the room and feel so overwhelmed with excitement I just say I just got to make a bro I'm not eating anything or drinking anything and I say with I mean that's a beautiful sentiment so the ashim will say okay you shouldn't have made that it's a rabic Prohibition but you can't say you didn't take God's name in vain you just said a very nice thing about about God the say no no it's a so what are we going to say and of course the bet isi so why on Earth is he allowing a br to be said on Lighting in sh now we're going to have to investigate how that works so let's have a look at some of these sources here and this is going to help us understand what the kabad custom is and how that works by the way that's one of the reasons why they were so against making Kish on Friday night because it's it's Sayes and nobody's y nobody did anything and how are you making that and the ashaz say don't mess with our minhagim you know we we make k sha we make a it's now part of the service Etc and that's why the ashaz stuck with it but let's have a look at some of the issues about making a brocken so let's take start with the sh sh which is in the 14th 13th century excuse me um collected ideas from the time look at number eight he says okay we also we also light in on here just say what I just said but we don't really know why we really don't know exactly where this comes from and he's my brother okay and he says he he says N I had to look that up I didn't know that rash which is may God protect him and redeem him I don't know whether exactly his brother was in difficult situation I don't know whether he was a hostage or something I didn't look into it but he says my brother had an idea he wouldn't let let them Li in sh said no no no Lighting in around here why because he was worried that people are going to make a br better you shouldn't light than you should light and she'll make a because the I think that's that's what we should do just stop lighting just stop the because it just leads to problems because people are making all these bras for nothing that's what I think we should do look everybody's lighting at why do you need to light in the sh okay fine if there if there are people sleeping there okay so they need to light because a guest being hosted in someone's home he likes his own but if there are no guest there what's the point just just stop it now as far as I'm aware there aren't people today in today's world that have said like stop like campaign stop Shah lightings but there are people who light without Aba M says you could light in sh but you can't light with the and because there was a concern you see that this was already the the says it's a problem number nine says the but we actually do make even though he's like people make AES there's all sorts of interesting brought in here why do we say ones really the the gor says to make Hal say on suas on P and on there's a mitz the say on eight days like sukus it's modeled on butes is a and he says but we make a ones even though it's only a and usually we don't make a on a the rambam is very strong not to make a on a the prime example being AR we take an AR on the last day of last day of sukus of and we smash the ARA and we wave the AR but we don't make a how can you say on a it's hard enough to say on aah and of course the test case for this as we said last week is the ask in shabas how can we say God didn't command us to light shab's candles God didn't command us so what's the answer of the gor the rabbis commanded us and God commanded us to listen to the rabbis and in fact the Yi suggest that the BR on every single Mitzvah on is the same BR they don't have individualized bras the BR on every Mitzvah do we do which is on whether it's taking Trum M today whether it's lighting shabas candles whether it's lighting khah candles it's the same which is something like I don't know exactly we make one on every MIT we do because that's what we're doing which is interesting we don't do that obviously Nobody Does that today but on a Minh you're GNA say Vu on a Minh where where's the C you know where you could say well God told us that like a c is like a it's very and therefore he says we even though it's a here though ones for some reason we do make a even though nobody's with liting so he says look I think it's likees that's why we make a there's just one big problem because the says you don't make a which is like confusing us even more looky number 10 says what do we do on the we read what we call now half whether you're daving at home whether you're DAV one said which is says but if you're diving at home you don't make a on some say that nobody should ever make a on the beginning and not the end that's the and by the time he writes this he's living in and then the says no that everybody makes a on but he brings down here that the if you've been to a sh shes many of them not all of them many of them on they just start they just start they don't make a br at all on might be different maybe they do make a br on that's part of the the whole discussion there even on they don't make a br make a etc so what do we what are we going to say why is KH different why is even the gonna make a br on the mitah because maybe it's maybe that's part of it as we said before the BR is part of the and maybe it's compared to something else number 11 let's look here and then we'll get into the in the middle of town look at number 11 madin says the vill gone he says here's approv what about HAL on the night of PES in Hal in some of you here I'm sure will say Hal in in Israel it's a completely standard Min it used to really irritate me when I first made Aliah because I just feel we used to start the late the S even later than we needed to and from from from I don't know about you but in ashaz they do not say Hal on the on P and so but but you know I've become more Israeli over the years and now we say Hal do do you say Hal with the BR yes they say H with absolutely with in therefore why is any different even though later on we have in the S on okay so that's why do you say Hal on night which is very interesting I don't know if everyone realizes that the so it seemsa has its own quality had a question no everyone does not say on p as do not say Hal in when I was in sh when we used to get to the end of daving there used to be like three guys that used to wait till everybody had left and then slep a little minion in and do you remember that in there I remember that it was you you know cor BL thought was used to do it I remember it so um anyway the point here is right right right right um and that so that's what's going on okay so let's now take this from the sh into the public Arena let's take this from the sh into the public Arena um and see what and see what happens Lighting in other public places have a look in number four uh page four I should say um and have a look at source number 12 so most people most pokim have actually ruled that you do not make a broa that you do not make a broa on lighting outside in the street and I brought you here some of the classics some of the uh some of the key pokin from the late 20th century I brought here ra of valenberg R vosner let's just see the reasons they give M we'll see in a minute about lighting in making a bro here in town are you going to do it or you not they say no you can't do it number 12 let's have a look let's start with the now that's very interesting the no who's at the public gathering the young people why is that important that might be important because the young people might not come to sh he's he's not interesting for him the young people is actually makes it more of a problem not less of a problem we'll see in the town these were all Chas in the 80s and the 90s in the 70s ' 80s and ' 90s in the town Square how difficult that everyone had to fetch and find a reason that we make a br even in the sh it was hard enough to find a reason to make a br in the sh how could anyone even imagine to make up our own new that no one ever did before especially when you shouldn't even have all the young people gathered in the Square together all the young men and the old women together all gathered in the Square you can't do that it's not it's not appropriate and you shouldn't be doing the Gathering to start with and you certainly shouldn't be making a bro on the shore on on the lighting I'm sorry someone's trying to call me as trying to deliver something in my daughter's house that's why I'm getting a bit distracted I keep turning off the call and he keeps calling me again and I suppose If eventually I might just have to answer the phone I don't want to do it but otherwise my daughter might not get her passport well we'll see okay we'll get that it's not your problem it's my problem okay fine number 13 so so ra ri says no way it's hard enough even to make a bro in SCH how are you going to make a broa in the middle of the Town Square who would even think such a thing especially when they shouldn't even be there R valenberg number 133 can you make a at a party party you want to light candles at AA party light but can you make a so this is 1981 very interesting he says it's absolutely crystal clear you cannot make a look how much ink has been spilled just trying to work out why we even make a br in how you could possibly do that in even how many people how many were were completely M they were very clear not to make a br and Sh it's very interesting I don't think I've ever been to a sh now where they live without a br but he says many many people live without a br even though most people do make a like says Bor he says again it's clear and it's obvious like n but miss how you can't possibly light at a at a at a a gathering at a party you can't possibly make a bro rather you can light a candles but you can't make a bro and not only that but you should go and stop people doing it you should make a you should say you can be the one to do that I'm not going to do that at the wedding and say stop stop this now no more broas okay if you make a it's a and if you refrain then you get extra reward for having resisted the temptation to make a okay he says yes and of aldenberg he says that's what I very clear no there's no hesitation at all look at RA in number 14 on the of lighting in the sh itself the he ques the there's a reason that there might be people actually we never saw this reason before maybe this is another reason there might be people who don't know maybe that's the reason we gave to teach people the broas but he says to be Mighty you might be might see somebody who doesn't know how to do it now that's a very difficult reason meaning somebody might be in SCH they don't know how to light KH candles okay so you're doing it for them a little bit like Kar you know when you're in Shore why do they repeat the amida because there are people who don't know how to DAV don't know how to read don't know how to DAV don't know it about so the does it them they listen to the and they mo by the way Yi by the way the rambam said of course in a chuba that's why we should be scrapping karat today says because as far as I'm concerned everybody who comes to sh knows how to say so why do we still have Kar now you could argue that actually a lot of people don't know how but even if they do that didn't win that argument much as some shes I think would quite like to do away with Kat and bring Shak down to 20 minutes and not 28 minutes nevertheless he iav want in Queens in the matam minion 18 minutes beginning to end including including okay they said to me I I I had an early start they said it's a you got to go to this minion you know they all St we we d a Nate it was like you know 550 something it was the middle of the W all these guys are watching their watch like this the first before Nate sorry we daved at Mish the very first Min minute you can possibly DAV and then 18 minutes start to finish and then all the guys sit there for two hours smoing drinking whiskey afterwards it's great it's great okay so he so he says you're being Moy people that's what he says thei he it's also he gives all the reasons now he says if you're going to suggest that you're really being Mo people who don't know how to Li candles no no the r immediately rejects that he is the the chief of the PO he says nobody's nobody said nobody lives there the real reason that we light in is it's because of Mitzvah now we never saw that before that we never saw Mitzvah it's a new level of mahadin meaning what's mahadin you add candles so a new thing is you add candles not just at home you add candles in sh that's like mahad Mah Mah he says maybe it's and also okay and he's a little it's a little crack open maybe they only said that in which is like lighting and since Lighting in Time Square is not exactly like Lighting in The Bash I would say the Time Square is very very not like B mikdash in all sorts of ways okay then then I you you might say it's not relevant I know that there are people who do light with AB in the Town Square then he says I'm not sure that the rabbis really ever agreed to it he's not 100% sure interestingly RAV valenberg was very sure no way Jose didn't say quite like that but R valberg was very sure he said I'm not entirely I'm not entirely sure but I'll tell you who is sure the other way around which is very interesting which is uh the um the the AZ nburu the AZ nburu who Rab in zilba who was a very big poek in he was on the mo he came out very very strongly and said absolutely we should be making a broa on these downtown lightings and look at the reasons he gives so first of all let's look again at the cbone number 15 and we'll see his reasoning he brings again this reason that it's it's there for people who are Ani who don't know how to do it that's why we lied in sh the anaris that we didn't see before what is ano zaris can't be bothered there are people who won't make the effort at home but they'll come and eat donuts in in town and they'll come and watch the rabbi the kabad rabbi light the candles he says that's very important this this ano Zar is it's not just that they're anoi they don't know how it's that this is their only connection with KH and he's getting that out of the CBO this is a very important point so now look what the aaru says in numbers 16 and 17 when he comes to lighting downtown in the Square the whole point is it's all for the Youth it's very interesting we saw before that the the youth was like the problem all these men and women all gathering together no he says the youth they come down to this downtown light and I guess he says many of these kids they're not going to be in sh they're not interested in sh they their parents are in sh but they're not in sh is even if you tell me yeah but Rabbi it's it's not a problem because isn't the basic of one candle per home for for everybody so even if the kid's not there the Y everybody's y everyone's covered If the parents are lighting at home no he says first of all not everybody's lighting at home even the parents but he doesn't say that but he says also we have to try and be we want everybody to have lighting experience by the way there is another level to this which I didn't mention which is that even if you're not making the there are three there are two other bras and it could be that you can make you can for sure make both of those bras on the first night or whichever night it is if you didn't make it already and maybe you can make that BR on the in short who says you have to make on a where someone is technically Mitzvah the point is you see the you didn't light in your home someone who was traveling and they go I've done this once or twice when you're traveling for I travel for business this time of year what you saw I traveled a few weeks ago when that's haneka I'm often I don't have a Kan I'm on a on a plane or I'm on a you know whatever you can't light a kakir on a plane someone bought me one of these little electrical things which is nice you know but it's no no one's y any any Mitzvah with them and so if you see you make a because you couldn't Li that night so that you could do maybe on the sh lights but he says no I want everybody to have a experience book very interesting because RAV zilber is not one of the world's great M he is ashkanazi but he says no I don't think there's any question you can make a on the Kania downtown because everyone has to have that experience the he'll say I'll tell you something it's better than in meaning if you tell me it's not clear why we're doing in this is even better and he says because the whole point is we need to do something outside we haven't thought about this for a while which is that at the beginning remember we saw that the bed suggests maybe or the rash maybe the reason we started doing it in sh is because we couldn't do it outside but really the whole point was to do it outside so he says so this is even better than SCH because this is mish outside the SCH is not outside and therefore this actually is even better we should for sure be doing this even though other people give other reasons for the BET like it's like the mikdash or whatever the real fundamental reason is to publicize a miracle so he focuses on this and he's not it's important to know he he he feel feels independently of theim that this is something that one should do he's not happy though to do it at a party yes just wanted to say that in the 1970s yes okay yes okay with candles yes I can believe that because I remember from the 1970s and 80s they used to have smoking and no smoking on the plane and the smoking was on the left and no smoking was on the right or like as if the smoke would not move from one place to the next place I I remember it was a very different world then yes absolutely that's such an interesting story because it lded on the on the loud speaker wow and the plane was okay presumably they were all right with it fine very interesting yes in schul yes as far as ah okay so he he's saying that the the if you make a broa in and and we we do make a broa even though there's a question mark he said here it's even better than insur it's less of the question marks aren't even there so if you do it inur all the more so that you do it outside go and light the candles at home you absolutely do go home and light the candles at home you're not you say he agrees he says you agrees you're not yet to anything technically speaking but in terms of are we doing a religious service of some kind says absolutely for all those people who are not lighting at home who only come to kabad because and this is very true today kabad the the Outreach of kabad is to people who don't have any other connection with Judaism and and by the way I've just been touring campuses abroad I've been away for a few weeks the kabat numbers are through the roof since October 7th doubl tripled and again they're dealing with people who this is their first and maybe only contact with with Jewish life again the question is how we encourage those people to kind of keep connected and take that and move that up through a more uh you know a firmer connection with Judaism but nevertheless their numbers are through the roof so says RAV zilber there's no question that is uh that is what we do but number 17 what about at a wedding what about other public places even though I have written Tian that you can light in the Public Square the nevertheless I haven't I wouldn't be so like Brazen if you like you could just make a anywhere no he said I was talking about Time Square for a very specific reason I'm not talking about your from wedding where everybody there lights at home and nobody there is is not having a connection I mean there could be weddings where there are but in in many situations where everybody there is connected to Torah Mitzvah that what are they achieving there they all going to light back home although it's actually interesting the and kala you know where do the and kala light because they're going to get back home late late late late so they they have to light back home they can't just because they L you know in the in the wedding they should light back home theer is a symbolic home theer is not a an actual they don't go to sleep under the and many and many reown him many reown him hold theer is not really it's it's the room or the or the the night after the wedding theer is a is a very symbolic idea of so look what he says I don't think you should make a br anywhere second line I'm very particular you can only make make a br in the public Time Square kind of places I don't think this got anything to do with the SHA don't bring me all this discussion about the Sha it's to do with lighting outside it's nothing to do with a shw it's about lighting outside lighting in a wedding in a wedding hall achieves nothing you don't live there it's not outside everybody's religious like what absolutely not he says and if you did light inside you got to find somewhere outside to try and light even if you say that you can light on the dining room table you should really be in lighting outside if you possibly can now I brought you Raj I don't think I'm going to read this all in full but he he's surprisingly open to the idea of lighting with a br which if you know R you would have thought that was the last thing he was going to say he won't let people make a br unless there's absolute Clarity they have to make a br for R women when they D shakar cannot make a on bishma they say without they say they don't say the BR of say those bras they missed them out because they they're not inish because they it's it's a positive time Mitzvah so he is strict as you can possibly be with Ras however there are grounds he says to make a look in the last paragraph and four lines five lines up from the bottom four lines up from the bottom he brings a saer r had inim that no one has even heard of theim I mean I haven't heard of the saer but he knew rosent he quotes that he makes he says to make a I don't know if he Rosal wasi it doesn't sound like a Sardi name I didn't research it but he sounds like he's asazi okay he's talking about parties as well the the the publici publicizing the miracle of these parties can be extremely um extremely large is even in the with when you got all of the people the when you're lighting there for all the people and after we've been through all of this analyses he says you see at the end of the day I'll tell you why you feel feels that you have to make a even though it's completely against many of the other things because for some reason or other we we've been trying to work out the reason the BET yourself says to make a br and at the end of the day the bet is going to be very decisive for Raj he's Maran he is the rav you know you might think the rav is RAV salic if you're from Wu or RAV cook if you're from America as a RAV but for Raj he isan Maran he is the r and in fact R Beno if you're interested his doctrinal thesis thesis was theic methodology of ra he analyzes hundreds of his chat um and he called the book that he wrote of his thesis afterwards ad from the BET to Mar okay and and and and again this kind of this this merging together of one bet with another R you know the BET yeah why is it called bet because it's this like and it's also R etc etc so the end the day the says to make a second two lines below from the bottom the people who make in those parties he's not excited about it but you have on whom to rely presumably even if you're SP because at the end there is and then he gives you a little eight at the end but you know something and it's like a little shol yeah if you DAV marive there then at least you kind of can can push it into a box that it maybe it's a shol and Lighting in a shol he's happier with but the marive is is part of that and therefore he doesn't say it's essential but he said if you can D Mar and I think that's what most most people do when they have a wedding and they like Kaneka candles I don't know if anyone's going to a wedding over Kaneka see what they do you like Kan candles that's what he's saying you should do then it's a little bit more like a sh they do it in the malls they do it m everywhere ra has do they D Marv in the malls I'm not sure about that in pic they D Marv in the malls I was in pic and uh not so long ago and they told me to to to go and for a I look for a there's a m down the road I'm looking for AEL and I'm standing in a shopping a shopping mall saying like you know what's going on all of a sudden at this man all of the guys all the Run from all the places and they in the middle of the mall okay fine so anyway raitz Rait says that ra says you know something it's a completely but you should still do it why because when you're teaching bras to people who don't know how to make bras that's the you make a to teach a child who doesn't have or or a person who's an adult who doesn't have a background in education you teach them a broa by saying the Braha you don't say to a kid Hashem or the kid will say Hashem you know you don't want the kid to say Hashem you have to say Hashem you have to say the real name so he says says yes it's a and yes you should say it because you're teaching all the people there in the crowd who might not know the BR at least one broa they're not going to know how to how to make and I imagine that's quite a compelling argument for kabad as well who let's face it the reason they're doing it is to teach the the Jews there ah there's a lot of non-jews there as well I don't know if this year there will be a lot of non-jews and if and if there are whether they'll be doing anything helpful or unhelpful but but are we should we be teaching the non-jews about Kaneka we'll get to that in a minute don't forget that the rebba was keen on not just teaching Jews but also spreading Chev Mitzvah to the non-jewish world now okay kekah is not one of the Chev Mitzvah but awareness of Judaism ideas of Judaism is definitely something that was on the Reb's agenda it's not something that the schim really took on it's very interesting theim when they go out all over the world if you ask any of them really their focus is not really on the non-jews they're not in in Bangkok or or in wherever they are in order to teach the local non-jews about Yiddish Kai they're there to bring in all of the thousands and thousands of Israelis Jews who are there so we'll talk about non-jews in a minute so Okay so we've had all the different reasons why to make a broa not to make a broa at the end of the day kabad clearly rule that you do make a broa but they're not alone in that analysis there's another angle as well what about the White House is there another angle here so I brought you a magav ram here number 19 there he's talking about the story of Kamer and barer what's that got to do with anything because remember in the story of kamam and baram so baram comes along you know and tries to get the emperor to bring a Corbin and he invalidates the Corbin in the story there and he wants to show the emperor the Jews won't bring your Corbin to try and get the Roman Emperor against the the uh the Gen the governor there against the Jews so there the the debate there's a debate should they bring the corbon anyway even though it's an invalid corbon and says no and the clear intention is they should have done that that's what they should have done they should have it's an invalid corbon so look at number 19 says the he's bringing this in a different context obviously but I think he says M maybe you're allowed to break a Mitzvah because of shom malus maybe if you went to the White House and you said to uh Biden or whoever you know we we we we're happy to lie to Bera but we're going to do without a br maybe he's going to get upset he said look mind the White House my house you don't make AB broa I'm not sure he'd know what was going on with AB broa um certain I I don't think he's got going on generally but but Donald Donald Trump for sure Donald Trump for sure is going to spot like what you didn't make a broa he's he's he's probably been to hundreds of half his grandchildren all liing with broa you know so so so he's going to spot it so the mag of ROM says maybe when you're with M then you have to make the BR because even if it maybe it's a d yeah I don't know I not so sure 10 years ago I would have agreed with you but now you have Mercurial uh despots and different people even if you think they're on your side today they're on your side tomorrow who knows they just like one tweet and they're off on a different path I I don't know I don't know I'd like to think that you were right but I think we're living in a in a different kind of rule different I don't make any political comment in these sh especially not about American politics you have to understand I'm not American I don't get a vote uh I don't even get a vote in eng anymore so there you are let's just look at one last question which is okay well what about the non-jews maybe taka there is a benefit in lighting hanaka candles to you know for for Interfaith and and to avoid anti-Semitism it's important for the world etc etc the egis mosha says no no I'm not interested in that look at number 20 so he says as follows the ham when you're doing something to be it applies to an individual even though there's nobody else there even if you're Lighting on your own you still light candles you're the only one even if you're with in a place where there's not a single soul around you still light with a okay it's much better to have other people there but if you can't then you light with a from what about a lodger who's in a non-jewish lodge over and he says there if he's there with all the non-jews in the Inn even though he doesn't have his own home independent of them has no Doorway to put in he has the light in the in with all the non-jews there has the light of candle has the light for himself even though his wife might be at home lighting he's traveling he's on business he has the light in the non-jewish hotel he has the light there in the lobby or whatever it is ah what about all the non-jews who are there what do you mean he's on his own he's not on his own all the non-jews are going to gather around and they're gonna sing M or whatever they're gonna sing okay that's not called no no no call he has to light even though they're are non-jews around that's nothing to do with them um he's the only one who has pi on that the the he says Bor he says it seems clear to me it's nothing to do with the nons publicizing to the non-jewish people around is not even relevant he from the called from a commentary on and he says there's no there's no Pier for non-jews it's not so clear though and I brought you a reference in the bottom just in the last couple of minutes R Hoffman who has some extremely good writeups in the five towns uh you know whatever it is magazine that they have there um he in the aiva world and stuff he he writes there all sorts of sources where actually there were um there were people who said that there is a p there's an interesting gumar just to leave you thinking about this how long can you light kanah candles how late can you should you be lighting so says the gamar as long as there are still tumai tumai in the street who are these tar M so many of the are shown him hold these are late Merchants this is your ancient world equivalent of a 7-Eleven kind of shop meaning saying that if you forgot your firewood there's still some Merchant you know hanging around at 11 o'clock at night for the late comers a bit more firewood so if they say look you see these people they're non-jewish people and therefore as long as they're in the street that's relevant to the Hanukah lighting others say no no no no I'm not interested in them it's the Jews who go out to the 7-Eleven to buy the thing that they forgotten to buy it's the Jews who are out there buying from them they're the Jews who are going to see the Kan and therefore we're worried about the Jews not the non-jews but there's an interesting uh debate there as well so bottom line should you be making a broa um ask your Rabbi please what to do uh I am not I'm not weighing in on it with any comments on it um I don't remember what I did when I was a kid but uh I'm sure it doesn't really matter now anyway because it was 50 years ago um next week we'll take this further khah but we'll be moving a little bit more to other festivals are his time of year too okay let's leave it there thank you so much