Why Do We Celebrate Chanukah by Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

hi good morning everyone I hope you're all well um first let me just announce yeah that as always uh this Tuesday Shear is sponsored for the entire year uh by rever foil and Sherman Alman in memory of their parents Edith and R alok and Es B and their son ra Alf may all of this learning be uh uh hope everybody's well and again uh thank you for coming thank you for coming out um I thought uh for this week and next week we'll talk about Kaneka kind of a little bit of a a digression but again I always give my warning this is a no inspiration zone so uh this is not about inspiration this is about the dryness of halak but maybe accidentally some inspiration might might leak in but uh it's it's an unintentional consequence there are other Shor including things that I give that go off on those things but this is mainly analytical but first I want to start off with a very very simple question uh there is a holiday called Kaneka coming up uh it is not a yomtov in the sense that you're allow you're allowed to do Mal but it's considered to be festive we say Hal for eight days we have special insertions uh in the and in that's called the AL so the question comes why is there a holiday of Kaneka and if you ask most people they're going to say right off the bat that it commemorates a miracle of oil that was found uh enough oil uh to only burn one day and it burned eight days and therefore we commemorate the Miracle by and that is why we have the holiday of Kaneka so here is the thing there are a lot of problems with what you might call the standard conventional explanation of why there's a holiday of Hana first it's a well-known question that if you look at the alhan prayer now the alhan prayer is very very old we don't have an exact date but it may date shortly after the maban victory so it goes all the way back uh the Alan prayer emphasizes really 95% 98% the over the it says you gave the strong in the hands of the weak in the hands of theim the impure in the hands of the pure so the emphasis is on the of as well as the rededication of the B mikdash and even though there is indeed one reference to lighting the naos it says Vu naos they lit the candles of the man in your holy Courtyard but it doesn't talk about it as a Miracle it's really just describing we dedicated the temple we cleaned it up and we're able to light the manur in other words you can't really read any type of Miracle story in the reference to Alan because it doesn't mention any Miracle it doesn't mention they only lit you know oil for one day and it burned for eight days so the pasas is if you look at the alhan you're really commemorating really two related ideas one is the overthrow of malus y that tried to take us away from the Torah and the second point is the rededication and cleansing of the B mikdash which for three years had been held by the yanim for three years the yanim had control of the B mikdash they sacrificed idolatrous coronos and the like uh they even had houses of prostitution and therefore there was a cleansing that had to take place in fact there actually was a special room in the B mikdash poah where they kept the a that had been desecrated by the malan meaning they actually had to undo the m and those old Stones which kind of got contaminated to aora were kept as a memorial in a chamber yavan that yavan had despicably treated so it's very clear number one from the Alan that the holiday of Kaneka is not because of the miracle of the P now we can prove this even more so because the earliest account of the kanaka story is in uh earlier than the gamara earlier than the mishna is actually the books that are known as the saer Hakim the books of the mabes it's a little confusing because it goes by two titles uh say there's safer Hakim and actually there are four of them there's B gim and sometimes they are called again Alim and are the same book the original name is saim for various reasons in the 19th century someone decided to rename rename the books now just a little bit of bibliographical information here that that might be important for you uh do not confuse saim with another short very short work that's called meas antios millas antios which actually appears in some sedur not that many but some older sedor of MiG antias Mill antias is a short work andil actually had the Min of reading it on khaka in Show by parallel to migas M we read about the PO Miracle why they call M I don't know you normally want to maybe should M or something but it's called melas an and that's a short work uh and there's a huge M there are many inconsistencies between saim and Millan uh some may put millas very very early but most historians say Milla santias is late it's a medieval a middle AG ages rendition of the story of of Kaneka and therefore if there is any conflict between saer Hakim which is very old and M anos you normally follow the saer Hakim now it's interesting that seim is not in tanak of course but it is in what we call the Apocrypha or the excluded works that are not in tanak because after all the whole story of Kaneka is after the period of Prophecy there's no more there's no more any prophecy this is during the bay cheni the last prophets were the very beginning of the bay zakar Mali and the story of Kaneka is afterward story of Kaneka is approximately in the 180s before the Common Era that's the the general uh story of kanaka now in the saim uh so as I said you have Al B gimal the story of the wars against antios and his successors are are in mbes 1 and 2 giml and doid are really kind of philosophical Works uh they're not really connected to the history of the period they are different debates between then you might be interested in unless you're a military historian they go over every single battle every single mil in fact I I'm told that there was a time in West Point where they actually studied the books of the mccabes to understand the nature of Guerilla Warfare because in during Vietnam one of the amazing things was that here you had the United States Army most powerful army in the world and then you had these uh Farmers uh the rice patties and somehow this little Guerilla Army was able to defeat technically we never called it a defeat but practically it certainly was a defeat was able to defeat the United States of America and the answer is thata you know Guerilla fighters who are committed to a cause can defeat even big armies and one of the great historical examples of that if you take out religion which of course we don't take out religion out religion was the story of the macbes defeating the Greek army so I am told that during the 1970s the books of the macbes were studied in West Point to try to understand the nature of Guerilla Warfare and how it could defeat a much more powerful enemy now it's interesting that the book of the mccabes 1 and mccabes 2 largely go over the same history but it has a little bit of a different emphasis maab one emphasizes military strategy it emphasizes the kak of mil and n macbes 2 emphasizes the martyrdom of Jews who were willing to die ales hasem now now here's an important Point both mbes 1 and two are religious books it's not that one is secular and one is religious they both talk about Hashem as the source of Victory they both talk about toes right they're both religious books but what is the main thing that you emphasize so makab one emphasizes the g mabes 2 emphasizes thees of Cl Isel who were willing to die so the famous story of KH and her seven sons all of whom were killed is in mabes too the source of the story is in saer makab bet it's very very interesting that these books were originally written in Greek uh they were written in Greek because unfortunately helenismo side the Torah side had to often communicate things in Greek and therefore the Hebrew versions that we have are translations from what were originally Greek works and that is why there was a certain ambiguity to this very day what does the word makab mean right mat's Army we're called the makim now how do you spell makim in Hebrew is it with a b or me B now if it's me B it is said to be an abbreviation uh that they had on their Banner hasem who is like you God which is from the sh uh if on the other hand it is with a c the word m means a sledgehammer and it suggests their might and their prowess so there's ausus among commentators and if is and it's orim is with a and it represents so you may ask a very simple question well what how does the book of macbes spell it but the answer is you can't really tell because in Greek you wouldn't know in other words it doesn't tell you why just says they were called a makim but in Greek I can't tell if it would it be a or a and therefore when they translated in Hebrew different Hebrew translations translated in different in different ways right because it was originally a Greek a Greek uh work now uh so the point is both books uh are filled with amuna filled with filled with turning to a KES but the question is what is the heroic aspect that you emphasize the military gura the courage of theay or the person who gives their life ales hasem now it's very very fascinating that we have that same debate so to speak in the aftermath of the shaah the aftermath of the Holocaust and it's very very fascinating how something that was an old debate resurfaced you know as as you know in also as well a day that commemorates the Holocaust is in the month of Nissan which is again that's a question not supposed to have sad days in Nissan but uh the date that is chosen commemorates the fall and defeat of the warto now you would think that Holocaust commemoration unless you're crazy narta would not be controversial I mean everyone Mourns over the showah of course but I hope I don't know if you know this but the the choice of that date uh going all the way back to the early 1950s was very very cont controversial and it inen engendered a lot of bitterness among many Holocaust Survivors who were still alive back in the 1950s and I don't just mean the halakic problem of observing a y niss that that me that's AIC problem that's a separate matter but it's because why was The warto Chosen because among many zionists they actually were ashamed I'm not saying everybody but there actually was a sense of Shame for the Jews who passively went to their death like sheep because part of the militarism of the new state of Israel was we're tough we're strong we don't get pushed around never again and and it was the gous mentality of Jews who passively went to their death like sheep to the slaughter and were embarrassed why didn't they fight more so to commemorate the Shah they were looking for one of the relatively few instances where Jews were able to be militant although they were eventually crushed and that is the warto because that was the Paradigm of what you might call a military heroism uh and that's why they celebrated it now there were many in the Holocaust Community again who who actually felt that this was an implicit and maybe an explicit Judgment of condemnation with respect to all the Jews who were not able to fight back who didn't have the weapons who didn't have the abilities and therefore everything in Israel becomes a makus right you you figure y has to be a makas yeah it was it was a makus and what's interesting to me is this actually mirrors or Echoes the debate between MC and 1 and makab 2 going back to the what do we remember about the greatness of Amel that they fought against this enemy or that they were willing to Die Al so the two different authors R viewing the makabe struggle through three different prisms now of course the true answer is we commemorate both we honor both uh it shouldn't have to be an either or type of issue right we we honor the courage and strength of the fighters of the warto and we honor the people who went to their deaths because there was nothing else they can do but they accepted their fate in life because they understood that AES runs the world everybody there's you know everyone has to be honored everyone has to be cherished but you can imagine at different times in history they were M what point you should emphasize so it seemed to me I didn't see anyone else point this out but it seems to me that the debate there is a debate here between macbes 1 and macbes 2 and that debate found a later expression in Y which still goes on uh to this to this very day um now both of them go over a lot of the same history and they talk about the fact that the yanim had control of the bet mikdash for three years and interestingly enough the day they gains control of the beta m was the 25th of K meaning the day that later became Kaneka was actually the day that they gained control of the BET mikdash and they desecrated it they contaminated it they didn't destroy it the building remained but they sacrificed Kaz they sacrificed pigs on the on the m and they sacrificed of course to aod Zora they put up houses of prostitution all sorts of desecrations um it's even brought down that uh they they they they breached walls and fences uh and later that to commemorate the 13 breaches of theim there are 13 places in the B of M where you bow down to commemorate that God saved us from all of this now in both mbes 1 and mbes 2 there is not even a mention of a miracle of P in mbes 1 it says they created the holiday of Kaneka because when they liberated the B mikash they had an 8 day dedication ceremony again simple meaning the word kanaka means dedication and this commemorates Hab that was eight days not not because of the oil burning eight days but because the was 8 days why was theuk 8 days so the book of makab says to parallel the dedication of the mishkan in the days of Moser the mishkan essentially had an eight day dedication ceremony there were seven preliminary days and then y hases was the dedication of that was the day unfortunately that died but still eight days now here's an interesting question I think we have to supplement macbes one with the following idea and that is schlom built the first B Mikes and his dedication ceremony was not 8 Days his cere his dedication ceremony was 14 days in fact one of those days was yum Kipper in fact actually say that it was 14 days of Celebration that year they even ate oner up through prophetic temporary suspension of the rules so here's the question if the makim are dedicating actually which there are a few interesting things first of all the dedication of the macbes is not the dedication of the second temple it's the rededication of the second temple who dedicated the second temple it actually was Ezra neia so so one interesting question is we don't we don't commemorate that at all number one we don't well number one we don't commemorate we don't commemorate kanuk by it we don't even commemorate we only commemorate the rededication right because the B Mikes had already been up for more than a hundred years before the story of antias so that's an interesting point but the second point is why did the macbes choose eight the 8 day dedication of mosha rabeno rather than the 14 days of dedication of schl so the actual answer is based on a med Bika the med Bika says that when the Jewish people began constructing the mishkan and they when did they begin constructing the Mish or donating to the mishkan the day after yum Kipper Moshe gathered them the day after yum Kipper when he came down with the second L house and said we got to build a mishun because Hashem has forgiven us and he's going to rest his sh in clra so they actually were finished Kaneka time or or the month of kisslife they were finished in the month of kisslife but Hashem wanted to delay the dedication of the mishkan until Nissan because that is the birth of and is the pillar of aod divine service and therefore hasem wanted the mishan to be dedicated in Nissan which it was actually the last week of but the the final day of dedication wases so the month of TI was upset whatever that means say Hey you took away the dedication from me so Hashem said I promise you that you will be the month in which the Bay sheni will be rededicated so based on this medish Bika is a beautiful connection that klave becomes the month of dedication to make up for the fact that it should have been the of the dedication of the mishkan so consequently how long will the dedication Ceremony be 8 Days exactly as the dedication of the mishkan so makab 1 does not mention a miracle of p and it does not mention that Kaneka was established for that reason rather Kana doesn't even say doesn't say they rested on the 25th that's a later dush it simply says this is a celebration of the dedication of the B mikash after it had been desecrated by the yanim and why do we have eight days we have eight days days because this was the kanuka of mosha Renu in the mishkan now makab 2 gives another reason for eight days that's a little peculiar and it says that the sucos preceding that Kaneka right suus is uh you know less than two months before around two months before kanah uh they weren't able to be allo they couldn't make a pilgrimage because the yanim were in control of the B mik they missed of course they missed many shalish regum over three years but the last one they missed was suas and therefore they enacted Kaneka eight days to be a makeup for the sukus that they missed and sukos is technically well seven days plus so we look at sukot as more or less an 8-day holiday now macbes 2o even says and this is very strange this is one of the reasons why these apocryphal books are not accepted in tanak because they're not always in accordance with that the Jews even built sukot and they took Lula and Es because Kaneka was enacted to be a substitute or a makeup a makeup for sukot now obviously Hally uh that is uh meaningless uh the only thing that you can make up you can make up P if you didn't bring a Corban PES you can bring it a month later but you can't make up suas you can't make up eating matah right you can't make up I mean you miss it you miss it and if you couldn't do it you're putter but you can't make it up so this was not anything that was done Al this was a folk reaction meaning people on their own spontaneously wanted they were so connected to the mitv ofk that they spontaneously began doing sukos things and this is recorded in the book of the macbes what is fascinating is that even things that kind of get extinct meaning the didn't pay attention to this this never became part of Jewish but it pops up a little bit sometimes remnants pop up when you wouldn't expect it um I'm sure you remember there's a famous and how do you light the Kaneka candles B which is what we do says you go up one then two one to eight B Shi says you start with eight and go down we'll talk later about exactly what the m is but one of the reasons the gamor gives for is you want to follow the pattern of the carbot of sukot that go down in order and all the commentaries try to understand what on Earth is the connection between the carbonos of sukos and the lighting of kanaka candles so this is a good example where saer Hakim can actually shed light on what B Shi is saying this may be the only remembrance of the old connection between kanaka and sukos that the hadlakas SOS were designed to replicate the pattern of the carban suas so even though kazal absolutely obliterated any idea that you you do lul you do Suka that that never became part of our M and it's not even recorded in the gamar at all it's only from the book of the macbes but in be Shi at least I think there's a preservation of this connection so that shows you something you know the book of the macbes is not not studied in yeshivas so the commentaries and the maim have all sorts of P populistic reasons and the like but sometimes uh historical fact Can Shed a great deal of light on why these things are now so mbes one says the eight days of Kaneka isuk makab 2 says the eight days of Kaneka is a makeup foras neither of them gives the reason of the p and the Alim also does not give the reason of the P Hashem uh in fact uh all three of these sources don't even mention that you light candles now a later source is Josephus now who is Josephus Josephus already is is not is is way after the Kaneka story Josephus lived at the time of theban of the second Bas of mikash the year 70 right mabes is around the BC so this is more than 250 years later uh but Josephus wrote a number of books again his original language was probably I mean well his own language is Hebrew but he probably wrote his Works in Greek or maybe Latin and they were translated and by the way there's a lot of bibliography here you sometimes see a book called saer yone yes and yone isot oted by Rashi and the Reon him and and the like uh again saer yone is a Hebrew medieval adaptation and reworking of Josephus it is not a work of Josephus himself uh but it is anonymous author the actual author of saer yoson is unknown um even though it says you know it says Yosef Ben Goran but there's no there's no such person as Yosef Ben josephus's name was y Ben m h not the but but Josephus was a y and sa Yan was kind of taking Josephus doing it in Hebrew but with a lot of additions MIM and and the like yeah it's an interesting interesting book so the reim knew josephus's writings primarily through yoson uh although some have positive that there was Josephus did have a Hebrew original but as far as we know that is totally lost in saer Josephus he writes about the makban rebellion and it's interesting he even says that among the Jews this holiday is called the holiday of Lights which is you know in Israel that's often the modern term that they use it comes from Josephus so you'd figure oh so Joseph is going to connect it to uh the miracle of the P he doesn't bring it either he he says oh you know why it's called because it was the Min of Jews when they celebrated a military Victory they would light torches and fires and therefore the candle lighting uh was to commemorate so even the candle lighting according tophus is commemorating n and not commemorating sh so uh as an aside I'll get back to where where did the P thing come from but with all of this background we actually have a really and a beautiful answer to the very very famous question of Ros KIRO of the B this is one of the most famous questions that probably is the most famous question about Kaneka and the question is if they found enough oil that that uh it could burn for one day and a miracle happened that the oil burned for more than one day for eight days then the miracle of Kaneka is only seven days not eight days so we ought to start lighting the candles the 26th of klave for 7even days there is no Miracle On the first day this is called the Bas yosef's Kasha and the B yose himself gives some anwers he says well the first day they only poured in 1/8 of the oil they wanted to conserve it and because they wanted to light a little bit every day and the miracle was that even on the first day it burnt or they emptied the whole jar and they saw it was still filled right so there different answers and I tell you this is something which talk about inflation Torah inflation uh there are you know I remember there used to be a hundred answers to this question then some other book comes out with 500 answers to this question and then someone just told me there's another book with a thousand answers to this question right so answer after answer after answer after your answer uh comes up but B once again history can help you a lot here because the B Joseph's Kasha is only a Kasha if the reason Kaneka is eight days is because of the miracle of the oil because then you can ask the kha there was no Miracle On the first day but if the eight days of Kaneka is because of the dedication of the mishkan or the like the dedication of the Mish or the eight days of Kaneka is to make up for suas then that's fine the fact that there was no Miracle of the oil that does not affect why Kaneka is eight days so the truth of the matter is history is a is a big deal actually I I uh think that a lot of passages in kazal if you want to understand goras and things like that if you know the historical background sometimes from non-standard sources Let It Be Josephus Let It Be Pho uh let it be uh the books of the mccabes the Apocrypha you know uh I think you can gain a lot of a lot of things now people time say well no how can you read the Apocrypha you're not allowed to read the Apocrypha these are called and reab AKA says Anyone who reads so how can I read the Apocrypha but the answer is there are many different types of books in the Apocrypha um meaning is not all it's not all sinister sometimes it just means it's excluded from tanak because it's not kades there are historical books and then there are philosophical books and then there are religious books and kazal had a problem that some of the religious books espouse doctrines that are uh connect connected to Christianity or aora or the like so they were not condemning the historical books in fact the re do quote sa forab right the do quote it as well as sa for Yan which is based on Josephus so not all are condemned as right some are but is considered to be a a source of history as I say uh unless you're a military historian it may give you more detail than you might be interested in it really goes through every single mil and it was a 25y year war right it wasn't it wasn't a short a short War uh so we basically usually go over the shorter version of it uh but as a source of History it is considered to be reliable so where do we get the story of the P so the First Source that records the miracle that a jar of oil was found that uh that was only one day worth and it burned for for eight days is in a sair called millas Tanis now let me explain what that is a little bit uh millas Tinus uh is actually the first work of tal that was written down remember the Ora law was normally not written down uh and the mishna for example was completed by ravasi around the year 200 of the Common Era that's after the bar Revol Mill's ESS is like 100 years earlier so you're dealing with 100 Year 100 let let's say which is you know after theban but before the mishna and this is actually the earliest work of the oral law that was written down and millas Tinus literally means it's the scroll The Scroll of fast days it's a very misleading title it actually is a listing of days where you're not allowed to fast there were certain festive days that in honor of Hashem making a Yeshua you're not allowed to fast now Mill's ESS does not include chabas Roes or Y those we we know you're not allowed to fast but these are various later events that occurred in fact you'd be surprised um they're like 35 holidays in millas Tinus or more more than 30 holidays in millas Tinus which you don't you're not allowed to fast uh among them are KHAK and porm but but KHAK and por are are the survivors they remain as days we don't fast but there are plenty of others and in the millas Tinus rendition of kanah it talks about the n and it talks about the rededication of the temple and it mentions the miracle of the P has now remember that the story of Kaneka happened approximately I'm being approximate here 180 BCE all my dates are approximate migas Tinus is 100 CE so miguela Tinus is 280 years after the story of Kana so the first written record of the miracle of the p is almost 300 years after the miracle itself now I want to be very very clear I am not saying God forbid it didn't happen some academics will say that some academics will say I'm just being honest with you that the is a madeup story I think a religious Jew does not believe that a religious Jew believes that if AR kazal recorded the miracle as a miracle it happened but the question becomes if it did happen why was it not recorded earlier and the answer actually could be very simple that this was kind of a secret Miracle who knew about it where is the manira kept the Mana is kept in the in the B mikdash the only people who are allowed to go into the are Kohan and a cooh walks into the I mean think about this you're not going to know there was a miracle I walk into the I'm a Coen let's say I see the burning well Monaro is lit every day in other words I'm not necessarily even going to know unless I'm there 24/7 and nobody was there 247 you're not even going to know that there was a miracle and certainly the the Jews who never frequented the he you know wouldn't know so in many many ways the miracle of the P was not necessarily even widely known apparently it was a mess it was a tradition that y had that they passed down and eventually kazal saw it necessary to record it and change the emphasis of Kaneka so in a sense Kaneka has version one and then version two version one of Kaneka was not a celebration of the P it was a celeb of the over theim it was a celebration over the rededication of the bikash it was a celebration of the Resurgence of Torah again it's a spiritual Victory and and and the light we were not celebrating the p and it's not even clear that we were lighting candles at that time Josephus suggests yes for another reason that was part of celebrating the victory by the time millas time came around 100 after the mikash all of a sudden there's a new emphasis a new angle to Kana and the new angle is the miracle of the P again again I'm not saying I am not saying is made up it always existed as a miracle but it was not the reason for the holiday it's only from milla's ESS onward that it became the reason or at least a reason for the and one might suggest once again I think history is an important lesson here and that is the glorification of the overthrow of foreign domination was not a politically correct holiday when we are in Roman domination after thean of the B Mikes so let's imagine this you're living in ER Israel that has been decimated with theb bik and later bar a few years later the baru r you're lighting Kaneka candles a Roman guy walks by and says why are you lighting those candles so you're going to say we're doing it to commemorate the overthrow of the foreign occupiers of er Israel which is exactly what the Romans are so as a result kazal thought let's emphasize a different aspect of the naos not the Josephus celebration of military victory that will keep in our so the do talk about that but the thing you do publicly we will connect it to the miracle of the pan Which is not militarily threatening again history kind of redefines what you were celebrating the other motifs don't disappear they don't disappear but what do you emphasize at any given any given time right so that's why now there's another reason as well and that is in many many ways the great Redemption of Kaneka was a failed experiment it's very very clear as the ramban writes that M were sikim they were they were very very righteous people and they were not fighting for political Freedom the Revolt of the macbes was not just to be free but it was as the alanam says the yanim wanted to take us away from Torah and we fought to be able to reestablish Torah and the truth of the matter is that the makim were considered to be Fanatics even by their co-religionists many many Jews maybe most of the Jewish people thought the macbes were crazy they saw represented progress it represented the best of the civilization of the ancient world these makim were the the of the time of the first century uh going backwards in time so the mbes were great sadik but what happened was uh that they became the very enemy that they were fighting against they established a malus for over 100 years called malus the haonan monarchy and eventually what did they become they became helist Alexandri all of these different people in fact the only good uh this is interesting the only good ruler uh of the was a woman Shalom uh and she was the one who protected the and allow Torah to flourish uh before her her husband was a great persecutor of theim and he died and her children unfortunately became great persecutors of theim but her 10year Reign was considered to be the golden age from a Torah perspective her brother was Shimon Ben shed her brother was the head of the Sanhedrin Etc uh so in many many ways the notion that we should celebrate the defeat of the yanim kind of rang Hollow in light of the fact that the malus that replaced it became helenistic as well and that's why in in kazas chronology you know when they count the gas of Babylon the gas of Persia the gas of yavan the gas of Rome they don't make a break malash in the middle even though technically that was Jewish Independence they consider malash as part of Gan they were yanim with happened they were yanim who happened to be Jewish uh so it could very well be that's why we switch it to a spiritual Miracle a miracle of naos instead of a miracle of of n so Kana is a very very fascinating holiday in that in that particular way and it could very well be as I'm pointing out that the meaning of Kaneka changed in time not totally meaning every every aspect of it Still Remains but what comes to the Forefront what comes to the back and the like so that that was really the first point yeah yes yes it's connected it's a little complicated it's connected to the fact that uh people were T from no they were in contact with dead bodies and therefore they needed to wait seven days so they can make the oil with Purity that that was the that was the issue uh that's the whole question because the is that uh the communal lighting of the Nora can be done with t oil so what's the problem okay that that's a famous question but nevertheless uh they they wanted to wait till they were T before they made the oil so it took seven days to become Tor and then they would make the oil uh and the oil would be uh would be would be Tor now uh one uh Point here and that is um when the gar in chabas discusses the laws of Kaneka this is in M shabas right after it discusses lighting shabas candles it discusses Kaneka candles oh by the way I have to tell you little little a nice little story it's a digression but it's a it's a beautiful Misa there was um a a a man in Europe um end of the 19th century who was a tremendous tremendous sadic his name was r no Kaplan and he was known as R uh ra and um he he was a big but he never took a job as a raav or Riva he was a shamish in the show and that's all he wanted he just wanted to be a sheemish extraordinary for his Anova for his modesty he was like a pre in fact the as a young man gravitated through a lot of the Simplicity was modeled on the way lived used to just hang around was drawn to his humility his Simplicity the fact that his whole life was devoted to helping people people and never without any recognition without anyone knowing about him Etc so noticed he was was with him the first night of Kan and you know in in Lithuania and this is the minigan ER Israel people are very very Mar based on the B that you have to light your kanos within a half an hour of Nightfall you have to otherwise you don't even make a bra we don't p in that way but this is the V you must light within the half an hour no matter what so if your family is not there you do it without your family so noticed that was simply you know taking his time there was no particular rush and finally the said you know reab shouldn't uh shouldn't we light so said my repent isn't here yet so says I understand but the is you light and you're y say the people that come later right you don't have to wait till everybody but he's there so said the gamar says the following the gar says that if you only have enough money to buy chabas candles or Kaneka candles you only have enough money which naos have priority so the halaka is the shabas candles have priority over the kanaka candles why because the shabas candles you're permitted to eat by you can know they illuminate your meal Kana candles you're not allowed to eat by unless you have a sham but you're not allowed to eat by so K say shabas candles promote Shalom bias because uh life is more pleasurable and enjoyable when we can eat by the Light so shom overrides the Mitzvah of Kan so said if the is that the sholom bias of shabas candles is more important than khaka if my wife isn't here at all and she would be very hurt by not being there when I light the Kaneka candles so even if I'm losing the Mitzvah in a sense like the gr like the the shom is more important and time used to tell this story now is this I still to this very day I get the sh all the time guys said well my wife is not going to be home till 10:00 or whatever it is should I light early well again this you can't really pasin from stories but according to this story you wait until your wife is home uh because shom bias overrides uh the proper way of lighting the kanaka candles okay but be as it may the gamar discusses uh there are three ways of fulfilling the Mitzvah of lighting Kana Candles there is what you call Basic there is what you call mahadin and there is what you call mahadin mahad it's like restaurants right there's and then Mah mud then mahadin right so this called mahadin Mahin Mah and this is very surprising because basic is very different than we do it basic simply means I Light One Candle for everybody in my house every single night of Kaneka so let's imagine I have a house old of 10 people me my wife eight children okay that would mean night one I Light One Candle that's it night eight I Light One Candle that's it if you just Light One Candle a night that covers everybody in your household you are y the basic Mitzvah ofah now mahadin if I want to do more I want want to do the mitzah in a more beautiful way so it's still not what we do I light one candle for every member of my household that would mean again with my example of 10 day one I light 10 naot and day eight I light 10 naos that's still not what we do but then there's super duper level you want to be mahadin me H so then we get to the m sh and B where you want to pick up the days according to B sh start with eight and go down according to hillo Bas hillo you start with one and go up and of course as is almost always the case in a between b h and b shamai we follow B hill now there's an interesting M how do you integrate level two with level three meaning like this let's assume I want to do the Mitzvah in the best way so I want to light let's say like H I want a light according to the days do I just do one or do I do it for every member of my family this is a KIRO actually paskins if you're doing the highest level you don't do the middle level meaning according to sard you only light one manur and the reason they say that is the whole purpose of the highest level is that you should be proclaiming the number of days but the argument goes if there's like a million Manos in the window people walk by you know they don't know 50 candles you know they might not know the number of days so Bakka if you clearly want to emphasize the number of days you don't have every member of the family light okay that is the sheet ofm that is the sheet ofo but the Rama says the Min of Asim is that if you want to do the highest level you incor operate the middle level as well so that every member of the family and we'll discuss maybe next week as we're out of town every member of out of time rather every member of the family should light a manura so if you're doing Mah mahad according toim you also do mahad but then we'll discuss does that include husband and wife does that include daughters generally there are different men hug him about that some say even like the Rama husband and wife only have one manora although some some say two uh and even says that the custom is that women do not light a SE now again if a woman is by herself she of course has to light remember we talked about that a woman is the only question is the Mah claims does not include women but well we'll talk next week more anyway wish you all and will be your next take off just