A Chanukah-Related Thought Question
Dec. 17th, 2009 11:48 amThis Friday night, like last Friday night, is a Shabbat Chanukah. This means that we light Chanukah candles before our regular Shabbat candles. Shabbat candles are traditionally lit 18 minutes before sunset (lest we come to accidentally light the candles *on* Shabbat, we give ourselves an 18-minute buffer. Many of us end up using these 18 minutes to finish whatever last-minute Shabbat stuff needs to get done (![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lcmlc has made a whole chicken dinner in the eighteen; I have said in the past that the existence of the Eighteen Minutes is proof that Hashem loves us)), but Chanukah candles are supposed to be lit at nightfall (actual dark, not sunset), and burn for half an hour (some say 20 minutes). But we can't light candles once Shabbat has started, so we light the Chanukah candles before we light Shabbat candles. This does not change the fact that we have to have Chanukah lights burning at least half an hour into the night.
The solution, therefore, is that we use extra-long Chanukah candles that will burn from candle lighting 18 minutes before sunset until a half hour after it gets actually dark (so this week from 3:54 until approximately 5:30).
But what if you're going out to shul or (if you're skipping shul) to someone's home for dinner? You are supposed to light where you're going to sleep. Lighting Chanukah candles and then leaving home is not particularly safe (and is something I have refused to do since Ross and Charlie's Very Special Chanukah Fire of 1990). One could light the shorter candles, knowing they'll go out before the requisite amount of time. Or one could light at the location where one is going to be eating dinner (or at shul), even though they know they aren't going to be sleeping there. But does that lighting then fulfil the mitzvah? Or does pikuach nefesh (literally, "saving a life," something done to prevent death or serious injury) trump here?
lcmlc has made a whole chicken dinner in the eighteen; I have said in the past that the existence of the Eighteen Minutes is proof that Hashem loves us)), but Chanukah candles are supposed to be lit at nightfall (actual dark, not sunset), and burn for half an hour (some say 20 minutes). But we can't light candles once Shabbat has started, so we light the Chanukah candles before we light Shabbat candles. This does not change the fact that we have to have Chanukah lights burning at least half an hour into the night.The solution, therefore, is that we use extra-long Chanukah candles that will burn from candle lighting 18 minutes before sunset until a half hour after it gets actually dark (so this week from 3:54 until approximately 5:30).
But what if you're going out to shul or (if you're skipping shul) to someone's home for dinner? You are supposed to light where you're going to sleep. Lighting Chanukah candles and then leaving home is not particularly safe (and is something I have refused to do since Ross and Charlie's Very Special Chanukah Fire of 1990). One could light the shorter candles, knowing they'll go out before the requisite amount of time. Or one could light at the location where one is going to be eating dinner (or at shul), even though they know they aren't going to be sleeping there. But does that lighting then fulfil the mitzvah? Or does pikuach nefesh (literally, "saving a life," something done to prevent death or serious injury) trump here?
