חנוכיות חשמליות (תשפ״ג)

00:00 Speaker 1 This is Igris, and today we are talking about electric menorahs. That's the last day of Hanukkah, our last Igris year of Hanukkah anyway. There's another day of Hanukkah. I wanna talk about electric menorahs. We're not doing something from our year. We're doing something from the year Tuv Shin Tes Vav. The Rebbe does weigh in on the electric menorah debate, and according to Rabbi Groner, he weighs in even more forcefully. So we're going to look at that in a moment. But I do wanna set up the letter because he gets immediately into a Halakhic consideration, and we need the setup. So the letter we're going to look at in a moment is Gimel Kuf Tzadik Beis. That is the letter from Tuv Shin Tes Vav. It is written to a Rav Yaakov Zaks, I believe. I looked him up, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure who he is. But the Rebbe calls him a Rav, so it ain't no Rav. So clearly important Rav. And I'll read the first part of the letter right now because it's not what we're gonna talk about today. The Rebbe writes, "Shalom u-bracha." It's a Halakhic letter. So the Rebbe says, "Memaein ha-mechtav m'ches Teves." You wrote to me on Ches Teves, and you asked, "Vayimaen shech medagei l'hadlaka sneh Hanukkah." You wanted to ask about Hanukkah. "Sheledasah m'farshat mish-mishetishkah ha-chamah. Heinu b'tzeitzak echavim. Eich efshar lehadlik kedem lazeh akim ve-shadlakah ise mitzvah?" So there is a rule that when we light the menorah, it's not the placing of

01:04 Speaker 1 the menorah that makes the mitzvah. Hanachah ise mitzvah. It is the hadlakah of the menorah. Lighting the menorah is what makes the mitzvah happen. So the moment that I fulfill the mitzvah is the moment that I'm doing the lighting. Now, that's great for those of us who hold that the time of the sun setting is at shkiyah and light immediately after shkiyah. But as you probably know, there is an opinion that tzeitzak echavim is mishetishkah ha-chamah, that the sunset, the proper time is at tzeitzak echavim, which can be forty minutes later, fifty minutes later. It can be considerably longer. It's at usually fifty minutes later, uh, at least this time of year. And he wants to know, according to that opinion, how can you light the menorah at shkiyah? Don't we light too early in order to fulfill all opinions? Wouldn't it make more sense to light after tzeitz? A classic question, and the Rebbe answers, "Hine tzedek oim haya kama zman lifnei zeh." You'd be right, says the Rebbe, if you were totally outside of the acceptable zman of the sun setting. K'mekei'ed plag ha'mincha. For example, if you were lighting before plag ha'mincha. A couple people actually sent me messages this Hanukkah on Erev Shabbos asking how early they can light, and that's the answer. The earliest you can light is plag ha'mincha because that's the earliest time according to anybody that you could call it sunset. "Ma she'en ken k'shemadlikin lifni-- le-- v'lifni eirech zman," I think lifni eirech zman, "halak bah

02:07 Speaker 1 Erev Shabbos, shafilu leday anah yetzim bezeh." This would not apply, however, to somebody lighting in the proper time according to any opinion. That is that after plag ha'mincha onwards, you're already in the time of shkiyah. On Erev Shabbos, you can already light in that time period. So at that point, you don't have the problem of being outside the proper zmanim. So the first thing the Rebbe answers is don't worry about lighting at shkiyah. Even those who are worried about, uh, about sunf-- sunset happening much later, you're in the zone of shkiyah. At least on Erev Shabbos, you'd be able to do it, so it's fine throughout the rest of the year. The second question here is about an electric menorah, and for that, we need an introduction. So I'm gonna take us all the way to the top of this page. I'll send you this whole document, believe that once we're done. "Shulchan Aruch Harav," "tuv reish, uh, ayin hei, uh, sif beis," says this. "Yesh mishnah," there is an opinion that says the following. "Dikevin shadlakah ise mitzvah," since we just said that lighting the menorah is what makes the mitzvah itself, "tzaruch sheten shemen b'ner k'dei shir." There has to be enough oil in the cup when you start lighting to last for thirty minutes, to last for the minimum shir. "Kedem hadlakah," before I light the menorah, "aba im beini achbid lakach akach heisen shemen ad k'dei shir." If I put only a little bit of oil in, just a little drop

03:11 Speaker 1 that can only last for, I don't know, a minute, and then I make the bracha, and then I, as I see the oil go down, keep on adding more oil, "lo yatzu dechavah," so you do not fulfill the mitzvah if that's the way you do things. So the halakha is that you must have enough oil, you must have enough fuel to light for the proper amount of-- to keep it lit for the proper amount of time before you make the bracha. And if you don't have enough fuel and keep on adding fuel, that does not fulfill your obligation. You need to start off with a full menorah, a menorah that at least can hold a flame for thirty minutes. Now, based on this, a lot of achranim wanna say that an electric menorah is no good because electricity is perpetually entering the menorah. Since it's perpetually entering the menorah, if the fuel is oil, then oil perpetually entering the menorah would not be yetzer. So electricity being the fuel in this case, perpetually entering the menorah, would-- you would not be yetzer with that because every moment that, uh, if I were to cut off the electricity at any second, if I were to unplug it, it would immediately go out. So do I have k'dei shir? Do I have enough fuel in my menorah right now to keep it running? And the answer is, if it's plugged into the wall, no. Now, as I'm going to tell you at the end, so I may

04:09 Speaker 1 as well tell you now, this w-- this question doesn't apply to a battery-operated menorah 'cause the battery has enough juice to keep it going. But if we're talking about one that's plugged into the wall, then you can make the claim that at any given time in the structure of the menorah, you don't have enough oil. You only have enough oil to keep the menorah going for a second. So several people make this claim. The Rebbe's gonna quote a few of them, so I wanted to just show you them. The Har HaTzvi wrote an article as sort of, uh, Tzvi Pesach Frank. He wrote a long article about this, and he actually quotes almost everybody that the Rebbe quotes in his letter. So you kind of catch all of them in the Har HaTzvi. He says, uh, "Uv'din zeh shel Shulchan Aruch tzarch li yesh shir besha'a sadlakah." You need to-- It says in Shulchan Aruch you need to have the proper shir at the time that you're lighting the menorah. "Amati gam li nirtzeh sidre chodes sadlakas ner Chanukah b'nei shel hashmael." I think this might be an issue when it comes to a electric menorah. He says, "Debe sha'a sadlakah sei. Ein i-il avda haveh madlikin sham betachana keich lahayah delek nimsah de mitzah dei lahayah delek." He says had it not been that the tachanah, that the, uh, electric power plant that is supplying energy to the outlet that then goes into your menorah, if they were not continuing to supply that energy,

05:06 Speaker 1 if they were to be cut off for a moment, you would have no electricity. So although you-- even if you didn't unplug it, they could cut off their electric supply, which means you're not sure you have the oil at any given time. So he doesn't fulfill y-- He feel, he feels that's a con- that's a conflict with this idea in Shulchan Aruch that you have to have enough oil. Uh, you have something very similar in one of the works of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach called Me'areh ha- Me'areh Esh. Uh, Me'areh Esh is split across a few volumes, but he has a whole long essay in there just on electric lighting for Hanukkah. He has a million problems. We're gonna discuss a few of them, but one of them is this. He says, "Mishum shebasha'a sadlakah, ein ner shemen k'dei-- ein, ein b'ner shemen k'dei shir haroy li dlek chatsi sha'a." You don't actually have a half an hour of oil in your menorah at the time. "Sha'ali b'chol sha'ah al uzera m'hashmal." He's not taking m'bli sheyesh shlitah alkach. You can't control if the electricity goes out. So in one hand, you could say, "I'm controlling. I'm, I'm plugging it into the wall, and the wall is an endless supply of electricity." So you could make the claim that it's like a battery. Says Rabbi Shlomo Zalman and also says the Har HaTzvi, "Not really. That's not an endless supply of electricity. Someone else is controlling whether that electricity comes in." So it's not the

06:02 Speaker 1 same thing as a battery. A battery on one hand, I know how much energy is in the battery, and I'm putting that into the menorah. When it's dealing with the wall, I don't know how much energy I'm gonna get. I don't know if they're gonna shut me down. I have no shlitah alkach. I can't control it. "Nimtsi shemadlik ner al yedei hashmael, ein kemishaniach shemen k'dei shir." That's not like putting enough oil in your menorah. "Roy li dlek chatsi sha'a. Ela chaveiras hashmael," the company, the electric company, uh, is constantly regenerating the energy for me, so it's like somebody continuously pouring oil in, and therefore you're not yetzer. So in our letter, going back to Gimel kuf tzadik beis, this is clearly the question that was asked to the Rebbe based on his answer. So this person, uh, Rav Yaakov, I believe, Zachs I said what it was, um, he wrote to the Rebbe asking this question, maybe an electric menorah shouldn't be motzei because of this problem of there not being enough sheer, there's not enough oil in the cups. And the Rebbe says, "Umah sh'kasav eydis al haka ner Chanukah menorah chashmalit," that which you wrote to me about lighting an electric menorah. "Kvar dashah bezer abima." A lot of people have talked about this. "Vehem," and then he lists his sources. "Veheshed Beis Yitzchak, the Pirkei Avos," which is very difficult to find, so difficult to find that in a subsequent letter one hundred page-pages later in Igris, the Rebbe has to

07:04 Speaker 1 tell him where to find it. Tells him that, "I, I, I had trouble finding it too." So me and, uh, Rav Yaakov had the same problem. Let's also the Lubavitcher. Mordechai, I end- I ended up finding it, but it took a while. Lubavitcher, Mordechai, uh, and the Sefer Meore. Um, also see Meorei HaEsh, that's the one we just read together. That's from Shlomo Zalman. "Mikenevesh sh'chak ve'tar bezer." A lot of people in similar cases have gone back and forth on this issue. "Vegam biyar chein kol tera," which was put out in Yerushalayim. That's Rav Zvi Pesach Frank. So those last two sources the Rebbe quotes are the ones we read inside, so strongly suggesting that's what we're dealing with here. This is the question. "Vama sh'kasav, vama sh'kasav hu mechtavei." That which you write, your specific point in your letter. "Vechein ader zeu gam b'shul Pirkei Avos." This is also in Pirkei Avos, and I'm telling you it's also in Rav Shlomo Zalman and also in Rav Zvi Pesach Frank. "She'netz mezem mishum de'vayi sheer beis hadlaka." That the reason why you're not yetz is because you don't have enough oil, you don't have enough, uh, fuel, uh, electricity in your menorah at the time of lighting because the electricity is a current that's perpetually entering. "De'efshi shiskura zera me'electri." This is exactly what Shlomo Zalman says. Maybe they're gonna turn off the current, maybe the electric company will turn it off. "Ke'ma sh'kesiv davar matziv skira." And as you write every now and then,

08:05 Speaker 1 you know, I guess where this-- I guess where Rav Yaakov lived, the power was kind of iffy. He goes, "It's, uh, very frequent that someone will turn such a thing off." The Rebbe says, "Hapsaka na le'ni erli klal." I don't agree at all. I don't think that's even kind of a problem, the Rebbe says. "Ki im she'segira ve'af, ve, ve'hefsek, ba'ei mesiba chitzeni sheba'av birah." Somebody is making the decision to pull that plug. Either you're pulling the plug out of the wall and that's your decision, or the electric company is deciding to turn off the electricity and that's their decision, but a person is now pulling the oil out of your menorah. That's not the same thing as perpetually adding it. Someone has to decide to stop something that's there. So what the Rebbe is saying is that it's not really the same as someone constantly adding oil to a menorah. It's the same as somebody saying, "I have a full cup of oil, and either me or the electric company might come by and siphon off my oil." I mean, that could happen, but that doesn't mean you're not yetz. The risk of somebody who can make a decision about birah coming in and deciding to take oil out of your menorah doesn't make the menerah, menorah not yetz. That's what the Rebbe is saying. "Ki im she'segira ve'hefsek ba'ei mesiba chitzeni sheba'av birah, ve'net va'adai klal u'klal sh'rufn ei shnei tai meilu, v-ve'net va'adai klal klal period." There's no certainty either that this

09:04 Speaker 1 is going to happen. There's no reason to believe that, uh, that the electric's gonna be shut off or that someone's gonna unplug my menorah. I'm gonna stand there and watch it. The electricity usually-- When I turn on the electricity, I expect it to run for at least thirty minutes. I don't have any expectation that I don't have the fuel here, and you're telling me someone might come by and sabotage me? Yeah, that's a risk with oil as well. So the Rebbe doesn't hear this argument at all. And the Rebbe says, "Neishei tai meilu," because of these two reasons, because of ba'av birah is in charge, and because it's not a frequent occurrence in any event. "Eineh de'im l'ruach metzudiv shchech ve'keretz bezer." The Rebbe says, "I do not see this as a wind. I, I don't see this as a, as a, as a regular occurrence like a regular wind would come. I see this as a rare thing that might happen in some cases. Certainly doesn't make it not yetz." And the Rebbe says, "Ve'bracha," and, uh, and it's written, "Besheim," the Rebbe, "bai e maskir." So the Rebbe seems to feel that, uh, that this is not a valid argument, that you certainly have enough fuel because we're not worried that, uh, because we're not worried about somebody coming and siphoning off my oil any more than I am worried about somebody turning off my electricity, and turning off the electricity doesn't happen all that often. So this argument seems to be soundly

10:00 Speaker 1 rejected by the Rebbe. Does that mean that the Rebbe supports electric menorahs? Uh, Rabbi Groner thought so. Rabbi Groner thought so. And Rabbi Groner might have been the maskir who was involved in this. This letter is from the maskir. Pro-- Maybe, I don't think he was involved in so many of the letters, but in any event, he probably was there. Uh, he probably was there during this. There was an article, somebody, uh, a couple of years back put out an article, uh, in the Kevitzat Aratzot B'Urim, uh, from Eretz Yisrael saying, uh, saying essentially that we don't use electric menorahs, that it's not allowed and gave all of the reasons. And Rabbi Groner wrote back in the next edition to say, "I don't think you have the sh-- the Rebbe's shitah right." So I have that in front of us here. Says when it comes to electric menorahs, I don't know who this is, HaRav Aleph Zion Vav wrote about menorahs Chanukah that you write with electric that, "Shemuskam poskim de'nech ashmeri eineh cheftu shel ner." All poskim agree that you can't use an electric menorah 'cause it doesn't count as a flame. "V'zeh ein shum ta'elesh adlaka menorah kazu." There's no point in lighting an electric menorah. That had been written. And the, uh, and Rabbi Groner writes, "I don't think you're necessarily right about that." He brings a lot of sources that say you can use it. Encyclopedia Talmudis brings many poskim that say you can use an electric menorah, and they give

10:59 Speaker 1 good reasons. And, uh, "Apizim vakim she'ein afshar l'sadlik im shamen v'silah," says Rabbi Groner, in a place where you can't light with oil and with wicks, you could probably rely on these de'as and, uh, and use these opinions to light an electric menorah if it's, uh, if it's otherwise unpossible. At the very least, you'd fulfill prisu mei-niso, the publica- public- publicization of the-- publicization. I don't know. Prisu mei-niso, making the miracle public. "Reish bitinim bekam halachas, neshasat chakh, sameach ad asah meikel amatir." So first of all, Rabbi Groner says, "I don't think you're right. I think that in a neshasat chakh, if you're really stuck, you can use an electric menorah." And then he quotes our letter almost in full, so I'm not gonna read it again. He quotes our letter and he says, "Heyet mezeg." What do I get from this letter from the Rebbe, from the Rebbe? And I think Rabbi Groner would know what to get from a letter from the Rebbe. He says, "Here's my conclusion." Number one, "Harabi lo yoraksh lei shalom adlaka beven gezeh bemeshen cheftu shel ner el atai gam l'sefard sh'dat menorot chashmalit she'hechu l'ner Chanukah." Half the sources the Rebbe quotes in that letter saying this has been discussed do say it's kosher. So the Rebbe not only does not push away the idea that you can light with an electric menorah, he actually ends up s-- he ends up bringing sources that support it. And beis, "Harabi bital sfirah al sh'l'firah, sh'l'firah, sh'l'peirot sh'ratzlasa adlaka

12:05 Speaker 1 zu." The Rebbe was mevatel the svara that was brought to him to get in the way of an electric menorah. So Rabbi Groner is not befeider saying that the Rebbe supports electric menorah lightings, but Rabbi Groner is saying that you can strongly get from this letter the implication that the Rebbe is ready to knock down a svara that would say not to light it. The Rebbe doesn't then come in and say, "Oh, but of course we won't light them." The Rebbe knocks down a svara against it. The Rebbe brings several sources that support it. There's no real reason to believe that our shitah is you can't light an electric menorah, and he feels that in neshasat chakh you can. I just wanna let you know because we should have the bottom line at the beginning. People always sign off, they listen to half a shiur. Um, Rabbi Brian ends up paskening across the board that if you absolutely can't have a regular menorah, that you can use an electric menorah, but that you don't make a bracha on it. And I think if we have time, maybe we'll see some of the reasons why you don't make a bracha. But, uh, but this idea that, uh, that we are anti-electric menorah, lav davka. Lav davka. There's a lot of halakhic support for it, especially in something like a hospital or an airplane where it's literally impossible to light and, uh, in a neshasat chakh it's available. Uh, an important note is an LED would not

12:59 Speaker 1 work according to anybody for that. You need something that heats up. We're about to see in a second that, uh, there's a regular recommendation, use incandescent light bulbs, but as a matter of fact, the Tzemach Tzedek thinks they're a big problem too. So maybe you're stuck with fluorescent lights, I don't know. Um, something that we mentioned earlier is that this entire issue of not having enough, uh, oil could be overcome by a battery-operated menorah. Uh, and that would be because you know exactly-- even though the Re- the Rebbe has no problem with the ele- with the menorah plugged into the wall, I will note, right? The Rebbe's okay with the menorah plugged into the wall because he says, "Well, we have no reason to believe the electric company's gonna shut us off, and we also have no reason to believe that, uh, this isn't common, and we have no reason to believe you're going to get involved. A who wants to get involved and knock down my menorah doesn't make my menorah not kosher." So I, I think the Rebbe would even be okay with an electric menorah plugged into the wall. Nonetheless, a lot of Poskim recommend using a battery-operated menorah specifically to get around these concerns that are mentioned in many Sefardim. I'm here to tell you that, uh, we are Chassidim of the Rebbe. I'm not sure we need that Chumra. But in any event, batteries is a Chumra that you see in Poskim, and Rabbi Brein brings it too, so there's

13:55 Speaker 1 no reason not to do it if you can. It sounds like the best choice is a battery-operated electric menorah when there's no other option. And it also sounds like, uh, according to everybody, you wouldn't be able to use an LED-lit menorah. So battery-operated, incandescent or fluorescent menorah. There are, however, other issues. With our remaining time, I'd like to show you some of them. Uh, one of them I'm gonna jump all the way to the bottom actually, 'cause as long as we're mentioning the different kinds of bulbs. Where's my Tzemach Tzedek? Never mind, it's at the top. I put it up here. Okay, another issue is-

14:20 Speaker 2 Just a quick que- a quick question. I'm sorry-

14:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, sure

14:22 Speaker 2 ... to interrupt, but uh-

14:23 Speaker 1 Please

14:23 Speaker 2 ... the, when you say that, when you say that, um, you, you, Rabbi Brein Poskim, this is one of my questions that I had written down over here was, do you make a Beracha in the case? Like I went to go light menorah for my mother, she's in the hospital, she, she's in a, a place where she cannot use and can't light a flame. Doesn't wanna blow the building up. So I went to go light menorah with her, and I, you know, turned the bulb or turned the switch for the, you know, amount of candles that we needed. I did not make a Beracha.

14:45 Speaker 1 Rebbe's-

14:46 Speaker 2 Um, but the question is, if somebody, if that's their only option, I was gonna light later, are you Mekayem the Mitzvah? Like-

14:51 Speaker 1 You're definitely Mekayem with this person lighting Mitzvah

14:53 Speaker 2 ... so if I light the Mitzvah without the Beracha?

14:54 Speaker 1 Yeah, you're definitely Mekayem Mitzvah and you probably, according to a lot of Poskim, you're even Mekayem the Mitzvah, but because we're not sure, we don't make the Beracha anyway. But, uh, according to a lot of Poskim, you're literally Mekayem the Mitzvah. Um, there are, uh, Poskim say, I don't remember who, so I'm just gonna say Poskim say, I saw this in more than one place, that if somebody lights an electric menorah without a Beracha, and later on that same night has the opportunity to light with oil, they make a Beracha on that second lighting. So-

15:16 Speaker 2 Would you make a Shehecheyanu if it was the first night of Hanukkah?

15:19 Speaker 1 I, uh, l- yes. Yes. You make all... So even though you had the, I mean, n-not, not on the electric, on the second chance to light-

15:25 Speaker 2 Right, on the, on the actual.

15:25 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. So-

15:27 Speaker 2 Interesting

15:27 Speaker 1 ... so ful- it fulfills in but we don't make a Beracha on it. And, uh, by the way, there are Poskim who say you can make a Beracha even on the electric menorah. But it seems that, uh, Rabbi Brein keeps on saying no Beracha, and I saw that among, among other Lubavitcher Poskim, that they all say you do it but without a Beracha, and if the opportunity is presented later, you do it again with a Beracha. But I do believe the Mitzvah's fulfilled. There's, uh, there, there are the Makilim to rely on. And in a that's what Maki-- uh, that the Makil opinion is there for the . That's, that's why we have it. So-

15:52 Speaker 2 Well, the Rebbe doesn't touch on it in his letter whether it's a Beracha or not.

15:55 Speaker 1 No, and you know, that's why Rabbi Groner comes out swinging. Uh, Rabbi Groner says, "I think you can may-maybe even get from the Rebbe's letter that, uh, obviously you'd only allow in a , but the Rebbe's letter implies that he brings sources that say it's okay." I think if you'd asked Rabbi Groner, he might have told you, you can make a Beracha. But, uh, as far as I know, Lubavitcher Rabbonim are not, are not Posking accordingly. But yeah-

16:11 Speaker 2 Because the Rebbe was Mevatel the Svara. Being Mevatel the Svara means it doesn't exist.

16:15 Speaker 1 There are other Svaras. We're gonna see a couple other reasons why you might not-

16:18 Speaker 2 Okay

16:18 Speaker 1 ... so th-that's, that, that's probably the room for doubt. But he's not-- But there are no other Svaras that I can find that would explain why you would need to use a battery-operated menorah once you have the Rebbe Shitta about the electrical current. So I'm not sure you actually need that one. Nonetheless, I can't say that because all the Lubavitcher Rabbonim always say make it battery-operated, so they must know something I don't. Uh, in Shulchan Aruch, in you'll find this in one seventy-one four. Excuse me, it's six seventy-one. Yeah, 'cause it's by Hanukkah. There's a Rama who says, "You gotta make sure that your flames are in a straight line. They can't be in a circle because that would be like a Menorah that makes it like a torch." So the Rama holds that your menorah can't be, uh, can't be in a circle shape. The land-- The, the lights have to be in a, in a straight line. There's an interesting Tzemach Tzedek on this who says that's why you can't use an incandescent flame for a menorah. Now, I don't know anybody who, who agrees with this, but it is an interesting point. He says, "The-- Inside an incandescent bulb, your, your, uh, your, the metal inside the filament in the incandescent bulb is a circle. So because it's a circle, it has the issue of, uh, it has the issue of possibly violating this rule in the Rama, that you can't light flames that are in a circle. So he

17:28 Speaker 1 says that would be like a Menorah. Each one of those bulbs is actually halakhically considered like a torch, and that's not kosher for ner Hanukkah. Now, one of the answers you could give back is that the Rama is really only talking about the entire structure, not the individual flame. But at the same time, if you were to light a menorah using eight torches, I don't think that would be, I don't, I don't think that would be okay. I, I believe I've seen that for the giant menorahs, you're not supposed to use a torch. You have to use a single flame with a single wick. So since he's saying that each bulb is a halakhically a Menorah because it has a circle inside, and once you have a circle, you have a Menorah. So I think he's saying that this could be a problem of lighting a menorah out of eight torches. And, and, and m-may-maybe he's right. If he's right, then you also can't use an incandescent or an LED, which would leave us only with fluorescents, which I've also read are not ideal. So it is difficult to find a kosher electric menorah. But if I had to put what we have together right now, I would probably say a battery-operated incandescent or fluorescent menorah will get you yetzer according to somebody. But be aware, the Tzemach Tzedek is not happy about the light bulbs. Uh, another thing to know, and I think this is probably the, uh, the last major one that we'll

18:25 Speaker 1 look at with our time that's left, is that, uh, and I have it in so we're not gonna read it together 'cause I'm trying to move a little faster now. We're running out of time. But, uh, you are almost certainly, according to almost all opinions, maybe even all op- almost all opinions, can light a electric candle for Shabbos And that a woman can make a bracha on that candle. Shmirat Shabbat Kehilchasa brings it as, brings it as allowed. Um, and the reason why is, we'll see this a little bit down here from the Har HaTzvi, but I guess I'll say it outside. The, the reason why is because there is no mitzvah to light Shabbat candles. It's a mitzvah that there are Shabbat candles. There's not a Hadlak. There's not a mitzvot Hadlaka. So although we do make the bracha, "L'hadlik ner shel Shabbat," that is actually not the mitzvah. The mitzvah is that there should be candles in the house. And if a cheresh vekaton lights, it's fulfilled, even though that's, uh, somebody who's mentally incompetent lights the candle, it's still fulfilled that there should be Shabbat-- there should be a light in the house. Though it's not so important that there be candles lit specifically. Therefore, it doesn't really matter whether there's an action of lighting, whether this counts as lighting. The question is, did I make my house have more light than it had before? So according to a lot of people, if you have a light off all week and you

19:26 Speaker 1 turn that off-- and you turn that light on only on Shabbat, you've done the mitzvah of Hadlakat Ner Chanukah and, and not Hadlakat Ner Shabbat, excuse me. And, uh, perhaps you could even make a bracha on it that is implied by the Shmirat Shabbat Kehilchasa. This is not the case by Menorah. As we already talked about, Hadlaka is a mitzvah. You specifically need to light it, not just place it. A, uh, it says down here that a cheresh vekaton who light a, a mental incompetent or a child who lights a Menorah, it doesn't fulfill it for the family. There's a, there's a mitzvah in the lighting itself. So you see this in some poskim, that this is also a possible issue with an electric Menorah. The first paragraph up here, I'm not gonna read to you, but it's on the page. This is exactly what I just told you about women lighting. Uh, the m- the m- the, uh, Shabbat candles, that it doesn't really matter that she lights it. What matters is that it exists. Uh, that last line, The ikar mitzvah is the yishtadlus, that there should be a light lit in the house. That's what it comes to on Shabbat. So it doesn't really matter. You can even make a bracha on a, uh, Hadlakat Goy. A Goy can walk into your house, light a candle, and the woman can make a bracha. It doesn't matter who does the lighting. says, says Tsvi P- Tsvi Pesach Frank. He says, uh, "That doesn't

20:28 Speaker 1 apply to Hanukkah." We already hold in Shulchan Aruch that a mental incompetent, a child, is unable to light the Menorah. They have not fulfilled the mitzvah. And, uh, we also have earlier on that, uh, that Hadlaka is a mitzvah. He says he's not even sure you can do it on Shabbat. But in any event, he does bring this as a possible issue that, uh, that the m-- that when it comes to lighting an electric Menorah, the lighting isn't actually happening. Um, I am turning a bulb and the action, there's no maase Hadlaka. There's no action of lighting. There's an action of me plugging something into a wall. So he thinks, and other poskim have brought this too, that there might be a problem with doing this for Hanukkah, whereas there wouldn't be a problem for doing this on Shabbat because I'm not doing an actual action of lighting the Menorah. It's raising that as a concern. I wanna show you two others, and then we're gonna conclude with that. The two others I'm just gonna skim right through. Two others that come up. One is also found in a-- Both of these are also found in Rav Shlomo Zalman's work. One of them is sh-- that it's possible that . So another possibility is that the miracle of Hanukkah was that the oil didn't run out, and so you need to use something that can run out. Now, this is actually the opposite savara of the thing that they were challenging the Rebbe on before,

21:43 Speaker 1 right? Here we're taking the other position. On-- You, you told me you're worried about the electricity running out. Let me give you another problem. Maybe the electricity never runs out. If I have it plugged into a wall, I indefinitely have fuel. Since I indefinitely have fuel and I'm not watching the fuel, the electricity doesn't go down in my Menorah. It, uh, it-- when it's plugged into the wall, the electricity is not decreasing. Since it's not decreasing, maybe I'm not commemorating the mi-- the, uh, miracle of Hanukkah, where the oil did not decrease. Now, once again, this is solved by batteries. Uh, because the battery, I can watch the battery life decrease. I can see the battery go down. But, uh, if it's plugged into the wall, maybe a problem. That could be why Chabad poskim are still saying to use a battery. Maybe it'll fulfill that inyan, because the Rebbe explained in his letter why we don't need a battery for the, for the sheer issue. But maybe there's an issue with, uh, needing to see kilayim, needing to see the decrease of energy. One more issue that Rav Shlomo Zalman mentions is that, uh, it needs to look like the Menorah of the Beis Hamikdash, and the Menorah of the Beis Hamikdash was, uh, there's a lot of details here we're missing. Uh, he says this at more length than what I have here on the screen, but the way that he puts it is that at some point you're not dealing with a

22:43 Speaker 1 Menorah anymore. You don't have your wicks. You don't have your oil. Okay, so I have candles, but candles have wicks. I don't have wicks. I don't have oil. My source of fuel doesn't really run out. When it does run out, it runs out in a different way. I turn it on not by lighting it, by, b-b-by, by, by flicking a switch. At some point, you've lost the commemoration of the Menorah of the Beis Hamikdash. That's also a difficult one to get around, and maybe one of the reasons why it's not considered ideal. In any event, we have a lot of reasons why an electric Menorah is not ideal, but what we get from our letter is that at le-- at least what comes in poskim as the biggest argument against them, the Rebbe seems to, um, seems to knock down. And we have from Rabbi Groner that he's not convinced the Rebbe's so against electric Menorahs. Certainly, our conclusion, Lhalacha, and this is the Halacha the way that it's posked by virtually all Acharonim, is that we do not use electric Menorahs if it is at all possible to light with a regular Menorah. Just light with a regular Menorah. If you're in a shas atzak, where you absolutely cannot light with a regular Menorah under any circumstances, then an electric Menorah is a, is a good option. Uh, battery-operated is best for some of the reasons we've discussed. Maybe incandescent bulbs aren't so great, according to the Tzemach Tzedek, but everybody else seems okay

23:39 Speaker 1 with them. LEDs certainly are not okay. And, uh, I think that covers everything, right? Okay. Thank you all very much.