An Adventure in Sourcing ONE Shulchan Aruch

Sourcing One Shulchan Aruch

BY: Rabbi Moshe Taub

Taken from 'Chanukah Book 5780'

Article Originally Written for Ami Magazine 2014:

Throughout hilchos Chanukah the Rema tells us that the minhag today is to light indoors (see above page 18 for why this is so). This affects many, many halachos of Chanukah, and is a point the Rema returns to several times throughout these simanim.

The Shulchan Aruch (SA) is always silent on the matter, for he holds that we, ostensibly, still light outside.

But if this is uniquely the Rema’s view, how do we explain siman 672:2 where the SA himself suddenly rules, “...all of this (that one needs to light at the specific time) however is only lechatchila, however bdieved one can light {with a berachah} all night”?

Is not this allowance unique to the view of our lighting today being just for the home and its residents? What is the SA’s source for this allowance if he holds like that the basic law of lighting ad shetichleh?!

Indeed, when the Mishnah Berrurah (MB) explains the idea that we can light all night so long as someone is up in the house, he explains that this is based on the Rama’s principle that today we light

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indoors, and that therefore the pursumei nissa is for the house.

To explain this SA, the first thing we must realize is that there is a simple error in the printing of the MB version of this text.

In this version of the SA there is no source given for this ruling (672:2).

However, if one looks in a standard edition of SA we find that the ‘vav’ from the Beer Hogaleh, which in the MB version is set by an earlier and unrelated din, in fact belongs by the din we are discussing presently.

This Beer Hagoleh sends us to Tosphos in Shabbos 21b.

The plot now thickens, because Tosphos supplies us with two ideas, and whichever idea the SA is taking comes with its own questions.

Some brief background: The Gemara suggests two possibilities for the rule of ‘ad shetikla regel’; either this is the time period (sundown till people stop travelling home, about 30 minutes zmaniyos, from sundown is the specific time period when one must/can light), or, this is the time length, no matter

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when during the night one chooses to light (so, 30 minutes at some point before the morning).

Tosphos, in his first approach, says that since the Gemara does not resolve this question, should one miss the time period (30 minutes from sundown) he could still light throughout the night, relying on the possibility that the din is really about length, albeit without a beracha. This is because perhaps the din of ad shetikla is in truth a period.

The second approach in Tosphos is that of the Rema; that today we can say a beracha even after the time period. This is because, even if we take the view that this is a period and not a length, today when we light indoors the lighting is a pirsum for the household and not the street, so one has the whole night to fulfill the mitzvah, so long as members are awake at the time of lighting.

Up until this point it was only the Rama who teaches us like the second view in Tosphos. This pertains to many halachos throughout Hilchos Chanukah (e.g. we no longer require one to light by all windows facing the rabim since people know we light indoors and no will assume that we simply ignored the Mitzvah).

The Shulchan Aruch sudden ruling here allowing one to light all night could, possibly, reflect Option 1 in

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Tosphos, that perhaps ad shetichleh is just a length. However, if that were the case how could the SA imply that a beracha is also said after the 30 minutes have passed? As Tosphos already pointed out, since we do not know if this is the proper reading of the gemara one mustn’t then say a beracha.

The Magen Avraham asks this question (‘The SA should not allow a beracha, in line with Tosphos’ first approach’) but does not supply us with an answer, other than to bring from others that at least once chatzos hits the SA would agree that no beracha should be made (Maharshal).

An other approach may be that the SA is in fact taking Option 2 of Tosphos. In other words, it is because we now light indoors that we may light after the set time. However, this approach however is difficult. For one thing, if the SA holds this way why was it only the Rema –both before and after this siman –who alone makes this observation in writing?

Interestingly, in his Beis Yosef one can infer that he is agreement with the Tur, who explicitly rules like Option 2 (Rema) in Tosphos.

One may be inclined to suggest the following chiddush: the Rema, in every instance where he applies our lighting indoors today to halacha, is not

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arguing with SA rather explaining him! But this is untenable, as the Rema would then have no reason to state before this ruling of the SA that ‘today we could light after the zman since we light indoors’. For, if the SA is saying the exact same din right after, why would the Rema have to say anything here?

I now found an amazing comment by the Vilna Gaon. In his hagoas ad loc. Arguing with the Beer Hagoleh’s source, and presumably suggesting that Rav Karo had another source other than what he mentioned in his Beis Yosef (?), the Gra says that this rule of the SA –that one can bdieved light all night - is based on a Mishnah in the second perek of Sukkah!

Lets us endeavor to understand this source.

There Rav Eliezar rules –in opposition to the chachamaim –that one can make up his meal in the Sukkah on the first night of Sukkos at a later night of Yom Tov, even on Shemeni Atzeres -where we anyway do not sit in the Sukkah (with a beracha)!!

This based on the din of tashlumin. Now, how would this fit by Chanukah? Do not the chachamim give us a time frame for this mitzvah (at least that in one possibility in the gemara)?

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Many explain (Sukkah 27a) that Rav Eliezar separates the mitzvah of Sukkah and the mitzvah of a meal on the first night. A meal is what must be eaten; the fact that it is eaten in the Sukkah is simply by default.

Perhaps then what the Gra is saying here in explanation to how the SA can allow a Beracha after what may be the time period allotted for this Mitzvah is as follows:

There is a Mitzvah to light on Chanukah at night. This is unconnected to where we do so or at what time. Chazal however also gave us the time and place to perform this mitzvah. However, should one miss either there would some type of tashlumin, with a beracha. This is true even if, like the SA, we still light outdoors.

Amazingly, and with great siyatta d’shmaya, one night that I said this over in Shul a guest who is a sefardi living in Lakewood took out his Chazon Ovadia and showed that he too (page 64) says as we explained, but in the name of Rashba to Shabbos. Baruch Shekevant!!

The Rashba takes it as pashut that even if we hold that ad shetichleh is a zman period limiting our ligting to 30 minutes from sundown, bdieved one can light all night with a beracha. Contra the Be’er

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Hagoleh, this may have been the source for the din in the Shulchan Aruch, along with Gra explaining why the Rashba would holds this way.

{Rav Ya’akov Emden also seeks to explain this SA. Even if we light outdoors, the beracha of ner Chanukah is very different than other berachos, he explains. For the same reason why many do not say ‘shel’ in this berachah, the beracha is here to define the kind of candles we are lighting. As opposed to Shabbos when the light is there for our benefit and we then say that this ner (for our benefit) was done shel Shabbos, on Chanukah it is a cheftza shel mitzvah to begin with, that we mustn’t even benefit from. Meaning there is no ner other than for the mitzvah. It is not a ner that we then designate shel Chanukah, rather a permentau, ‘ner-Chanukah’. For this reason one can say the beracha outdoors even after the zman.}

Rav Dov Halperin shlita, author of Chemdah Tova (an encyclopedic work on ikarei emunah) and Chemda Genuza (on the issues of hashgacha pratis and mazalos), informed me that the Dibros Moshe was bothered by many of the same questions and also comes out that Rav Karo follows the view of the Rashba... and must have changed his mind from what he had written in his Beis Yosef.

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