d.pinner quiz on chanukah... commentary by moi... the quiz is below and the answer up here with my commentary on the mitzvah of lighting the menora during the eight nights of chanukah... the talmud discusses this debate as to the proper way to light the candles... descending from 8-1 or ascending from 1-8.... A Chanukah quiz: In the Talmud (Shabbat 21b) we find the dispute between Hillel and Shammai. According to Hillel, we light 1 candle on the 1st night of Chanukah, 2 candles on the 2nd night, 3 on the 3rd, 4 on the 4th, and so on up to 8 candles on the 8th night. According to Shammai, we light 8 candles on the 1st night, 7 on the 2nd, and so on down to 1 candle on the 8th night. So if you walk past someones house on the 1st night of Chanukah and see 1 candle alight in his window, you know he followed Hillels ruling. If you walk past his house on the 8th night and see 8 candles burning, you also know he followed Hillels ruling. If you walk past someones house on the 1st night of Chanukah and see 8 candles burning, you know he follows Shammais ruling. If you walked past his house on the 8th night and see 1 candle burning, you also know he followed Shammais ruling. Heres the question: If you walk past someones house on the 4th night of Chanukah, how can you tell if he followed Hillels or Shammais ruling? יוסף דו נואס Beit Shamai would have 5 candles on the 4th night... Moshe Parry do u know what the machloket is over...? usually we hold by beit hillel over beit shammai except for 18 places in halacha where on that day they had the majority in attendance over beit hillel for the voting on the final psakim of these various laws... also it is said that after moshiach comes we will paskan like beit shammai and no longer like beit hillel... the reason initially to favor hillel and his school over shammai and his was not just a matter of numbers and votes tallied... it was based on the fact that shammai was very demanding and pushed a stringent agenda that only tzadikim could maintain... it was felt that for this world pre-moshiach not to demand this higher level of observance of the avg everyday jew... so hillels more lenient approach almost always carried the day and won out... however if u look at their positions (shitot)(not what some of u may think)... a shita is a position taken or a stand made in halacha... in torah law... anyway... if u look at their positions on chanukah we see just the opposite... shammai taking a more lenient approach than hillel... there are only i believe 6 examples of this in talmud this being one of the 6... shammais reasoning for going 8-1 in lighting is due to the avg jew being more excited for the holiday on the first night after a whole yr of it not being chanukah... so understandably that excitement wanes over the next week... so better to express that joy and enthusiasm with a big bang for your buck on the first nite and then as the excitement wore out diminish the number of lights on the subsequent evenings... hillel however demands we become more like tzadikim this time of yr bec of the great level of courage and self-sacrifice it took the chashmanoiim (the macabees) to rise up in revolt and fight against the entire greek empire... and so hillel held that for jews to fulfill the mitzvah of lighting the menora properly they should rise to the occasion and summon extra strength of character to maintain our heightened spirituality from start to finish and even grow in excitement with every additional night by increasing light each night in our performance of this mitzvah and live like tzadikim do all yr long by every other mitzvah which we do not always emulate them in... so this time of yr hillel and shammai reverse roles and hillel makes the push and the demand for all jews to be like and act like tzadikim and this indeed is how we rule halachically... requiring all jews to light mehadrin min hamehadrin and increase light from 1 to 8 over the eight nites of chanukah...
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 02:01:48 +0000
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