Chanukah: Lighting the Candles - Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

putting in the candles right so on the first night of chanukah which emits a sham is going to be on Sunday night it's not very complicated because there's really just the one candle to put in plus e shemesh that you're going to use however there's a whole order involved in preparing and lighting the candles when it comes to the next night the shamash is the one that you're going to use right the one that go the one that goes what it normally is either higher or lower or on a different level anyway from the from the other ones that are there but there is an order involved in preparing and lighting the candles and it goes it goes like this that when you come to prepare the candles you prepare the camera from the old candle first which means on the first night you're going to put the candle on the most right hand side of your menorah the second night you'll prepare by putting the candle on the most right hand side first and then putting in preparing the candle for the new night right next next space along and but when you come to light them you're going to light them the other way around which means you're going to light the new candle first and the second and let the old candle last so you prepare or you prepare right to left and you light left to right okay that's a good way of describing it yeah these two look so much first you have to write the show you place the show us first then the next so let's say it's not three you've gone into me nor you put the Shah machine right yes you shall hear your you've got you've got your menorah sitting in front of you yeah right with your rubbish you said that yesterday as well the you've got your sham instead salish Amish is sitting up on the top and the 88 Campbell the eight receptacles are sitting on the front right now let's say it's the fourth night right so what do you do you've now prepared all of you you've prepared your character it doesn't matter it's preparing the shun ish doesn't make any difference right that's not part of all of this little thing over here you just need to have a shaman to use I don't feel that first you can feel that first you can fill it last it does make any difference but the important thing over here is that when you come to fill up if you're using oil so you come to fill up the receptacle all for the first night first and then the second night and then the third night and then the fourth night right I'm using candles you do it exactly the same way right so the first night second night for the night falls night when you come to light you're going to light your shalosh first because that's what that's what you're going to need in order to be able to light the candles with and then you're going to light the newest candle for that night is going to be lit first right so we're going to go four three two one the challenge is a candle that you're gone yeah like the candle that you're going to use in order to light the other ones with so again right I think your description is a simplest way of doing this you prepare it right to left and you light from left to right right so get to the eighth night you've got a wall there in front of you you're going to prepare them from right to left but you're going to light them from eight from the eighth like eight candle first and then going back down the line what is a chat why are you doing that because that there's a concept in the halacha called a deer the show a noted here is something is more consistent so too dear column we do that we do the more consistent thing first tad here the anal Teddy R share anal Teddy R tad ear khodam okay now which means like this what are you saying today with sherell today you've got something you do more often and something you do less often the thing that you do more often gets done first and that's classic first why you do mean hurt like yeah classic example right is when somebody puts on a talat when you doubt if you daven with the talat in the morning and with your tefillin what do you put on first you put on the tell it first like why is that because I talent you where seven days a week to fill in you only wear six days a week right so you've got exactly tadiran the sharing what idea this one is more often than that one therefore the one that takes precedence is a on that you do more often the idea really is very simple right on the first night you prepare the first candle on the second night you already prepared the first candle once the night before therefore today / shetty not idea you should prepare the first candle first and then the new candle second right on the fourth night you prepare all the candles it's already prepared before and then the fourth one on the eighth night exactly the same however this is today vishay not idea is not going to count for making the brother why not because when you come to make the broth on the fourth night what are you making the bracha over the newest candle because the new his candle represents that night of lighting the menorah here you know what's going on over here if you remember those of you there at the beginning of all of this if you remember you can really fulfill your obligation to light the Chanukah lights by lighting one candle every night right we're very careful and we we we do it the way that we do it so one two three four five six seven eight but in reality you could really just like one and you're done right so which one are you lighting then you the new one right the one that represents the newest day and that's the one that you're going to make the broth and then you're going to light the candles yeah so if you were any night 1tg technically move that one along the menorah I don't think it makes any difference or was it was it like lighting the same one I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever there there is no obligation to light with a menorah that the menorah is just like a like a very convenient way of lighting but if you want to like you know people like with all kinds of different things I told you like my son's in yeshiva said that their friends used to like using shot glasses as you coach what what is what is a kosher menorah right kosher menorah means that everything's got to be on the same level and it should be straight right so for example you can't have around menorah even if they're all on the same level and you can't have a menorah where some of the candles are higher and some of the candles are lower even even if they're on the same right even if it's sort of in a straight line right all these artistic menorah see be careful even on the mill oh yeah yeah be careful which means even if it's a fancy shape but it's all in one line I've seen you know interesting very interesting menorahs where you can they're a little bit flexible you know you can play around with me so that that would be okay right the problem would be to turn it if it's flexible enough to turn it into a circle right what's the problem because once you turned it into a circle you can't identify lights anymore right here the problem I've got I've got eight lights lit on the last night of chanukah but it's a circle which means i can really only see three or four of those lights because the others are being hidden by the lights that are already there it makes it a problem part of the part of the Indian of lighting the kanaka lights it's clear what night of chanukah it is so what makes a kosher menorah is simply that it should all be on the same level and it should not it should not be in a shape which makes it difficult to identify how many candles are in there that's why you can see okay you can see all kinds of beautiful menorahs all over the place right that I don't that they're perfectly they're perfectly okay they're one hundred percent okay it just look different there you know not not your standard not your standard shapes right which means that that but there is no need to use a menorah it could be i don't know needs to be looked into it could be that maybe you know we spoke once about the idea of beautifying meters right so it could be that using a menorah a proper menara maybe that's a dimension of beautifying the mitzvah and doing it in a better way than just taking you know eight empty vodka bottles and and filling or 8 for 19 and or taking eight Israeli donuts and putting a wick in each one and just lighting them and watch them sterlite for the whole eight days of clinician either do you know that that's so maybe there is a tab maybe there is an idea of a beautifying the Mitzvah by using a menorah if you have a menorah made out of silver so again if that's one of the ways of beautifying the midst of for sure yeah but there is no Mitzvah per se that you have to use a menorah which means you could take candles and you could just melt them down onto the top right onto onto whatever it is that you're using like maybe maybe someone have disposable pan or something and you can just melt them down onto there and let them stick on that right you fulfilled your obligation of lighting Chanukah light so if a person is stuck and they only have one candle and they're each night they're going to light only one candle because all together they've only got eight candles right then does it make any difference which which receptacle you put it into I don't think it does maybe for yourself maybe it would be a nice idea to put it into that night you know that night receptacle but I don't think there's any holic dimension behind it whatsoever sorry that's what we're doing right so we're going to prepare them from the old candle first and we're going to light them from the new candle going block going back down into the old ones right when you've made your brother's right yesterday we spoke about the brothels right when you made your brothers so there's a prayer which is recited after is called inaros hallelu after you've a after you've made the brokers then you're supposed to start lighting the candles right because again once you've made the brothels you need to light the candles immediately there is a prayer which is recited now according to some people the prayer is recited after you finish lighting the candles according to others it's recited as your lighting the candles after you've lit the first one the first one is going to be one of fulfilled your obligation and then you start reciting this prayer which is really it's very beautiful it says an arrow selalu an acne mud leak in like we're lighting these candles alaniz in the L&D flawed because of the miracles and the wonders valid shewhart on the salvations valley milk amat and the battles share a seat at Levante no bmma in bozeman Isaiah and that garage bar who went to war for the Jewish people for our forefathers in those days buzz manas there now interestingly enough over here in the translation rabbi scroll has written but man is it at this season but like we spoke about when we spoke about the bracha that's not really the inference of the Brock is something much deeper than that which is buzz manners there it's not we're not commemorating something because it happened thousands of years ago but it's got a direct impact lines today as well but man as they in these days as well I lead a coronet a Kadosh in that was it was done at by the Kohanim they were the ones that went to war the priests they went to war for homeowners to make an oaken aerosol elukoi dashain and for all eight days of Hanukkah these these candles are holy and the aalonna rashad leashed Amish man we're not a lot of user right that's the whole idea of having the shemesh we spoke about it yeah that we're not as we're not we're not allowed to get any benefit whatsoever from the Chanukah candles it's a completely spiritual dimension Ella Lee Roth humble van just to look at them we can look at the cameras we can look at that we can look at the beauty of the of the of the light that they give and the glow of the flame but that's that's all we can do why cadela halal elysium cargador and the circle on the floor tech on shore take in order to be able to praise God for everything that he did for us some people sing it some people don't sing it again I don't know what what you're used to what you're not used to what's going to be wherever you go whatever it is it's a very beautiful prayer and it's a prayer which is recited with together with the lighting of the candles there's also accustomed to seeing a song called mouth sore and miles tour is a little bit more a little bit more famous perhaps on henares Alalu it's a very beautiful very beautiful song if you have the opportunity it's worthwhile looking at the footnotes inside of the artscroll sitter to see what's being spoken about each stanza is talking about a different time in Jewish history the lot the last verse of miles tour is considered by most people to have been added in later on which is the original the original one was written by somebody called mortified we don't know which modified is right i don't know i don't think it's Mordecai the famous modified from the story of Purim but whatever somebody called Mordechai because he put his input it you know each verse the first letter of each verse spell it's ma'am raged Aled cough you'd which was out mortifying however the last verse over here Castle Rock Co chair it's considered to have been added in later on it's got a slight as you know anything you know if you've got a literary side to you a poetic side to you if you would know someone who has a poetic side to them and you know they're familiar with the Hebrew language you're able to pick up you know nuances in the last verse which tend to indicate that it wasn't written by the same person and the custom is to sing that now again what happens is like this a lot of places for example in my home what do we do we light the candles before we go to daven maariv so we normally like the candles make the brokers seeing an aerosol a low go to like the Goddard of marriage because with everything married almost straight away after we've lit the candles and then we come back and we sit down and we see miles saw and you know we talked about Chanukah some people have the custom to recite there's a prayer one at one of the chapters to heal him called ms more sheer can encounter by to divert we say at the beginning of dabbling in the morning and it actually it is actually the psalm of the day for the whole of can occur right each morning instead of reciting the regular some of the day we're going to recite these more sheer panel castle by a third of it and it's over here right it's some number 30 nismo sheer panic at about a dozen of course it's really referring to the original candle cut a bite of the first temple and the second temple and emits a shame it will be recited at the kind of cat abided inauguration of the third temple as well which would be built very speedily mitesh enemy chef should come and and in the insertion will be able to recite it in the meantime we're going to recite it each morning as a shame except for Shabbat Chanukah Shabbat it's a shame we're gonna have to talk about that tomorrow that's a tourniquet and very rare occurrence because Chanukah and shabbat and rosh chodesh all going to coincide with each other