Visitors to Jerusalem typically react with equal measures of frustration and endearment at its unique charms and idiosyncrasies. One local custom which pertains specifically to Chanukah relates to the time of lighting; while the majority of the Jewish world lights Chanuka candles at nightfall, many Jerusalemites follow the position of the Gra and therefore start lighting immediately at sunset – approximately half an hour earlier.
As I show in my new Talmud Reclaimed, what might at first glance be regarded as a minor dispute in fact embodies two different legal philosophies and methodologies which separated leading medieval Jewish Halachists.
The Talmud (Shabbat 21b) states that the time for lighting is from sunset until the time that people have left the marketplace. Rif and Rambam take the duration of this window of fulfilment of the commandment to be approximately half an hour. Once this time has elapsed, the Talmud tells us, there is no longer an obligation to light (and, as a corollary, any blessing over the lights after this time may be biblically prohibited as a berachah levatalah,a blessing in vain).
Rambam records this Talmudic conclusion into his laws of Chanukah (4:5):
Should one forget, or even if one purposely did not light at sunset, one may light afterwards until there are no longer any passers-by in the marketplace. How long a duration of time is this? Approximately half an hour or slightly more than that. Should this time pass, one should not kindle the lights.
Tosafot however, take a very different approach to this law, assessing how it should apply within the context of the realities of post-Talmudic Jewish life. Since the Jewish people went into exile following the destruction of the Second Temple, the commandment of Chanukah lights has largely been performed indoors for the benefit of the members of the household. Accordingly, Tosafot understand, there is no longer any reason to limit the time of lighting to when passers-by can see them.
Rambam’s strict methodology of recording simple Talmudic conclusions does not permit him to make this innovative alteration to the Talmudic rule, even if he thought it logical to do so. Like Rif before him, Rambam interprets the Talmud’s phrase “until there are no longer passers-by in the marketplace” to represent a specific measure of time after sunset rather than making the time span for fulfilling the commandment practically dependent on the actual presence of passers-by by to witness the lights. In this he is supported by the use of the identical phrase elsewhere in the Talmud (Menachot 36a), regarding the law of wearing tefillin after sunset – a commandment which is wholly unconnected to the publicising of a miracle to passers-by. The Talmud’s specification that the commandment must be fulfilled during the half-hour following sunset may instead be explained as requiring a time that is dark enough for the lights to be noticed, but not so dark that they can be mistaken for regular night-time lights (see Yerei’im and Maharam MiRottenberg).
Talmud Reclaimed argues that the vast contrast in the methodologies and legal philosophy of these schools of medieval scholars is the primary cause of varying halachic practices between Ashkenazim and Sephardim to this very day.
Ironically however when it comes to Chanuka lighting times in Jerusalem, it is the Ashkenaz communities who are most likely to adopt the stricter Talmudic reading of Rambam and Rif to light at the earlier time, while Sephardim follow the more flexible Tosafist approach. This is because Jerusalem custom is in line with the Gra (who was often more Maimonidean in his halachic methodology), while the majority of Sephardim follow the Shulchan Aruch’s ruling which embraces a later time for lighting.
For more information about Talmud Reclaimed: An Ancient Text in the Modern Era visit www.TalmudReclaimed.com.
First posted on Facebook 10 December 2023, here.
