daf bit: Chanukah

[cellio]

Today's daf is Zevachim 22, but in honor of the season I am drawing from the passage in tractate Shabbat that describes Chanukah. (Everything the talmud has to say about Chanukah is covered in about three pages in this tractate, by the way.)

The rabbis call for the Chanukah lights to be lit just outside one's front door (not inside). This can raise problems of liability. We learned elsewhere: if a camel laden with flax spills its load into a shop, catching the shop-keeper's light and starting a fire, the camel-driver is liable, but if the shop-keeper put the light outside his shop, the shop-keeper is liable for the loss of the flax. What about the Chanukah lights? Rabbi Yehudah says the shop-keeper is exempt. The rabbis go on to conclude that this means the Chanukah lights must be placed within ten hand-breadths of the ground, not high up, because if placing them high up were acceptable, the camel-driver would have recourse to claim that the shop-keeper should be liable. Why do we not just require that the lights be high (out of camel-range)? Because if it is too much trouble, he might refrain from the mitzvah of the Chanukah lights. (21b)

Comments

[frrom.livejournal.com]

Problem solved in modern times by the use of incandescent or LED lights. :)

[cellio]

Problem solved in modern times in Israel by using glass shields to keep the wind from blowing the candles out. (I've never seen that here.)

You may or may not be surprised to know that there is modern responsa liturgy (halachic rulings, basically) about use of electric lights for this purpose. :-)

[frrom.livejournal.com]

Definitely not. Heh.