Operationalizing Pesak, part iii: How I would rule about Chanukkah lights

This is all part of a pragmatic digression about ChatGPT and the question of the optimal lighting for a college student who is only permitted to light in the dormitory lobby.

In my previous post, I mentioned that a major requirement of pesak is knowing the particulars of the person and situation, because what seems like an insignificant detail can actually change the pesak entirely. I went through seven aspects which were not provided, that could change the pesak.

Here, having reviewed the details and some of the halachot, and have listened to a shiur by Rav Herschel Schachter on almost exactly this question. I will detail how I would pasken. The question as posed was this:

Q: I can't light chanukah candles in my apartment as it is against the school rules. Is it halachically better if i light chanukah candles in my lobby, go against school rules and light in my apartment, or pay my father to have me in mind at my house?

I would flesh out the details a little bit, and turn it into this question. I am putting it quotes, but am writing it myself.

Q: I am a female Jewish college student at Stern College for Women, a Jewish college located in Midtown Manhattan. I am an Ashkenazi and follow Ashkenazic posekim.

At college, all my fellow students are lighting Chanukkah candles, and this is part of the social and spiritual experience at Stern. At the same time, there is an issue. I have been taught that we are supposed to light in our homes, which would presumably be my dorm room.

However, YU has a policy forbidding this, for safety concerns, and instead instructs us to light in the lobby, either in the dorm lobby, or the lobby of one of the school buildings which houses the cafeteria. My understanding is that this is halachically unsound or at least not optimal.

My parents live in commuting distance to school, in Queens, so it is about 1.5 hours by public transportation to go back and forth. I go home fairly often for Shabbat, including Shabbat Chanukkah, but am living in the dorms. I am financially dependent on my parents, and I am not married.

Another aspect which might be important is that these two weeks are finals, so I would not be so happy commuting every night to sleep at home. That might impact my exam grades, which could impact my future in a permanent way.

What should I do? Should I violate the school’s policy and light in my dorm room? Should I follow the policy and light in the lobby? Can I ask my father to have me in mind as he lights his own menorah, and give him money to join in the mitzvah?

Here is how I would answer this halachic query.

It is unfortunate that YU does not allow the optimal practice, of lighting in your room. Indeed, the gemara discusses where to light, and there’s a dispute between Rashi / Tosafot whether this is at the entrance to the house or the courtyard, which for you would be the dorm room or the hallway. So this is where you should really be lighting.

Indeed, the practice at YU used to be to light in the dorm rooms or hallways. However, several years ago (and it was several years ago when Rav Schachter mentioned it in 2012), at the Wilf campus, a “character” who was in Rav Schachter’s shiur lit in the hallway and caused a final. No one was injured, but it did burn some curtains. From then on, they adopted a policy forbidding lighting in the dorms, and it had to be done in a central designated place that was monitored.

This seems halachically problematic because, depending on usage, it does not seem like these places have the status of chatzer. No one has semi-private usage of it as one would in a courtyard, for instance by going there and hanging out in their pajamas.

Similarly, lighting in the cafeteria is problematic. Even though the gemara considers two possibilities for establishing one’s “house”, either via sleeping or eating, if there are two places, one for eating and one for sleeping, the one with the more private usage, namely that for sleeping, is considered the house.

Even so, I would not recommend violating university policy and lighting in your dorm room. There is a real concern of a fire hazard, which puts your life and the lives of everyone else in the dorm in considerable danger. And here is where we need to worry about public policy, not just the individual. Even if you think that you are going to be careful, and stay in the room and monitor the candles while they burn, I don’t know if you are really that responsible. And even if you personally are responsible, carry this over to hundreds of college-aged young adults, and I’d bet that there will be a few “characters” who are not so responsible. Allow it for one, and even personally have one person violate it, and everyone, including the irresponsible, will find fit to violate it. There is a real concern for pikuach nefesh. (By analogy, Chanukkah lighting used to be done outside, for pirsumei nisa, and because of danger, it was moved indoors. )

From listening to Rav Schachter’s attitude, he felt that lighting in the lobby does not really count at all. So if you are deeply concerned about fulfilling the mitzvah, it doesn’t sound like that would be effective. Indeed, maybe you should not even recite the brachot while lighting, or should hear someone else light first.

What about your father lighting? Well, this turns into a neir ish uveiso issue. Is your family home in Queens for these purposes? Or is your dorm room your home? Rav Schachter mentioned that the boys should ideally go home each night and sleep, and light there at home, instead of the dorms. Then, it is their home. Here, if you are going home to Queens on Shabbat, that might be your home for those days, but not during the week. So maybe you should just go home every night.

Here is where your Ashkenazic identity comes into play. Chacham Ovadia Yosef said that Sefardic yeshiva students in Israel did not need to light, since there home in America (!) was their home, and their parents were lighting. It was, after all, neir ish uveito, and their bayit was in America.

Rav Herschel Schachter strongly disagrees, and feels this is an error. How can a home in America be these students’ home? They should have to light there for themselves, in Israel. Since you are Ashkenazi, I don’t think you can follow Rav Ovadia Yosef’s pesak.

Therefore, your father cannot light on your behalf, with you as a member of his household, unless you were going home. Money isn’t required to partake in this.

Giving money is for an achsenai, a guest at someone’s home, who is eating / sleeping there. They could light themselves, or else they could give money to join in the host’s lighting. But here, you are not physically present, so that would not work. I don’t think you can appoint an agent to light in a place which is not your bayit and fulfill.

Here is where your Ashkenazi female identity comes into play. Ashkenazi women generally do not light. At home, they rely on their father’s lighting. When married, they rely on their husband’s lighting. Even though the gemara states that women are equally obligated, because they too were involved in the miracle, they are part of the bayit. It seems that typical Ashkenazi practice is that even an unmarried college woman living alone. Acharonim grapple with this practice that seems against the gemara, suggesting for instance that since lighting was outside, there was danger, so they didn’t, and the practice crystalized and has binding halachic force.

Meanwhile, Sefardic women I think would be required to light. But I am not a Sefardi posek, and I haven’t looked deeply into it. However, being Sefardi would also means that you could follow Chacham Ovadia’s pesak!

Given the halachic status described above about Ashkenazi women — if you don’t want to go home every night, because it is a real bother; because you are worried about finals; or because you want to participate in spiritual life in your religious college — then it should be entirely fine for you to light in the lobby, perhaps without a bracha.