Operationalizing Pesak, part v: Some Historical Background to YU Chanukkah Lighting, and Back-and-Forth Discussion / Analysis

In some recent posts (about operationalizing pesak, and using the halachic query as a point of comparison with ChatGPT), I’ve been discussing Chanukkah lighting at Stern, as well as at YC.

A friend sent me this historical background about the YU policy.

When I was a student at YC ('86-'88), we still lit in our individual dorm rooms; most people placed their menora on their plastic desk chair alongside the door (Dina D'Gemara?), while others placed it on their windowsill. Between my first and second year, YU installed carpets in the hallways of Rubin Hall. One Saturday night during Chanuka, a student went out of his room to buy pizza. He looked down the hall and saw that the new carpet was on fire. He got a fire extinguisher and miraculously was able to put out the fire. It turns out that the menora had burned through the plastic chair, fell to the ground, and set the carpet on fire. The owner of that menora had been in the room the whole time, unaware of the fire, and only when green powder (from the fire extinguisher) went under his door - and he thought someone was playing a prank - did he open his door to see what was going on. After that, YU started to insist on lighting only on the major areas - either in the lobby or cafeteria, which were supervised by security.

[…]

I remember one student, who was somewhat of a kanai, removed the fire extinguisher from the clear glass / metal boxes on the dorm wall, and placed his lit menora inside. He or someone else affixed a sign that said "Minhag Yerushalayim" (where they also use glass / metal boxes). The security guard patrolling the halls for violators saw it and did not know what to do, and summoned a whole team of security personnel to investigate. His menora certainly achieved the objective of "pirsum", although probably not in the way the Halakha intended.

I’d add that part of this background is also presumably Rav Schachter’s seeming position that lighting in the way the university policy recommends is not effective. That could lead the kannai to act.

In a thirty minute shiur from the end of November 2012, much later, Where to light Neiros Chanukah in the dorm- A full discussion, Rav Schachter discusses the halachics of it at length. He says the YU policy was actually the result of one of his students, a real character back then and even a real character today. That student lit in the hallway on the floor (that is, story / level) of his dorm room and caused a fire. No one was injured but it burned some curtains. Thereupon they adopted the policy. This seems like it was a student who lit on a plastic chair outside his door in the hallway.

The shiur is worthwhile to listen to. It is not just a lecture, but a discussion, where students who actually live in these dorms raise halachic points. For instance:

1. How about using electric incandescent lights, given that this would address safety concerns and there are shitot that halachically valid?
   
   Yes, in terms of the filament being heated metal and that is considered burning (see sources). But according to position X, Chanukkah lamps need to be like oil lamps or candles, that they draw upon a finite resource.
   
   So let is be battery powered, and thus drawing upon the finite resource.
   
   Reason why he thinks that would not be a valid equivalent.
   

2. How about a lounge being used in semi-private manner by students gathering to watch TV? Does that make it into a chatzer.
   
   No, because back when didn’t have TV except in Rubin, people from other dorms would come and watch there. Do other students utilize the lounge in this manner?
   
   And questions about people on the floor using it to eat, etc.
   
   Also interesting how Rav Schachter says “I don’t know that X” as a gentle way of saying that no, he does not think the halachic reasoning is correct.

This back and forth and discussion of unique realities (in this case by students themselves halachically educated and who can then consider what real-world features might impact the pesak) reinforces the point I made my earlier post ii in the series, about the deficiencies of psak out of a box, where it doesn’t know the salient facts. (But stay tuned for a post about o1 reasoning with a prompt to probe for these salient facts.)

Listen to the whole shiur, but especially the last few minutes. The end conclusion is that, within the university guidelines, there is not a way to light halachically valid menorah. Therefore, students who can go home to their parents home should do so and commute. What about the others who are from out of town? He didn’t say explicitly, but essentially, the sense you get they were out of luck.