Hiddur Mitzvah in the Hanukkah Candle and in General (Column 528)

This column is drawn from remarks I made in today’s class in honor of Hanukkah. I discussed several notes about the rule of hiddur (beautifying a mitzvah) in the Hanukkah candle and about hiddur in general (some of these points appear in my article here).

The timing of the enactment to light the candle

In Shabbat 21b we find a dispute regarding the level of “mehadrin min hamehadrin” (the most enhanced practice):

Our Sages taught: The mitzvah of Hanukkah is a candle for a person and his household. Those who are meticulous (mehadrin) light a candle for each and every person. And those who are the most meticulous (mehadrin min hamehadrin): Beit Shammai say, on the first day one lights eight and thereafter decreases; and Beit Hillel say, on the first day one lights one and thereafter increases.

There are three levels of lighting: the basic law—one candle per household; mehadrin—one candle for each person; and mehadrin min hamehadrin—a dispute whether to decrease or increase. The obvious question is: how did this dispute arise? What did the father of Beit Hillel or of Beit Shammai do? We are talking about a hundred to a hundred and fifty years after the Hasmonean victory; the tradition practiced in every home should have been clear.

We do find a similar dispute about tefillin between Rashi and his grandson Rabbeinu Tam. There too the question arose: what did Rabbeinu Tam’s grandfather do (and in that case we know quite well)? But there it is not a difficulty at all, since it is clearly about two different interpretations of the Torah’s command of tefillin. It is not a factual dispute about some enactment, but a dispute over the meaning of a Torah mitzvah. Indeed, tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam were found in the excavations at Masada, showing this is an ancient interpretive dispute. But even if it were not ancient, there is no problem for Rabbeinu Tam to disagree with all earlier generations and state that, in his view, the mitzvah of tefillin should be done thus and not as was customary. Custom has no standing when one has a clear argument regarding the law. Only when the halakhah is uncertain in my hands should I follow custom.

If we return to candle lighting, the dispute there revolves around the enactment of the Hasmonean court. Here it is a purely factual question: what did they enact—decreasing or increasing? How could a dispute arise about this? When there is a specific enactment, it is not like a Torah law (such as tefillin). There it is not reasonable that Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel would decide to change what was enacted based on reasoning, for the point is: this is what they enacted. So how did this dispute arise?

It therefore seems that Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai were not disagreeing about some earlier enactment; rather, they themselves came and enacted the rule of mehadrin min hamehadrin, and they disagreed, in real time, how to enact it: increase or decrease. In fact, the Gemara there immediately continues and explicitly brings their underlying rationales:

Ulla said: Two Amoraim in the West (Eretz Yisrael), R. Yosi bar Avin and R. Yosi bar Zebida, disagreed about this. One said: The reason of Beit Shammai is corresponding to the incoming days, and the reason of Beit Hillel is corresponding to the outgoing days. And one said: The reason of Beit Shammai is corresponding to the bulls of the festival (of Sukkot), and the reason of Beit Hillel is that we ascend in holiness and do not descend. Rabbah bar bar Ḥana said in the name of R. Yoḥanan: There were two elders in Tzidon—one acted like Beit Shammai and one like Beit Hillel. The one gave a reason corresponding to the bulls of the festival; the other gave a reason that we ascend in holiness and do not descend.

We see that the dispute concerns what is proper, not what actually was. It is a normative dispute, not a factual one. If it were an earlier enactment, I would not care about the arguments—whether the enactment was ideal or not. What was enacted is binding.

There is room to discuss whether the very lighting of the candle was a later enactment in the time of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, or whether this is said only regarding the level of mehadrin min hamehadrin about which they disagreed. In the Gemara’s wording (Shabbat 21b) we find:

“What is Hanukkah?” As our Sages taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislev are the days of Hanukkah—eight of them—on which eulogies and fasting are prohibited. For when the Greeks entered the Temple they defiled all the oil there; and when the Hasmonean monarchy was victorious and defeated them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil sealed with the High Priest’s seal, and it contained sufficient for only one day. A miracle occurred and they lit from it for eight days. The following year they established these days as a festival with Hallel and thanksgiving.

Here we see that the enactment of Hallel and thanksgiving was “the following year,” i.e., after the time of the victory. Granted, that could be the very next year and not necessarily in the time of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, but note that lighting the candle is not mentioned at all—only Hallel and thanksgiving. If so, Hallel and thanksgiving were enacted “the following year,” but lighting the candle—who mentioned that? It likely came much later. Indeed, scholars have noted that the miracle of the cruse of oil and its centrality in prayer and Talmud are late. In earlier texts it has little place; the focus was the military victory and liberation from national, cultural, and religious subjugation.[1] Some link this to exile: the Talmud, composed in exile, emphasized spirit (the pure cruse) over military victory. Perhaps.[2]

If we look at Maimonides (Rambam), Laws of Hanukkah 3:1–3, a revealing picture emerges:

1. In the Second Temple period, when the Greeks reigned, they issued decrees against Israel and nullified their religion, not allowing them to engage in Torah and mitzvot. They reached out their hands against their property and daughters, entered the Temple, breached its walls, and defiled the pure things. Israel suffered greatly from them, until the God of our fathers had mercy upon them and saved them, and the Hasmoneans, the High Priests, prevailed and killed them, and saved Israel from them. They established a king from among the priests, and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years until the Second Destruction.

2. When Israel grew strong against their enemies and destroyed them, it was on the twenty-fifth of Kislev. They entered the Temple and found only one pure cruse of oil in the Temple, sufficient to light for only one day, and they lit from it the lamps of the arrangement for eight days, until they pressed olives and produced pure oil.

3. Because of this, the Sages of that generation enacted that these eight days, beginning from the evening of the twenty-fifth of Kislev, be days of rejoicing and Hallel. And candles are lit at the entrances of the houses every night of the eight nights to publicize the miracle. And these days are called Hanukkah, and eulogies and fasting are prohibited, like on Purim. And the lighting of the candles in them is a rabbinic commandment, like the reading of the Megillah.

In his language, especially in 3:3, several points need clarification. After describing the miracles in the first two laws, he brings the halakhic enactments. At first he writes that the Sages of that generation enacted days of rejoicing and Hallel, “and we light candles in the evenings at the entrances of houses”—this appears not to be part of the original enactment. It dealt only with rejoicing and Hallel, and later lighting candles was added, and perhaps also the prohibition of eulogies and fasting. At the end of 3:3 he reiterates that “the lighting of the candles is a rabbinic commandment, like the reading of the Megillah.” What about rejoicing and Hallel—are these not rabbinic? Why does he repeat the list of enactments, and only partially, emphasizing only the candle lighting? He should have written that they enacted days of rejoicing and Hallel, candle lighting, and a ban on eulogies and fasting—and that all of these are rabbinic. But he splits it, and only reiterates the candle lighting.

If we add this to the precision of his wording at the beginning of the law, a picture emerges: the Sages of that generation enacted only Hallel and rejoicing. Later, candle lighting was added, and he wishes to stress that candle lighting, too, is rabbinic law like Megillah reading. It is not merely a nice custom added in a later period, but a new halakhic tier added to Hanukkah’s laws; now all of it is rabbinic halakhah. Accordingly, Rambam’s language implies that candle lighting was a later addition (he does not here distinguish between the basic law and the hiddur), likely meaning the time of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. It may be that before their period, people lit candles as a fine custom, and in their time it was incorporated into the halakhic system as a rabbinic enactment.[3]

The reason and nature of hiddur on Hanukkah

All this raises the question: why did the Sages go to the effort of setting out special paths of hiddur for the Hanukkah candle? Why wasn’t the earlier enactment enough? Why such focus on the details of hiddur? They could have left it to the Torah’s general rule of beautifying mitzvot derived from “This is my God and I will beautify Him” (see Shabbat 133b and elsewhere), which obligates us to perform mitzvot in a beautiful, enhanced manner. Even then we would have to light with a decorated menorah (as with sukkah), with fine oil, in a fine quantity, and the like. Yet here they added details that naturally prompted interpretations and disputes, and invoked curious rationales like the bulls of the festival—all seemingly just because they wished to add something beyond the earlier enactment. What was wrong with what their predecessors enacted?

Add to this two further difficulties brought by Rabbi Yagel in his book Netivot Yehoshua, vol. 1, “Kuntres HaMo’adim,” §12. The Pnei Yehoshua on Shabbat there asks:

“Seemingly one should wonder: what was the point of that miraculous effort? For we hold that ritual impurity is permitted for the public (or at least overridden), so they could have lit with impure oil. According to the opinion that impurity is merely overridden in the public [Pesachim 79a] it is somewhat understandable here, unlike the opinion that it is permitted, where we do not even seek alternatives, as in Yoma 6b—so the question is very difficult.”

He asks: why did we need a miracle, given that impurity is permitted (or at least overridden) in communal settings?

A further difficulty he brings from the Brisker Rav (R. Chaim Soloveitchik) on Rambam, Laws of Hanukkah 4:1. Today, a person lights 36 candles (not counting shamashim) over Hanukkah—instead of the 8 candles required by the basic law. That is 4.5 times the requirement. If one does this for each member of the household, it is even more. But in Bava Kamma 9b we find that hiddur mitzvah extends only up to a third (in cost) of the mitzvah. If so, the hiddur in Hanukkah candles seems to run against the regular rule of hiddur.

The conclusion is that Hanukkah has a special rule of hiddur, not the general “This is my God and I will beautify Him.” The explanation: although we could have lit the menorah with impure oil, the miracle of the cruse enabled us to light with hiddur (i.e., with pure oil). In remembrance of that miracle, the Sages enacted a special hiddur in the Hanukkah candle, beyond the general hiddur derived from “This is my God and I will beautify Him.” Thus there are two kinds of hiddur on Hanukkah: hiddur in olive oil, in the amount of oil, and in the beauty of the menorah—these are the general hiddurim and follow the usual bounds; and the hiddur addressed by the baraita above—an enactment of a special hiddur for the Hanukkah candle—which does not follow the usual halakhic standards of hiddur. This neatly resolves the difficulties of the Pnei Yehoshua and the Brisker Rav.

Accordingly, it is doubtful how much we can learn from the general law of hiddur to the Hanukkah candle’s hiddur, and vice versa. For example, the discussion whether hiddur mitzvah applies after the mitzvah has already been fulfilled. The Brisker Rav there tried to understand this based on the general laws of hiddur, but according to our approach it is not clear that this is possible. It may be that the Hanukkah candle has a special hiddur rule unrelated to “This is my God and I will beautify Him.” The hiddurim of oil and menorah design belong to the general hiddur; but not the hiddur in the manner of lighting we discussed here.

Is the hiddur in Hanukkah candles obligatory? A normative paradox

Seemingly, there are three levels of Hanukkah lighting, and only the first is obligatory. The other two are optional hiddur, dependent on our will. Yet it seems more like an outright obligation; go and see—Israel has always lit, and lights today, at the level of mehadrin min hamehadrin. They do not treat it as voluntary. How does that square with calling this level hiddur mitzvah? The baraita itself states one fulfills the basic obligation with “a candle for a person and his household.”

It appears we face a logical problem, akin to “You shall be holy” (see Column 499; and Yishlach Shoreshav in the article on Root Four, and more). In Root Four, Rambam explains that “You shall be holy” is not counted as a commandment because it encompasses the entire Torah: it is merely a reiteration of the demand to keep all mitzvot, not an independent content-bearing command. Such mitzvot are not counted. Nahmanides (Ramban), in his critical notes there, disagrees and explains why the Ba’al HaHalakhot Gedolot did count it. Yet even he does not adopt his well-known interpretation at the beginning of Parashat Kedoshim, where he explains “You shall be holy” as a demand to go beyond the letter of the law and not be a “scoundrel with the permission of the Torah.” Moreover, if you check Ramban’s additions to Rambam’s positive commandments, you will not find “You shall be holy.” Why does Ramban refuse to recognize this verse as a counted mitzvah?

The answer: if he were to count this as a mitzvah, a paradox would arise—we would have a command to act beyond the letter of the law (lifnim mishurat hadin). But if it is a command, then acting accordingly is the letter of the law, not beyond it. Thus, even if the Torah expects us to act thus, it cannot define it as a command; it must remain a demand to go beyond the letter of the law. I once termed this “the scoundrel paradox.” The upshot: the demand to go beyond the letter of the law and not be a “scoundrel within the bounds of the Torah” is fully binding, but it cannot be entered into the catalog of commandments; it remains outside. We are meant to understand on our own that this is a firm demand, though extra-legal, and act accordingly.

So too with Hanukkah candles. The normative paradox exists there as well. The Sages wanted to obligate us to enhance the Hanukkah candle, in remembrance of the enhancement enabled by the miracle. But they were caught in a logical bind: if they define it as an obligation, it is no longer an enhancement but an obligation. They therefore left it as hiddur, but in subtext we are all meant to understand that it is an obligation that cannot be presented as a binding law. I believe this is why, a century and a half later, the Sages convened to add a layer of hiddur to the earlier candle-lighting enactment (or perhaps to enact candle lighting itself with hiddur embedded). They felt obliged to add a layer of hiddur to the enactment, since the essence of the miracle was that it enabled us to light with hiddur. Hence there is a hiddur rule distinct from “This is my God and I will beautify Him,” with different parameters.

The meaning of the triple hiddur: comparison to the measure of terumah

We saw that the Hanukkah candle has three levels: the basic law, hiddur, and mehadrin min hamehadrin. If we seek another halakhic example of a triple measure in fulfilling a mitzvah, one might think of the “ascending and descending” offering. But that is not a good example, since each person at a given economic status has one clear obligation, not three options. A better example is the measure of setting aside terumah, which is divided into three options for each person according to his will: 1/40 (generous eye), 1/50 (average), and 1/60 (stingy). There too are three options, and we are to choose among them according to our good will—just as with the Hanukkah candle.

In my article “Mitzvah, Reason, and the Will of God,” I compared the measure of terumah to the measure of challah, and from there defined the category “the will of God,” distinguished from obligation derived from reason or moral considerations (which are also beyond the letter of the law). I explained that there are cases where it is clear to me that God’s will is that I do something even though the law does not obligate it, yet the act itself does not appear valuable in and of itself. If the act itself has apparent value, I do it based on reason (and of course it is then clear that God wants me to do it). But where the act’s value is not apparent, yet it is clear that this is His will, there too there is an obligation to do it—not from reason, but simply because it is God’s will.

I explained there that in terumah, the Torah does not define a clear obligation beyond a single grain that exempts the pile; but from its very designation as a “donation,” it is clear that the Torah wishes us to set aside more (for a single grain is no donation of the heart). Why does the Torah not obligate more? For the very same reason we saw above in the normative paradox: it wants us to give from generosity of spirit, not from a legal obligation. Hence it states that one grain exempts the pile, but lets us understand that more is expected. The Sages then came and set a range: between 1/40 and 1/60. Note that this measure is not rabbinic in nature but biblical: it is not a regular biblical obligation, but an assessment of what the Torah expects of us—an estimation, not a mere rabbinic decree.

Why then did the Sages leave three levels? Because had they fixed a single measure, they would have emptied the Torah’s will of its content. The Torah wanted giving to be voluntary, from the heart—not because the law compels it. Therefore, the Sages decided to set a range yet leave room within it to express generosity of spirit. Each person chooses how much to give within the framework they assessed (which, as noted, is a biblical framework—an estimation of the Torah’s will). This is also why the Sages defined three levels for the Hanukkah candle: they wished to tell us that, by basic law, one candle per household suffices, but we are expected to enhance and light more. To preserve voluntariness, they left two levels of hiddur. Note that, unlike terumah, where there is a biblical level (a grain) and the Sages’ assessment defines three different tiers, in Hanukkah “a candle for a person and his household” is the halakhically binding measure, with only two additional hiddur levels. The choice between them is voluntary, yet there is an obligation to enhance.

Is hiddur obligatory?

Is hiddur in the Hanukkah candle obligatory? According to what I have proposed, it seems yes. It is an obligation we are meant to grasp on our own. Hiddur does not invalidate the mitzvah if absent, but there is an expectation to enhance (and one cannot impose it as a formal halakhic obligation because of the normative paradox). One may ask whether there is an obligation to reach the highest level, or whether there is an obligation to enhance, but the choice between the two hiddur levels is ours. From the detailed deliberations of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, which delve into the particulars of the highest hiddur, one can infer that this is expected of us. It is unlikely that they would vigorously analyze and craft disputes over what is merely a voluntary expression of good will. It is more reasonable that this is a full obligation whose details matter, though it cannot be codified as a formal obligation due to the normative paradox.

An example is the Mishnah in Menachot 38a:

“The blue (tekhelet) does not invalidate the white, and the white does not invalidate the blue. The hand-tefillin do not invalidate the head-tefillin, and the head-tefillin do not invalidate the hand-tefillin.”

Some understood that tekhelet is a voluntary hiddur, since it does not invalidate the white. This is a mistake. Tekhelet is a positive commandment, and one who does not set tekhelet has neglected a positive commandment. If you did not place tekhelet on your fringes, you still fulfilled the white component. That one commandment does not invalidate the other does not mean the first is optional (a merely commendable act). It can be obligatory yet not invalidate the other. One who did not fulfill A has indeed neglected A, but still fulfilled B. As for tefillin, no one suggests that either the hand or head tefillin are optional, despite each not invalidating the other.[4]

From here one might say something similar about hiddur mitzvah in general. It is commonly thought that since hiddur does not invalidate, it is therefore voluntary (commendable, beyond the letter of the law, or even rabbinic). But plainly this is not so. It is a full obligation, though it does not invalidate the core mitzvah. If we performed a mitzvah without hiddur, we indeed fulfilled the mitzvah—but we neglected the positive demand of hiddur. One can ask why this demand is not counted in the enumeration of the commandments. Perhaps because of the normative paradox (and thus it is not a formal halakhic obligation), or because rules applying to the entire system of mitzvot are not enumerated (like “half a measure,” etc.; see Yishlach Shoreshav in the article on Root Four and in the article on Root Ten).

[1] In the Megillat Antiochus we do find:

“Therefore the Hasmoneans firmly established and imposed a levy, and the children of Israel with them as one, to make these eight days days of feasting and joy like the appointed festivals written in the Torah, and to light candles in them to make known the victories God of heaven performed for them.”

This implies that candle lighting was indeed part of the Hasmoneans’ original enactment (though there is a slight shift in wording).

[2] So too it emerges from the wording of “Al HaNissim” and many other sources (Books of Maccabees, Yosippon, and Pesikta Rabbati) which do not include the cruse-of-oil miracle at all. It seems that in the days of Mattathias and the Hasmoneans, when this text was enacted, candle lighting—which commemorates the cruse—was in fact not enacted.

[3] I saw in Mo’adim U’Zmanim (R. Shternbuch), vol. 2, that he entertains the possibility that the enactment to light at each person’s doorway stems from the Hasmoneans—see his proofs and his own questions on them. According to my approach here, that only the hiddur is later, the difficulties resolve, though this is not the place to expand. And in Chasdei Avot (printed at the end of Yachin Da’at), §17, he writes that the candle enactment was after the destruction. So too brings R. Yehuda Gershuni in his article, Or HaMizrach, new series 22, issues 79–80, p. 43. See also R. N.D. Rabinowitz’s Binu Shenot Dor VaDor, who strongly challenges them. His questions also resolve if we assume the enactment was in the Temple era but later than the Hasmoneans. Indeed, Rambam himself in Sefer HaMitzvot, Root One, writes explicitly that the Hanukkah candle was enacted in the Temple era—see there.

[4] For the difference between the two tefillin mitzvot and the two fringes (white and tekhelet), see at length in Yishlach Shoreshav, in the article on Root Eleven; and also in my article “On Mitzvot and Parts of Mitzvot.”