When Should We Light Chanukah Candles?

0:06The simple halacha is when do you light Hanukkah candles? Now most people, they say it's at night, just you light at night. That's partially right. It's partially right. It's not 100% right. What's 100% right? You have to light the candles as soon as the stars are out. Now everyone has, I'm assuming, a smartphone. And you can download this application called CalJ or MyZmanim. And I'll tell you exactly after you put your zip code, CalJ, C-A-L-J, or you go to myzmanim.com. It's the same company, I believe. And you put your zip code, and it'll tell you exactly when there is a time called Tzeit HaKochavim. When is the time when the stars are out? Because it's not dusk, which is really, we don't know whether it's night or it's still day. If you light your candles there, you may have a serious problem. You may have a serious problem unless your candles continue being lit beyond tzeit hakochavim. But either way, you're not supposed to do it that way. Now, what about if you decide, okay, you know what, I'm busy, I'm going to have to go to a few parties, I got to do a few things. By the time I get home, I'll do it, you know, at midnight. I got home at midnight, I'll do it. That's a problem. Why is that a problem? Because no one is outside at midnight.

1:30You're supposed to light the candles and put the candles in a place in a window where other people, that is, if they were walking outside, would see your menorah. Now, if you're putting your menorah outside at midnight, unless you're in New York City, no one is going to see your menorah, which means that you have not fulfilled the mitzvah as it's supposed to be. Now, there are Chachamim that say you still fulfill the mitzvah, but it's not the ideal. Any time that we have an easy mitzvah that you can do right, we have to do it right. Some mitzvot are very hard to do right because you have to learn a lot. But there are some mitzvot that are very easy to do right. Very easy to do right. All you've got to do is a little bit of effort and you'll do it right. When we miss out on those easy mitzvot, it's like missing out on a lottery ticket where you already know what the numbers are and... Somebody already gave you the numbers. He's like, yeah, I don't really feel like going to the shop to buy the ticket. Okay, so you should just go admit yourself to a mental institution. Instead of going to the shop to buy the ticket when you have the winning numbers, that's an easy mitzvah. So the easy mitzvah is actually the mitzvah of lighting the candles. You're supposed to light them at tzeit hakochavim, at the time when the stars are out and

2:53Which is right after dusk? And again, like I said, today, for example, where I live, it was 5:58 or 5:59 in the evening, and you had to light the candles at that time. Yesterday, I think it was like half a minute earlier or something like that. The point is that that's when you're supposed to light it because if you light the candles too early, it's no good. You light the candles too late. It's also not so good. Now, what happens if you light the candles by the time you get home from work? It's eight o'clock, nine o'clock. You want to light the candles. Yes, of course, light the candles, but it's not ideal, meaning that if you had a choice to light the candles before... But you chose not to because, yeah, you know what, I don't feel like doing it. I'll do it later; I'll do it later after I have dinner, after I do this, after I do that. Then you have yourself a serious problem. Now, what about once it gets to dusk? Once it gets to the time when it's right before or right after Mincha and... you're supposed to light the candles, and you might say, "You know what, let me learn a little bit more for another half hour, and then I'll light." You're not allowed to learn Torah until you light the candles. What if you're hungry? You're really hungry; you haven't eaten anything all day. You want to have a nice soda and a hero sandwich bigger than your head. You know you want to have one, but you're not allowed to eat until you light the candles.

4:18Why? Because if you get too focused on something else, including Torah, you may forget to light the candles at an ideal time. So it's very, very important that a person light the candles at the ideal time because it's an easy mitzvah. It's an easy lottery ticket. Like I said, if you just don't get home until 8 o'clock from work and it's just not possible for you to light it at that time, it's a different story. Still light it. If you have the ability to light it, if you work out of the house or you're already home at that time or something like that, light it as soon as the stars are out. You don't have to go outside to look for stars because sometimes it's cloudy. All you have to do is use one of these wonderful applications that Hashem provided us in this generation, which tell you exactly when the stars are out. I remember when I was a kid and... To know how Shabbat came out, we didn't have iPhones or smartphones. So how did we know? We went outside and looked for stars. Our minhag was seven stars. The reason why the minhag was seven stars, even though he's right, he says there are three stars, is because we don't know. It's supposed to be three middle-sized stars, but we don't know what a middle-sized star is because all the stars almost look the same.

5:38army nog was seven stars look for seven stars hopefully within the seven there's three middle-sized stars but the point is that it's very, very important to know what you're doing, how you're doing it because sometimes a person thinks that he's doing a mitzvah. He gets to Shamayim and realizes, "Oh, you have three thousand years in Gehinnom." What are we talking about? "I learned a lot my whole life." Yeah, you learned Torah, but you didn't keep 90% of it. Oh. So the 10% you have gone ahead and after you finish the 3,000 years, it's very, very important to get these easy mitzvot right because they're easy. This means the judgment is much more severe. If it's a hard mitzvah, then Hashem obviously knows this is a hard mitzvah and will judge you accordingly. But if it's an easy mitzvah and we still slack, then there's something wrong with us. So you got to get the easy mitzvot out. Also, for anyone that's single, you still have to light the candles. If it's a single woman, she still has to light the candles. If you're a guest at somebody else's house, you can rely on them lighting the candles.

6:48Different issues arise if you have any specific questions about the laws of Chanukah. You could text me, and I'll give you the answers. The point is that I wanted to give you the easy mitzvah so that at least you could do it right. I know that most of my life, I would light candles somewhere around 9 or 10 o'clock at night because I thought, "Oh, well, what's the difference between 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, or 5 o'clock?" When you don't know, you don't know what you don't know. So you have to get this mitzvah right as far as the... The candles, most of the stuff is available online. But again, if you're confused or anything else, you could always ask. I'm only a text message away.