Lighting Hanuka Candles in Shul
The rambam writes that the story of hanuka occurred approximately 200 years before the destruction of the second bet hamikdash. The Assyrian Greeks ruled over the Jews for many years till they started to make their decrees against our religion (that they can not keep shabbat, circumcise their children, or sanctify the new month). Once they started these decrees there were approximately 10,000 jews nicknamed the maccabis that started a rebellion and fought for many years till finally on the 25th of kislev they finally reconquered the bet hamikdash and inaugurated the mizbe’ah once again. This was also when the miracle of the oil that lasted for 8 days instead of only one occurred.
Q. why do we celebrate eight days of miracle? there was enough oil to last one day so the miracle was only for the other seven days?
A. the actual finding of the jar of oil on the first day was a miracle in itself, therefore we combine the two miracles together, the oil that lasted for seven extra days, and the actual finding of the oil, to give us the eight days of hanukah that we have today.
Q. why do we light the hanuka candle in the bet Knesset? No one is able to fulfill their obligation with this lighting anyway?
A the rivash (rabbi yitzchak ben sheshet) answers that many time the Jews in exile were in areas or periods of times where the non Jews would cause them problems for lighting the hanuka candles and as a result they would often light inside the house. This detracted from the main essence of lighting the candles which is to publicize the miracle. Therefore, our sages established to light in the bet Knesset so as to have the publicizing of the miracle if only even for a short time.
However, in order to be able to light in the bet Knesset it is necessary to have ten people present even if they are only gathered specifically for the lighting and not actually participating in the rest of the service of the bet Knesset. It is also possible to count women towards these ten people since they were also included in the miracle of hanuka, and in fact a big part of it came about through a woman named Yehudit.
Nonetheless it is not possible to fulfill a person’s obligation of lighting the Hanukah candles with the lighting in shul even though we light with a blessing. Concerning the person who lights with the blessings when they will light the candles again at home, they have to repeat all the blessings with the exception of shehehiyanu on the first night which they should not repeat unless there are other people in the house that have not yet heard the blessing of shehehiyanu.
Conclusion: the reason why we light in the bet Knesset is because there were periods of time where there was no other way to publicize the lighting because they were afraid or forbidden to light outside.
It is necessary to have ten people present for this lighting and women can be counted towards this.
When lighting in the bet Knesset we say the blessings, but no one is able to fulfill their obligation with this lighting. When the person who lit is going to light in his own house, he repeats all the blessings except for Shehekhiyanu on the first night which he should not repeat unless there are other people in the house that have not yet heard the blessing of Shehekhiyanu.
Written by Rabbi Yitzchak Abitbol
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