DailyHalacha.com for Mobile Devices Now Available

Click Here to Sponsor Daily Halacha
"Delivered to Over 6000 Registered Recipients Each Day"

      
(File size: 502 KB)
If One Travels on Hanukah to a Place Without a Jewish Community

Generally speaking, if a person travels on Hanukah, and his wife remains home, then the wife lights the Hanukah candles at home and the husband fulfills his obligation of Hanukah candles through her lighting. He does not have to light in the place he is visiting.

However, the Shulhan Aruch (Orah Haim 677:3) makes an exception in the case of one who travels to a remote location where there are no Jews. A common contemporary example would be a Jew who travels to the Far East on business during Hanukah, and he thus finds himself in a place where no one is lighting Hanukah candles. In such a case, the Shulhan Aruch writes, one should light Hanukah candles, with the Berachot. A traveler fulfills his obligation with his wife’s lighting back home only if he is in a place where there are Jews lighting Hanukah candles and he thus sees the candles and participates in the Pirsumeh Nisa (publicizing of the miracle). If, however, he is in a place without any Jews, he must light his own candles, even though his wife is lighting at home, and he recites the Berachot over the lighting.

Preferably, in order to satisfy all opinions, a person in such a situation should specifically have in mind not to be covered by his wife’s lighting back home, so that he can recite the Berachot according to all views.

This is the ruling of Hacham Ovadia Yosef, as recorded in Yalkut Yosef (p. 169).

Summary: Although one who travels on Hanukah generally does not have to light Hanukah candles, as he fulfills his obligation through his wife’s lighting at home, if he is in a place with no Jews he should light Hanukah candles, with the Berachot.

 


Recent Daily Halachot...
Is It Permissible to Spread a Talet Over the Children on Simhat Torah?
Is It Permissible On Shabbat To Walk On Grass Or To Have A Picnic On Grass
Reading Shir Hashirim on Ereb Shabbat
Peeling a Hardboiled Egg on Shabbat
Inflating a Ball on Shabbat
Is It Permissible To Repair Eye Glasses on Shabbat
Walking in a Public Domain on Shabbat With Food in One's Mouth
Asking a Gentile on Shabbat to Cut Tissue Paper; Asking a Gentile on Shabbat to Turn on a Light for a Frightened Child
Mukse- If a Base for a Mukse Item Also Holds a Non-Mukse Item
Mukse- Handling a Corpse on Shabbat
If Part of A Utensil or A Button Becomes Detached on Shabbat
Is It Permissible To Move Frozen Meat On Shabbat Or Is It Muktze
Mukse – the Status of Chicken Bones and Eggshells
Collecting Candies That Were Thrown in the Synagogue on Shabbat
Mukse: Placing Empty Shells on a Plate
Page of 239
3585 Halachot found