Confusion About Chanukah Candles

Question

I am a yungerman who just got married, and I am currently living and learning in Yerushalayim.

I was studying here in Yerushalayim as a bochur, and I have to tell the rov that I am completely confused about when the proper time to light Chanukah candles is.

On one hand, I see many people literally running home early to light the menorah exactly at shkiah. They look at their watches and are makpid to the second to light the menorah at shkiah. On the other hand, there are many talmidei chachomim and even gedolim, including Rav Sternbuch, who light twenty minutes after shkiah.

When I questioned several people from both groups about this practice, they all said that they are following the minhag of the Vilna Gaon. That made me even more confused. How can they both be following the Vilna Gaon if they are lighting at different times? I will be extremely grateful if Rav Sternbuch can clarify this for me so I can understand when the proper time to light my menorah is.

Thank you.

Shlomo K.

Rav Sternbuch

You are rightfully confused, and I will explain to you how I understand the source of this confusion. 

It is true that here in Yerushalayim many people light exactly at shkiah, based on the opinion of the Vilna Gaon. What many people do not know is that there is a seeming contradiction in the writings of the Vilna Gaon regarding when one should light the Chanukah candles. While it is true that in hilchos Chanukah the Gaon writes that one should light at shkiah, in hilchos bris milah the Gaon implies that the proper time to light Chanukah candles is about twenty minutes after shkiah.

I believe that we can resolve this seeming contradiction through a third source, the sefer Maaseh Rav, where the Gaon is cited as ruling that the proper time to light is mishetishka hachamah kodem tzeis hakochavim, before Maariv. Now, if the Gaon had meant that everyone should light exactly at shkiah, he would have been quoted as simply saying to light at shkiah and nothing more. From the fact that the words “before tzeis hakochavim and Maariv” are added, it implies that the proper practice was to light in between shkiah and tzeis.

For this reason, many, including myself, have the practice to light twenty minutes after shkiah, at a time that is already night according to the Gaonim but is still in close proximity to shkiah. This was also the practice of many gedolim, including the Chazon Ish and the Gerrer Rebbe, the Bais Yisroel, and his father as well.

When I was living in London, my friend, Rav Yom Tov Lipman Rockov, showed me something written by Rav Nosson Tzvi Rabinowitz, who was the av bais din of the city of Likov. He writes that in the year 5643, he received testimony from the son-in-law of the Vilna Gaon, Rav Yosef, that the original minhag in the shul of the Gaon in Vilna was to light an hour after shkiah (seemingly in order to ensure that there were definitely three medium-size stars out and that tzeis hakochavim had arrived). This was later changed to twelve minutes earlier, to forty-eight minutes after shkiah. This incident supports what I am suggesting—that the proper time for hadlokas neiros Chanukah according to the Gaon is after shkiah.

I am not sure why so many people light exactly at shkiah, for it seems to me that here in Eretz Yisroel the proper time to light is twenty minutes after shkiah, and outside of Israel, where the shkiah takes longer, even later than this time. This was also the practice of the Brisker Rov. The only thing I can suggest at the current time is that the testimony we have about the Gaon may actually be referring to what was done in the Gaon’s minyan in shul, but that for his hadlokah at home, the Gaon actually lit exactly at shkiah. This matter requires more clarification, but meanwhile, my personal practice here in Eretz Yisroel continues to be to light twenty minutes after shkiah.

I hope I have helped clarify some of your confusion, and I give you my brachos that you should be zoche to fulfill the mitzvah of ner Chanukah mehadrin min hamehadrin in all ways. (See also Teshuvos Vehanhagos 2:334 and Moadim Uzemanim 2:154.)