Today’s Daf debates how we properly respect the Chanukah lights. To understand this debate, we need to turn back to the Bible and discuss how we cover blood. Leviticus 17:13 states, “And if any Israelite or any stranger who resides among them hunts down an animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.” The Rabbis taught that we may not cover the blood by kicking dirt on it as this is disrespectful to the commandment. Based on this principle of not disrespecting the commandment, the Rabbis conclude that we cannot use the light from a Chanukah Menorah for any purpose, although lighting the Menorah is a Rabbinic commandment, not a Biblical commandment.

The main area of dispute concerns whether we can use the Chanukah light to do other commandments or if using the lights in this way is disrespecting them. Today, when we celebrate Chanukah, we have a Menorah with a space for eight lights (candles or oil and wicks) for each of the eight nights. We also have a place for a helper that we use to light the other candles. In Talmudic times there was not this helper and we get a lot of debate about whether we can use one of the Chanukah lights to light the other lights. We also debate if we can use a wood chip to take light from one of the Chanukah lights and use the chip to light the other lights. Everyone agrees that the Chanukah lights cannot be used for anything other than a commandment. However, not everyone is sure we can use the CHanukah lights for another commandment.

To answer the question of whether we can use the Chanukah light to light other candles, we first must delineate what commandment we are fulfilling. Is the Chanukah commandment to light the Menorah or is the commandment to place the lighted Menorah in public. The Rabbis conclude that the primary commandment is to light the Menorah. Placing the Menorah in a lit area is subsidiary to the lighting. However, the page ends before we get the reasoning.

We also learn that we place the lit Menorah on the left side of our door. Our Mezzuzah (small scroll with passages from the Bible affixed to our doorpost) should be on the right. Therefore, when we enter the house, we will be surrounded by commandments. Right after this is a digression with no apparent connection to what came before or what comes after concerning what was in the pit into which Joseph’s brothers threw him as related in Genesis 37:24. Its very strange.