[Avodah] further on Temimos

[Daniel Israel]

Prof. Levine wrote:
> If we are concerned about Temimos, then should we not insist that women 
> wait until Tzeis (when the first day of Shavuous is not on Shabbos) to 
> bentch licht?  Yet I have never heard of anyone saying such a thing. 

I must admit to being confused by this whole discussion.  The mitzva of 
hadlakos neiros is so that there will be light on Shabbos (or Yom Tov). 
  Which is why it is important that the neiros last long enough.  This 
raises a question why we can say the bracha at the time of lighting even 
though the kiyum hamitzvah seems to be not until later.  Perhaps the 
chachana which the lighting is, is betzem the mitzvah.  I'd be surprised 
if this isn't discussed somewhere, in any case, it seems irrelevant to 
the point at hand, which is that we see from Shabbos that the lighting 
is done davka before Shabbos, and it counts and the bracha is not a 
bracha l'vatalah, even if the woman is not m'kabel Shabbos at that 
point.  So being m'kayim the mitzvah is independent of being m'kabel 
Shabbos.  So why should Yom Tov be any different?

In a later e-mail, RYL wrote:
 > But I think that you have missed the point I tried to make. Surely you
 > will agree that if someone were to light candles before plag Ha Mincha
 > with a tenai and then drive for 2 hours to get to shul, that this is
 > nothing. One cannot light candles before plag for Shabbos or Yom Tov.

Actually, I think this is not so simple.  The SA 263:4 does say this, 
but even though the discussion there (and in 261) involve the earliest 
time for being m'kabel Shabbos, it is not clear that these are inyanim 
are connected.  IMHO, it appears that although one can't be m'kabel 
Shabbos before plag (according to most opinions) the issue with hadlakos 
neiros is that it must be clear that it is being done l'kavod Shabbos. 
Near to shkia, this is not an issue.  When lighting earlier, it seems 
one needs to be m'kabel immediately after lighting otherwise it is not 
clear one is lighting l'kavod Shabbos.  As I read it, therefore, the 
issue with lighting before plag is that one can't be m'kabel Shabbos 
with the lighting, and therefore it is not recognizable that it is 
l'kavod Shabbos.  If this is correct, that it is only this technical 
difficulty, then it would seem that the fact that one is lighting at a 
time when it is possible to be m'kabel Shabbos is not an intrinsic 
problem.  So on Shavuos, when we are lighting later, when there is no 
issue of it not being recognizable as kavod Yom Tov, there is no reason 
to assume we can't light before it is possible to be m'kabel Yom Tov.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu