[Avodah] Al petach beito mabachutz

[Zev Sero]

Michael Kopinsky wrote:
> Is cold really a reason not to light outside?  I mean, we all bundle
> up in our coats and manage to make it to the car, and then from the
> parking lot to work - does it take that much more time to go outside,
> place your already-prepared menorah in its box, and light the candles?
>  I mean, cold can make it difficult, but sakanah?  This is not quite
> like sleeping in the sukkah, where there exists a much more
> significant concern.

1. The "invention" of lighting in a glass box is fairly recent; it may not
have occured to anyone earlier.  In addition, glass was expensive, and
most people would not have been able to afford it.

2. While sitting with the nerot may not be formally a part of the mitzvah,
it's certainly part of hiddur mitzvah and common minhag, and an opportunity
for chinuch; the "experience" of yiddishkeit that RMB praises in another
context.  This would be lost if one bundled up, took the nerot outside
to light them, and then went back inside.  Or at least I'd feel that way.

3. Leaving nerot outdoors unattended may well be considered a sakana.
Even if the circumstances are such that it's not an actual sakana of
starting a fire, it could frighten the neighbours who don't realise how
safe it is, and that itself can be a sakana. (Cf the heter to put out
house fires on shabbat, for fear that the goyim will accuse us of
trying to burn the town.)

4. Leaving the menorah outdoors exposes it to a sakanah of being
stolen.  This wouldn't be enough to override a de'oraita, but it's
certainly enough to override a prat in the ideal way the rabanan
recommended that a mitzvah derabanan be practised.  Cf the heter to
put a mezuzah on the inside of the front door instead of outside,
if it's likely to be stolen.

5.  Since the default practise was to light indoors, even when the
sakanah ended people needed a reason to go outdoors, and would
accept any excuse not to.  The cold would have provided such an
excuse to keep the established practise.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas