[Avodah] wife lighting menora

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Akiva Blum wrote:

> Neiros Shabbos, he cannot be yotzei with her lighting, and must
> light for himself where he is.

Mechaber 263:6 and MB 263:31 seem to be talking about a husband and wife who have separate bedrooms in the same house. They write that the husband does have to light in his room, but that is only to make sure that he does not trip over sticks and stones; he does *not* say the bracha on this lighting.

Aruch Hashulchan 263:5 amplifies that, and says that if the husband is out of town and has his own room, then he'll have to light (as above), and he'll also have to say a bracha on it, because his wife's bracha cannot go so far as to cover neros which are in another place entirely.

Now, I concede that this makes it *sound* like the husband has a chiyuv of Ner Shabbos totally independently from his wife, but I don't think it is so clear, because that is only in the case of where the husband is both away from home and also has his own room. It is important to look at the end of that Aruch Hashulchan: "If he does *not* have his own room, he does not have to light, nor to say the bracha, because he was mekayem the mitzvah of Ner Shabbos at home via his wife."

Now, if indeed he can be mekayem the mitzvah of Ner Shabbos at home via his wife, then why does he make a bracha in the case where he does have his own room? I'm not sure, but my guess is that even if there seems to be two levels for this mitzvah: The full-blown and very famous mitzvah of Ner Shabbos, and also a mitzvah to have light in one's room. And even if one is yotzay Ner Shabbos via his wife back home, the mitzvah to have light in one's room gets a bracha anyway.

Thus, I stands by my original comment that regardless of whether husband and wife are both home, or whether one is at home and the other is away, the halachos of Ner Chanuka and Ner Shabbos are strikingly similar to each other (even if they're not totally identical).

Akiva Miller

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