One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
מְגִלָּה וַחֲנֻכָּה
Scroll of Esther and Chanukah 3
Sefer Zemanim · Two paragraphs for the Hasmonean war and the cruse of oil, and then the whole law of Hallel, ending with the Rambam reporting that no two places recite it alike
8
Nights the lamp is lit at the entrance, from the twenty fifth of Kislev
18
Days a year on which the whole Hallel is a mitzvah
21
Days, where the festivals are kept for two days
123
Times the people answer Halleluyah, the years of Aharon's life
Part 1The war, the cruse, and the lamp at the door
- A victory recorded with its expiration date. The Greek kingdom decreed against the faith, seized property and daughters, entered the Sanctuary and made the sacraments impure, until the sons of the Hasmoneans overcame them, appointed a king from among the priests, and returned sovereignty to Israel for more than two hundred years, until the destruction of the Second Temple. (3:1)
- Eight days is how long it takes to press oil. Entering the Sanctuary on the twenty fifth of Kislev they found no pure oil but a single cruse holding enough to burn for one day, and lit the arrangement of lamps from it for eight days until they could crush olives and produce pure oil. (3:2)
- Happiness, praise, and light at the threshold. The Sages of that generation ordained eight days of happiness and praise beginning on the twenty fifth of Kislev, with candles lit in the evening at the entrance to the houses each night to publicize and reveal the miracle, and eulogy and fasting forbidden on them as on Purim, the lighting being a Rabbinic mitzvah like the reading of the Megillah. (3:3)
- Seeing a lamp is worth a blessing. Whoever is obligated to read the Megillah is obligated to kindle the Chanukah lamp; one lighting on the first night recites three blessings and two on later nights, while one who did not light and merely sees a lamp recites the latter two on the first night and one thereafter, since Shehecheyanu belongs to the first night alone. (3:4)
RememberThe whole Hasmonean rescue gets two paragraphs and its ending is written into the first of them. The Rambam does not think a deliverance needs protecting from its own history.
Part 2When a blessing may be said, and when it may not
- Blessing a commandment the Sages gave. The entire Hallel is recited on each of the eight days with a blessing, individually or communally, and the words commanded us may be said over a Rabbinic mitzvah just as for the Megillah and for an eruv, because a blessing is recited over every definite obligation the Sages established. (3:5)
- Doubt gets no blessing, and one exception explains itself. Where the Sages ordained something out of doubt, as with the tithing of demai, no blessing is recited; the second day of a festival, which exists only because of doubt, carries a blessing all the same, lest the day come to be treated with disdain. (3:5)
- Eighteen days, and the two that do not qualify. The whole Hallel is a mitzvah on the eight days of Sukkot, the eight of Chanukah, the first day of Pesach and Shavuot; it is not said on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, which are days of repentance, awe and fear rather than of extra celebration, nor on Purim, where the reading of the Megillah does its work. (3:6)
- Rosh Chodesh is a custom, and a custom carries no blessing. Where festivals run two days the count is twenty one; Hallel on Rosh Chodesh is a custom and not a mitzvah, said only in a congregation, read with passages skipped, and never blessed over, and an individual should not begin it at all, though having begun he completes it with the same skips. (3:7)
RememberHe should not have started. Having started, he finishes. The obligation was not there when he opened his mouth and it is there now, because he opened his mouth.
Part 3Sequence, pauses, and the answers of the congregation
- Where the skips fall. One reads from the beginning until chalamish lemayno mayim, skips to Hashem zecharanu yevarech and reads to Halleluyah, skips to Mah ashiv laHashem and reads to Halleluyah, then skips to Min hametzar karati Yah and reads to the end; this is the common custom and others skip by a different pattern. (3:8)
- Interruption is survivable, rearrangement is not. Hallel is fitting all day long; a man who reads it out of sequence has not fulfilled his obligation, while a man who reads and pauses and reads again has fulfilled it even if his pauses together lasted long enough to complete the entire Hallel; on full days one may interrupt between chapters but not within one, and on skipping days even within a chapter. (3:9)
- The blessing after, and the verses repeated. A blessing precedes Hallel on every day it is completed, and where the custom is to bless afterwards the closing blessing is said as well; in places that repeat each verse from odcha ki anitani to the end of Hallel the verses are repeated, and in places that do not, they are not. (3:10, 3:11)
- A hundred and twenty three answers. In the practice of the early Sages an adult read each phrase and the whole people answered Halleluyah after every bar, one hundred and twenty three times across the entire Hallel, the sign for the number being the years of Aharon's life; at the head of each chapter the people repeated the reader's line instead, and did the same at Anna Hashem hoshia na and Anna Hashem hatzlichah na, and where the reader was a minor, a slave or a woman they repeated the whole of Hallel after them word by word. (3:12, 3:13, 3:14)
RememberHe writes down the old choreography, calls it fitting to keep, and then reports that in every place he has been the practice differs and not one resembles another. He records the scattering and rules nothing.