- Q. Dear Rabbi , What is the reason that some women don’t do any work when the menorah lights are lit on Chanuka?
A. Shulchan Aruch (O.H. 670: 1) writes that women have the custom not to do work while the Chanuka candles are on. Then he quotes the Tur that no leniency should apply to them. Mishna Berura (3) mentions that Magen Avraham explains that the reason is that the miracle of the salvation of Chanuka came by women, since a woman – Yehudis, the daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol, played a prominent role in the defeat of the Greeks. In addition, Jewish women suffered from the Greeks more than the Jewish men did.
See next question.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by, Horav Yaakov Hirschman Horav, Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon Miller, Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu and Horav Kalman Ochs Shlit’a
Important Numbers
