It is with these words that our Rabbis described the "gavra", or acting agent, of the mitzvah of candle lighting. The obligation falls not on the individual, but on its leader and his household. A whole family may fulfill the mitzvah of candle lighting when done by any of its household, regardless of whether or not they are present. In this way this mitzvah is different than so many, indeed all, of the other holiday mitzvot. Matzah, Sukah, Lulav, Shofar, Megilah, Hallel, Kiddush, are all commanded to the individual. No one can fulfill any of these mitzvot without participating in their activity one way or another. The Chanukah candle is different. Any family member can perform it for all without any cooperation or even need of agency on the part of the others.

Why?

Perhaps it is because the Divine agent of the Chanukah miracle was not an individual, but rather a family, the Hasmoneans. We begin the thanksgiving prayer of Chanukah "In the days of Matityahu son of Yochanan High Priest, Hasmonai and his sons". The family element is crucial in introducing G-d's appointed redeemer. For Matityahu himself did not live to see the victory and miracle. Only his children, who maintained his flame, experienced it vicariously for him.

Furthermore, the candle must be lit in the dwelling place of the family unit. The family fulfills the mitzvah only where it lives, no where else, not in the market, not in the public square, not at the neighbors, not at a restaurant, not even in the synagogue. (While exception is made for a traveler,it is clearly an exception, and a complicated one at that.) The mitzvah of publicizing the miracle of Chanukah sacrifices good public relations in favor of strong anchoring of the source of that message. Pirsume' Nisah begins at home, and extends only as far as the family- household can publicize it.

The "public" message of Chanukah is a spiritual one. Its goal is not merely to inform, but to educate. This educational obligation is apparently not each individual's role, but rather one transmitted by family. Husband and Wife are equal in this obligation and performance. While an individual may comprise the sum total of his family unit, and be obligated himself as such, the inclusion of more people in his family unit increases the fulfillment of this mitzvah not quantitatively, but qualitatively.

Chanukah tells us that there is a type of education (implicit in the name of the holiday itself,) that rides not on each one of us alone, and not on each religious community, but on the family itself. In the case of one family, the Hasmoneans, it was not only the religious salvation of their own that depended on their inner strength, but the salvation of the whole of the Jewish people as well. Their internal flame served as the light of the Jewish people for many generations to come, to this very day. We could use a few more families like them.

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