Shabbat 21: Wicks, Oils and Differences between Lighting on Shabbat and Chanukah

In Exodus (35:3 )we are told "You shall not kindle a fire throughout your settlements on the Shabbat day".   In yesterday's daf we began Perek II with a new Mishna that taught us what wicks are/not permitted to use when lighting the Shabbat lights (because they might lead to other prohibited labour on Shabbat) and what items are/not permitted to burn on Shabbat.  We might not light with cedar bast, uncombed flax, raw silk, willow bast, desert weed, nor green moss that is on the surface of the water.  We cannot light with oils including pitch, wax, castor oil, burnt oil, fat from a sheep's tail, nor tallow.  Nahum the Mede asserts that we may light with boiled tallow but the rabbis say that all types of tallow are not permitted to be used as a source of light on Shabbat.

In today's daf, the rabbis begin by arguing about what "kik" oil might be.  They move into a discussion about why certain wicks were prohibited.  Perhaps those prohibited wicks are ones where the wick does not hold the flame close; it spatters the flame which could fly and set off other fires.  One method of lighting is discussed at greater length than others: wrapping a permitted wick around a nut, which would not light, and then lighting the wick.

The rabbis discuss mixing a prohibited oil with a permitted oil.  The example used is molten fat or fish innards that dissolved and became like oil.  They also discuss how wicks might be made from the threads of old and tattered trousers of the priests and their belts.  These would be used at the Celebration of Drawing Water.  

Wicks for the chanukiah can be lit during the week but not on Shabbat, because a poor quality wick might need to be adjusted which is not permitted on Shabbat.  The rabbis continue their conversation about lights on Chanukah.  We learn that the mitzva of lighting those lights is between sunset and when thte traffic in the marketplace stops; however, if a light goes out we are not obliged to rekindle it.  The people of Tadmor stayed out latest, for they sold kindling to those who might realize that they were out of wood just before Shabbat.  Beit Shammai state that on the first night all eight lights are kindles and one less light is lit each subsequent night.  Beit Hillel state the opposite, explaining that we elevate and not diminish the sanctity of the mitzvah every day.  

The story of Chanukah is shared from Megillat Ta'anit.  The the Gemara teaches that when a spark comes from a hammer causing damage, the one who struck the hammer is liable.  When a camel is laden with flax passes through the public domain and the flax catches fire from a storekeeper's lamp, setting fire to the building, the storekeeper is liable because the lamp should have been inside the store and not in the public domain.  Rabbi Yehuda says that if the storekeeper's chanukiah caused the fire because it was placed outside of the store,  the storekeeper is not liable because it is a mitzvah to place the chanukiah ten handbreadths from the ground.  Forcing the storekeeper to keep it at exactly 10 handbreadths high and not higher is too big of a burden to place on the storekeeper.