Lights or Air Conditioning?

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QUESTION: There is a power outage on Erev Shabbos, and I am drawing electricity from a generator. The generator only produces enough electricity for either the lights or the air conditioner. I know that it is a mitzvah to light Shabbos candles to promote sholom bayis. Since I will light Shabbos candles, do I fulfill the mitzvah without electric lights, which would allow me to use the electricity to operate my air conditioner?

ANSWER: The essential question is whether the mitzvah of lighting Shabbos candles is enhanced by having additional light in the house from electric bulbs. Rav Zylberstein (Chashukei Chemed, Shabbos 251) writes that it is a mitzvah to have additional light in the house. He demonstrates this from the fact that many women can light Shabbos candles in one location and recite a bracha. We see that providing additional light is an enhancement of the mitzvah. Operating the electric lights from the generator will fulfill this mitzvah enhancement and therefore lights would take precedence over an air conditioner. However, if it is very warm and one will be in discomfort, the air conditioner can be run instead of the electric lights, since the obligatory mitzvah is fulfilled with Shabbos candles and other candles lit throughout the house. Poskim allow one to ask a non-Jew to turn on an air conditioner when it is very hot (see Minchas Yitzchak 3:23). From this we see that halacha recognizes discomfort as a significant factor. 

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The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt"l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.