When lighting Chanukah candles on both entrances to courtyard, can I use only one candle?

Question

In Hilchos Channukah OC Siman 671 Sif 8 we learn the halacha that if someone has 2 entrances to their courtyard they must light Chanukah candles by both of them. This is so that passers-by won't see the an entrance with no lights and think that the inhabitants didn't light.

Would it be ok to light by one of the entrances (perhaps the "main one") Chanukah candles according to the opinion of "Mahadrin Min HaMahadrin" ("the best way of performing the mitzva") and put the number of candles that correspond to each night, and by the other entrance light only one candle which is the minimum someone can fulfill the Mitzvah?

Or must they do Mahadrin Min HaMahadrin by both (according to our minhag and that we do this for sure at the outset.) Or would in this case one candle be enough even at the outset?

Answer 1

The P'ri To'ar (YD 19:1) in a discussion of the obligation to slaughter a Ben Pekua' (live offspring found in a kosher slaughtered mother which biblically is included in the mother's slaughtering but rabbinically requires its own slaughtering because of chashad -- looking suspicious) mentions this rule of Chanukkah (which also relates to chashad) and notes that it must be done "according to all its rules and statutes [such as] olive oil, [burning for] half an hour etc." By his inclusion of olive oil (which is only a hiddur) I surmise that he would also require one to light extra candles per night/person (which is also a form of hiddur) depending on the level of hiddur that person regularly performs.

Answer 2

It was well know in the 1980's in our Yeshiva - Kol Torah - that the Rosh Yeshiva - HoRav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach זצ"ל used to light his Menora at his front door and a single candle at the window facing Rehov Usishkin.

Answer 3

R. Yerucham Olshin in Yarei'ach LeMoadim Chanukah ch. 18 suggests that this question hinges on whether one recites a blessing upon kindling the second light (opinion of Rashba) or not (opinion of Ran).

Rashba holds that one recites a blessing; this is presumed to indicate that the second lighting has the status of a 'Chanukah lamp', and so mehadrin is applicable. Ran holds the opposite; no blessing is recited, because lighting to avoid suspicion does not confer the status of a 'Chanukah lamp', and therefore there is no concept of mehadrin for this lighting.

However, in the final analysis, he is not convinced that this holds true. One could conceivably believe that the extra candle has the status of a 'Chanukah lamp' (and therefore mehadrin applies) and nevertheless not require a blessing (perhaps because the blessing on the first lighting covers the second one).

Conversely, one could hold that the extra candle does not have the status of a 'Chanukah light' (and therefore mehadrin does not apply) and nevertheless a blessing would be recited (perhaps because at the end of the day we have been rabbinically commanded to kindle this lamp, even if it is not defined as a 'Chanukah lamp).