This M.Y. answer discusses a controversy as to whether one needs a vessel for Chanukah lighting.

Based on the opinion that one doesn't need a vessel, could one make a camp fire (i.e. a pile of twigs and just lit the pile) and use that for candle lighting? What if after the first night, one had a large field and had separate camp fires but from a distance, they were noticeable as being in a straight line?

For the opinion that says that one needs a vessel, if you surround the twigs with a small wall of rocks (say about 2-3 feet high), would that suffice?


The halacha is that someone must light with a ner (individual wick) and not a medurah (torch or multiple wicks). Siman תרעא in the Shulchan Aruch explains that the wicks must be separated to show individually even if all the individual wicks lead back to a central source. A camp fire is like the situation in which multiple wicks are lit, but the individual wicks are not separated by a kli.

Siman Katan ד

מילה קערה שמן והקיפה פסילות אם כפה עליה כלי כל פסילה עולה בשביל נר אחד לא כפה עליה כלי אפילו לנר אחד אינו עולה לפי שהוא כמדורה

If one fills a plate with oil and put wicks in it, if he covers it with a utensil he fulfills the mitzvah since each wick rises as a single ner. If he does not cover it, even if he treats them all as a single ner, he does not fulfill the mitzvah because it is like a medurah (torch).

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