Q. Hi Rabbi, Can I take pictures of my kids and family by the Hanukah menorah or is this considered as deriving benefit from the light of the Hanukah candles?
A. Chelek Levy (Y.D. 124) permits taking photographs from a matzeivah and benefiting either from glancing at it or selling it, although it is prohibited to benefit from the burial monument itself. His reasoning is that if it would be forbidden to gaze at the picture you would also not be permitted to look at the stone itself and that is unheard off. In Pesachim (26a) we learn that there in no meilah or misuse of kodshim for just looking although it still is rabinically prohibited, he quotes Tosafos (ibid.) that it only applies to kodshim and not other benefit prohibitions. He also reasons that it is an indirect benefit.
However, Alenu Leshabeach (Shemos, Responsa 3) maintains that one should not use a picture taken by the menorah if that light enhances the picture. He also questions the widespread use of photography by the Kosel, when it is used as a background.
Most Poskim are lenient on the benefit of pictures taken on Shabbos of a newborn at the hospital by a Gentile, especially if he charges for them as he is photographing for his own advantage.(Beer Moshe 3: 84, Yalkut Yosef O.H. 9: 307: 26, Ad'ney Shlomo p. 117, however Melachim Amanecha p.73 following his reasoning in Alenu Leshabeach, is stringent)
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit"a opinion is that you can take and use a picture of a Chanuka menorah, since after all it is a mitzvah to gaze at the candles.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit"a
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