Q. Thanks for your prompt response. Is it possible to light the menorah (while in the hospital attending my husband, who is in intensive care) in our car parked in the parking lot of the hospital, and me staying a half an hour with only one candle lit and a shamash, since I have no other option?

A. Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit”a opinion is that you can light one candle (the shamesh could be the inside car light) in the car parked on the parking lot of the hospital, since there is no other venue open to you. You should stay a half an hour with the Chanuka light and also eat while you wait.

Although Nitey Gavriel (Chanuka 10: 8) mentions that when traveling you can light inside a (stopped) vehicle, however, the interior of the car should be at least ten tefachim high or about one meter, and have an inside area of four square amos (about two by two meters square) which is an unlikely width in most cars. Horav Miller Shlit’a holds that to be unnecessary.

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a