It’s become a well-established custom for women to kindle candles to
usher in the holy and awesome day of Shabbat. Even not so religious women do it
as many learn from a very young age to separate Shabbat from the other days of
the week. This is embedded in almost every Jewish home.
The Halachot (laws) are very simple, 20 minutes (or earlier) than sunset,
women are enjoined to light a minimum of 2 candles and say “Blessed are you
God, Lord, master of the universe that has sanctified us and commanded us to
light Shabbat candles”. Once that happens Shabbat officially starts for the woman
lighting.
Many have the custom to light the candles even before as a way of
extending Shabbat time, and this is a well-known segulah to increase blessings in
the home (and have children that are Torah scholars), as the sanctity of the
Shabbat spills out to the mundane days of the week.
Yet, we know that nothing is a simple as it seems, and there are many
Kabbalistic secrets we can learn from this simple Mitzvah.
Rectifying Blood-Spilling
We spoke before how each of the 3 Mitzvot women are commanded come
to rectify one particular sin. Lighting Shabbat candles comes to rectify the sin of
spilling blood, since death existed only in potential before Adam and Chava ate
from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The soul is called Hashem’s candle,
as we find in the verse נר ה״ נשמת אדם חופש כל חדרי בטן .
This verse reads “the soul of man is a candle to Hashem [used to] search all
inner chambers”, which means that with the soul, Hashem understands a person
innermost feelings and thoughts. While this soul was diminished due to the
primordial sin, it is slowly rectified with the kindling of Shabbat candles.
Moreover, there are 39 types of forbidden work on Shabbat, which correspond to
39 curses Creation received (10 for men, 10 for women, 10 for the snake and 9 for
the earth). When we observe Shabbat, we are literally annulling these curses from
Creation.
Rebuilding the Temple at Home
In the Zohar, we find many allusions to the two candles. One is that they
each represent one aspect of the Mitzvot, namely, one candle for “Shamor”
(safeguard, the feminine aspect) and another candle for “Zachor” (remembrance,
the masculine aspect). Another is that the candles symbolize the holy Menorah
from the Temple, which is the source of all wisdom.
The Zohar also teaches us that there are 4 main rectifications of the
Shekhina (the immanent, feminine aspect of Hashem’s providence). They are
alluded to in the episode when Elisha the prophet is hosted at the house of the
Shunamite woman, who was so holy she could gaze at his face and not die.
Paralleling the spiritual worlds, she set up a bed, a candelabra, a table and a chair
for her esteemed guest. These items are also present in the Holy Temple in the
form of the Holy Ark with Cherubim, the Menorah, the Golden Table of the
Showbread and the Golden Incense Altar, all of which were inside the Heichal (the
Inner Chamber building). For this reason, just like the Menorah was lit with olive
oil, so too, ideally, should Shabbat candles be lit with olive oil.
As we’ve talked the power and importance of women in Judaism, it should
then be no wonder why all the rectifications for the Shekhina happens through
women. With our holy work, we can literally turn the home into a Temple
wherein the Shekhina abides and blesses us.
Other customs
Halacha teaches us that the candles must be lit where the meals take
places so we can enjoy the lights. This is because they themselves irradiate peace
in the home, and they naturally bring joy. But, as we saw above, it’s also to unite
all the rectifications of the Shekhina together.
There’s a special meditation from the writings of the Arizal which draw
down the holiness and light of the candles to the home. It’s as follows: The
Hebrew word for candle is נר which has numerical value of 250, and is also the
first letter of the first 2 parts of the soul, Nefesh (נפש) and Ruach (רוח). 250 is the
union and sweetening of 3 of Hashem’s main names (אהיה – אלוהים – אדוני) with
3 times the supreme name יהוה. This yields for us:
איההיוהה
אילההויהם
אידהנויה
Notice how, in order to affect a union in the spiritual words and sweetening
of these names, we weave these 6 names together, which yield the numerical
value of 250 (candle). This meditation can be done both by the woman lighting
the candles as well as the man before doing Kiddush, while looking at the holy
candles.
May we merit to bring all the blessings from the Torah and turn our homes into a true Temple of Hashem!
Learn how to light Shabbat Candles
This article was written and published in the zechut of all Emuna Builder Partners. May they have complete emuna and continue spreading emuna!
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