Not only do we read from right to left, but we start our day at night. More confusing, erev Shabbat, which literally means the evening of Shabbat, in actual fact refers to daytime Friday.
The reason for this is that the Jewish calendar is a lunar one, with the new month beginning at the first sighting of the sliver of new moon. If the first day begins at night (as did the first day of Creation), so do all the days that follow. And if the “day” begins at night, the “eve” of any given day is what immediately precedes it—daytime.
Shabbat, therefore, begins and ends at a particular moment of evening. On the general principle of “adding on to the good” (in this case, from weekday to holy), Shabbat begins eighteen minutes before sunset on Friday and ends forty-two minutes after sunset on Saturday. All in all, Shabbat is approximately twenty-five hours long. Tied as it is to the setting sun, Shabbat starts at a different hour each week. The earliest it begins is the week of the winter solstice, the shortest Friday of the year.
In the summertime, the sun sets as late as nine o’clock. During spring and summer months, many communities begin Shabbat at seven in the evening so as not to have to wait until ten to sit down to Kiddush and a five course meal. Moreover, during these weeks of advanced onset time, the Sabbath evening prayers are recited during daylight hours (only the Shema is repeated later) rather than after dark as is normally required for evening prayers. These are examples of sensible rabbinic modification that enable traditional Jews to live according to the law, comfortably.
Since we may only add weekday time onto Shabbat and never subtract, no matter what time Shabbat is advanced on Friday, it will not end earlier than forty-two minutes after sunset on Saturday.
The onset of Shabbat is marked by a ceremony of candlelighting. This probably started as a very practical response to “Thou shalt not kindle fire …” In order to have the supply of oil burn longer into Shabbat, the lamps were lit at the very last moment. So, too, with candles.
Candlelighting can advance the Shabbat but it cannot delay it. Shabbat comes automatically, with the setting of the sun. In fact, if candles have not been lit on time, they may not be kindled later, for it is already Shabbat. Thus, the Rabbis established that candles be lit close to but earlier than sunset.
Traditional Judaism, with its heavy emphasis on role definition, assigned nerot, candlelighting, to women—although not all candles, it must be added. The Havdalah candle, which concludes the Sabbath, and Chanukah candles, the more “public” candles, go to men.
A minimum of two candles are lit, symbolic of the two forms of the commandment—“remember” and “observe” the Sabbath day. Many women light one candle for each member of the family. My mother’s candelabrum has five branches. As a child, I used to wonder whether she bought it before or after she had three children.
A woman covers her hair for candlelighting. (Some Orthodox women cover their heads all the time, some only on Shabbat, some only for candlelighting and synagogue attendance.) She then lights the candles but does not blow out the match, laying it down in a safe spot to burn itself out, because the act of candlelighting has ushered Shabbat into her household, and extinguishing the match is no longer permitted.
The ceremony is very simple. A woman encircles the light three times with her hands and repeats with each encircling:
Baruch hu u’varuch shemo.
Blessed be He and blessed be His name.
She then covers her eyes with both hands and recites the blessing:
Baruch ata Adonai Elohainu melech ha’olam asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the light of the Sabbath.
For the last few hundred years, Jewish women have added another brief prayer to the candlelighting blessing. It is the Yehi Ratzon, the prayer for return to the Temple, which is really a prayer for messianic times:
Yehi ratzon milfanecha Adonai Elohainu ve’Elohai avotainu, sheh’yibaneh bet ha’mikdash bimheyra veyamenu, vetain chel’kaynu betorah’techa, ve’sham na’avad’cha beyira kimey olam uchshanim kadmoniot, ve’arva la’Adonai minchat yehuda vee’yerushalayim kimey olam uch’shanim kadmo’niyot.
May it be Your will, Lord, our God and God of our fathers, that the Temple be speedily rebuilt in our days, and grant our portion in Your Torah. And there we will serve You with awe as in days of old and as in ancient years. And may the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be as pleasing to You as ever and as in ancient times.
The reason for covering the eyes is this: blessings are usually recited prior to the act; the blessing over the candles, however, like the lighting of the candles, ushers in the beginning of Shabbat. This being so, after having recited the blessing, we would no longer be permitted to light candles. So we light the candles, cover our eyes so we don’t see the light or have “benefit” from it, as if the candles are not lit. Then we recite the blessing, uncover our eyes, and presto, the candles are lit.
I treasure my moment of candlelighting. When we speak today of men and women sharing rituals that have been traditionally male, such as Kiddush and aliyot (calling men up for the Torah blessings in the synagogue), a little fear creeps up inside of me. I don’t want Shabbat candles to be taken from me. … If I were starting out now, I might do it a bit differently. I would expect all the family to be in attendance as I light, much as they are for Kiddush and Havdalah. But having done it this way for so many years, my pleasure comes from the private rather than the public experience, enhanced if some of the family are there at the moment, but not diminished if I light alone.
For many years my husband would stand by while I lit, but that ended when he became a pulpit rabbi and had to leave early for shul. When the children all were younger, I used to let each of them light a candle or ignite the match (which, to a five-year-old, is an even bigger prize). Now that they are grown, and I have less control over their time, their presence at candlelighting is a sometimes thing. A friend, a young widow with three teen daughters, sets up a pair of candlesticks for each to light, and they all do it together every Friday night. It’s a lovely sight to behold.
Some Jews, particularly the Lubavitch Chasidim, have embarked on a campaign to have all young Jewish girls light one Shabbat candle. Though Jewish law does not explicitly require it, many consider it important for educational training purposes. This practice is still not universally observed. In most Orthodox homes, the mother will light for the entire household. However, when an unmarried woman sets up her own household, she is responsible for Shabbat candles. So is a man, when there is no woman in the household. There are many Jewish college students living in dormitories who light Shabbat candles every week. A pair of candlesticks make a fine gift for a student, male or female, going away to college.
If one has women guests, at least two candles should be prepared for each of them. If there are young girls present, it is thoughtful to inquire whether they, too, wish to light their own candles. One doesn’t need a whole lot of extra candlesticks. Almost anything flat and lined with aluminum foil will do. Shabbat candles are short and stubby, and if the bottoms are burned in, they will stand safely on just about anything. But do not use thin glass as a base. When the candles burn down, their heat will shatter that beautiful Limoges bonbon tray....
I’ve added another brief ritual to my candlelighting, a very private one. Several years ago I was chatting one evening in Jerusalem with a middle-aged couple who had settled in Israel four years earlier. They had come without their three children, and had left America as their youngest daughter was entering Barnard College. Planning ahead for the day when our children go their own ways, I asked Mrs. F., “Do you miss them? Do you think about them a lot? Do you imagine what they are doing at any given moment?” “No,” she said. “I love seeing them” (usually twice a year as things worked out), “receiving their letters, and writing to them, but I don’t miss them. … In fact,
I began to realize that if I didn’t remind myself of them, a week or two could go by without my thinking about them at all. So I decided that at candlelighting each Friday night, I would let my thoughts dwell for a moment on each child, picture their faces, and think about their lives. I once mentioned it to them, and now they all light candles on Friday night and think for a few moments about us.”
So as I light my candles each week, I reflect for a few seconds about my husband and about each child, and then I remove my hands from my eyes and say, “Good Shabbos,” and kiss whoever happens to be standing by.
After candlelighting, the men go off to shul for Minchah, Kabbalat Shabbat, and Maariv prayers. Minchah, the afternoon prayer, really belongs to the weekday, but it is scheduled back to back with the evening prayer for convenience. Minchah is recited at the last possible moment of the afternoon, and Maariv, the evening prayer, at earliest evening, with the Kabbalat Shabbat service (welcoming the Sabbath) as the highlight wedged between the two. In an urbanized society, it is difficult to run back and forth to shul three times a day, especially on a short Friday, and the Rabbis took these practical problems into consideration as they formulated ritual.
Some women go to shul for Friday-evening services, but far fewer than go on a Shabbat morning. Most of the Friday-night women’s crowd consists of little girls, teenagers, and older women. At times our daughters go, but often they stay home, and the three of us pray together. We should go more often, because the Friday-night shul daavening (prayer) is the most beautiful of all, with more communal singing than at any other time. But on Friday night I like to luxuriate in the sudden peacefulness of the house between candlelighting and dinner and in the prayer with my daughters, parts of which we sing together.
One of the special prayers of Kabbalat Shabbat is the Lecha Dodi, welcoming the beloved Sabbath. There are several beautiful melodies for these words. On Friday nights, as I sing the Lecha Dodi, an image of the sixteenth-century mystics of Safed springs into my mind.* I picture them as lean men, dressed in white caftans, their fine faces tanned from sun and wind, and glowing from their ritual immersion. I see them standing atop the mountain crest, facing toward Jerusalem and the setting sun, and singing Lecha Dodi. Could they ever have imagined that four hundred years later a New York Jew, in a modern house, would be singing “their” song? I wonder if the Beatles will have such longevity.
Even better than shul is my mother-in-law’s Friday-night daavening. Occasionally, she spends a Shabbat with us. As I lurk around a corner, and listen intently, I feel as if I am privy to a private audience with God. She finishes up the regular Friday-night prayers, and then, in a barely audible whisper, and looking into her siddur all the while, she proceeds to carry on a one-way conversation with Him.
With eighty-five years behind her, my mother-in-law brings God up-to-date on the whereabouts and doings of each child, grandchild, and great-grandchild, occasionally summing up past favors and events of yesteryear. Once, more than fifteen years after I had been married, she reminded God that her son had married a nice yiddishe maidele (Jewish girl). After describing what each of us was doing, she turned His attention to the grandchildren—which school each attended, who was graduating, who was in a cast with a torn cartilage, and who was going to camp for a month. Rarely does she make an outright plea, but once she mentioned in passing that my brother-in-law’s blood pressure was too high. Yet another time, she informed her beloved God that her grandson, then twenty-eight, chief resident at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, was working very hard and had no time yet to look for a wife (hint, hint). Systematically, every Friday night she parades the entire family before God. Without ever using those words, it is a prayer of thanksgiving. May I be forgiven for eavesdropping, hers are truly among the most moving prayers I have ever heard.
As soon as the shul contingent returns, the family sings Shalom Aleichem together, greeting the Shabbos angels who have accompanied them home:
Shalom aleichem
mal’achei hashareit
Mal’achei elyon
Mimelech malechai hamelachim
Hakadosh baruch Hu.
Bo’achem leshalom
mal’achei hashalom
Mal’achei elyon
Mimelech malechai hamelachim
Hakadosh baruch Hu.
Barchuni leshalom
mal’achei hashalom
Mal’achei elyon
Mimelech malechai hamelachim
Hakadosh baruch Hu.
Tzeitchem leshalom
mal’achei hashalom
Mal’achei elyon
Mimelech malechai hamelachim
Hakadosh baruch Hu.
Peace unto you
Angels of peace
Angels of the most High
Angels of the King Who is King of Kings
The Holy One, blessed be He.
Come in peace
Angels of peace...
Bless us in peace...
Angels of peace...
Go in peace,
Angels of peace...
People have different customs regarding Shalom Aleichem. Some families sing each stanza three times, others, only once. Some families sing while seated about the living room; others, while standing around the dining room table immediately before Kiddush. When our children were very young, we developed a simple custom, which has persisted, even though sometimes I feel we’ve outgrown it. We join hands and move about in a circle as we sing. Since there are four stanzas, we’ve upped the choreography to reversing direction after the first two stanzas. Years ago, we would put a baby in the center or sometimes two; and of course the birthday boy or girl always stood in the middle as we circled about. This is how family rituals begin. Our future grandchildren will probably assume it’s a two-thousand-year-old ritual.
Another fine Shabbat custom is for parents to bless their children with the Biblical blessings of Ephraim and Manasseh. The parent (traditionally the father but in many homes now both father and mother) places the two hands on the child’s head and says:
TO A SON:
Yesimcha Elohim k’Ephraim ve’chiMenashe.
May God make you [a symbol of blessing] as He did Ephraim and Manasseh.
TO A DAUGHTER:
Yesimech Elohim k’Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, v’Leah.
May God make you [a symbol of blessing] as He did Sarah, Re-bekah, Rachel, and Leah.
Some add the priestly blessing:
Yevareche’cha Adonai ve’yishmerecha
Ya’er Adonai panav eleycha viyechuneka
Yissah Adonai panav eleycha veyasem lecha shalom.
May God bless you and keep you
May God cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you
May God lift up His face upon you and give you peace.
—NUMBERS 6:24-27
My husband adds another blessing, the one with which his father would bless him as he departed for summer camp, college, or a journey away from home:
Ki malachav yetzave lach lishmorcha bechol derachecha.
He shall command His messengers to guard over you wherever you go.
And then, as he hugs the children afterward, he adds a word or two about something special in their lives this week.
When Moshe was eight, he decided he wanted to bless us back. His younger siblings copied him—and that’s how another ritual started in our house.
Before Kiddush is recited, a husband sings to his wife the words of Ayshet Chayil (A Woman of Valor) from Proverbs, chapter 31. The translation is as follows:
A good wife who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband trusts in her,
And he never lacks gain.
She brings him good and not harm,
All the days of her life.
She seeks out wool and flax,
And works with her willing hands.
She is like the merchant ships—
She brings her food from afar.
She rises while it is yet night,
And gives food to her household,
And rations to her maids.
She considers a field and buys it;
With her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
And braces her arms for work.
She finds that her trade is profitable;
Her lamp goes not out at night.
She sets her hands to the distaff;
Her fingers hold the spindle.
She stretches out her hand to the poor;
She reaches out her arms to the needy.
She is not afraid of the snow for her household,
For all her household is clad in scarlet wool.
She makes her own tapestries;
Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known at the gates,
As he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen cloth and sells it;
She supplies the merchants with wraps.
Dignity and honor are her garb;
She smiles looking at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom
And she speaks a language of loving-kindness
She watches her family’s comings and goings
And partakes not from the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and bless her
Her husband sings her praises
Many women are marked by greatness
But you have surpassed them all
Charm is false, beauty emptiness
A woman who fears the Lord shall be praised
Give her the fruits of her labors
And let her accomplishments be a source of praise.
Several years ago, our family spent Shabbat at a retreat with a group of young Jews who were in the process of fusing Jewish tradition with the counterculture. We were the only married couple, and when Yitz sang the Ayshet Chayil to me, several people clucked their tongues in protest: how could we, feminists both, at that (a man, too, can be a feminist), persist in carrying on with this sexist song? Later, the group discussed it at some length. I cannot recall the arguments now, but they could not convince me that it was sexist, nor could they convince me that I didn’t enjoy having it sung to me every Friday night.
How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Page 6