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Shabbat and Chanuka* candles
Dec. 2nd, 2012 08:58 pmYesterday TBS had a lunch & learn session on Shabbat and Hanuka candles, lead by Chasiah Haberman. I didn't take a source sheet (but could have: the eruv is up!), so this is more brief summary and vague memory than actual notes (since, being Shabbat, I wasn't writing either). We started with copies of a short source sheet at the lunch tables for people to discuss, about family rituals, and bringing the text of Rebekkah coming to marry Isaac. A midrash talks about the things she did that were as Sarah had done (some tasks, like making bread in purity, others more spiritual, a cloud (a positive thing, here) being by the tent, etc)). One of the things mentioned was that the Shabbat candles lasted from Friday night to the next Shabbat.
People who chose to stay after kiddush got another source packet, this one with many more sources, looking first at what candles are about. There was a reminder that candles here actually refer to wicks in oil, not the cylindrical things we think of, which are newer than that. And that while the texts often refer to "candles," it's always referring to Shabbat, and may actually mean one candle. Why the default? In a poorer time, candles were scarce, so one generally went to bed when it got dark. A candle was afforded once a week; it was special for Shabbat, so one could eat Shabbat dinner in the light. And light is not merely the physical light it sheds, but also seen metaphorically as the peace in the house (there were a number of sources linking light and peace, especially in one's household, but also in Creation). The gemara has questions about what a poor man should do if he has only enough for one candle and it's Shabbat Hanuka: should the light be a Shabbat light or a Hanuka light**? And the answer given is that it should be for Shabbat, to increase the peace of his household. Then there was the question of if he had enough for a Channukkah candle or for kiddush wine, which came first? And despite the you-might-have-thought that kiddush should win (things with greater frequency tend to win over things that are infrequent), the Hanuka candle wins because it is about publicizing the miracle.
And there was discussion about that miracle, about what they might have been thinking in using that last jar of kosher oil (they had lots of non-certified oil around), when the assumption of a miracle was probably not in the forefront.
In the end, Chasiah brought it back to the question of scarcity. Despite possibly not having quite the same issue of which one candle to afford, we are still faced with situations where we have to choose, whether the scarce resource is money or time or something else. And though all the options may be good ones, they cannot all be done, and we can use those dilemmas to figure out what is most important to us. Of course, she summed it up much better than I can manage :-)
* Let the annual festival of transliterative possibilities begin!
** Back in those times, the assumption was that one lit a candle a night for Hanukka (possibly also the shamash? not sure), not the increasing candles we have now (or decreasing, according to Shammai): our plethora of candles is a super-frum, mehadrin min ha-mehadrin view that has become normative over time (and now, candles are cheap).
People who chose to stay after kiddush got another source packet, this one with many more sources, looking first at what candles are about. There was a reminder that candles here actually refer to wicks in oil, not the cylindrical things we think of, which are newer than that. And that while the texts often refer to "candles," it's always referring to Shabbat, and may actually mean one candle. Why the default? In a poorer time, candles were scarce, so one generally went to bed when it got dark. A candle was afforded once a week; it was special for Shabbat, so one could eat Shabbat dinner in the light. And light is not merely the physical light it sheds, but also seen metaphorically as the peace in the house (there were a number of sources linking light and peace, especially in one's household, but also in Creation). The gemara has questions about what a poor man should do if he has only enough for one candle and it's Shabbat Hanuka: should the light be a Shabbat light or a Hanuka light**? And the answer given is that it should be for Shabbat, to increase the peace of his household. Then there was the question of if he had enough for a Channukkah candle or for kiddush wine, which came first? And despite the you-might-have-thought that kiddush should win (things with greater frequency tend to win over things that are infrequent), the Hanuka candle wins because it is about publicizing the miracle.
And there was discussion about that miracle, about what they might have been thinking in using that last jar of kosher oil (they had lots of non-certified oil around), when the assumption of a miracle was probably not in the forefront.
In the end, Chasiah brought it back to the question of scarcity. Despite possibly not having quite the same issue of which one candle to afford, we are still faced with situations where we have to choose, whether the scarce resource is money or time or something else. And though all the options may be good ones, they cannot all be done, and we can use those dilemmas to figure out what is most important to us. Of course, she summed it up much better than I can manage :-)
* Let the annual festival of transliterative possibilities begin!
** Back in those times, the assumption was that one lit a candle a night for Hanukka (possibly also the shamash? not sure), not the increasing candles we have now (or decreasing, according to Shammai): our plethora of candles is a super-frum, mehadrin min ha-mehadrin view that has become normative over time (and now, candles are cheap).