Sabbath Candle Lighting and the Revelation of Divine Light Within

1888

About This Entry

This passage is drawn from the commentary of Judah Leib Alter of Ger on the first portion of Genesis, in his classic work, Sefat Emet (Language of Truth), which contains teachings delivered in 1888. Here, he offers a powerful and evocative interpretation of Sabbath candle lighting. For the Sefat Emet, as Yehudah Leib was known, the light of the candles lit at the start of the Sabbath on Friday at dusk is nothing less than a meditative and symbolic portal across the expanse of deep time, back to the first light of creation in Genesis 1. Yehudah Leib conceives of the first light of primordial time as that divine radiance that constitutes the deep soul core of all reality, and the essence spark of the divine self. It is a divine luminosity that is further released through the sacred words of the Torah when it is read aloud in the synagogue on the Sabbath. In the ritual of Sabbath candle lighting, Yehudah Leib combines mystical theology, contemplative practice or religious experience, and the evocation of the archetypal primordial sacred time.

In the midrash it is taught¹ that the light of a person’s face during ḥol [the weekdays] is different from the light of his face on Shabbat. This means that on Shabbat the inwardness [penimiyut] is revealed,² as it is written: “A man’s wisdom lights up his face.”³ This is the revelation of the extra soul.⁴ And so too at large in the world, the inwardness is revealed on the holy Shabbat.⁵ As it is written: “And there was light [va-yehi or].”⁶ And our Sages of blessed memory taught that God hid that light for the righteous in the world to come.⁷ The utterance “Let there be light” is to be found in every detail of Creation—for all the work of Creation holds a portion of that light.⁸ It has just been hidden, and on Shabbat light is revealed from that concealed source. During the six days of the week that light exists in the sense of the ‘aspeklaria that does not shine [a darkened lens], and on Shabbat it is like the ‘aspeklaria that does shine [a clear lens].⁹ And thus the lighting of the Shabbat candles¹⁰ is a mitzvah that hints to the revelation of the hidden light on the holy Shabbat. The children of Israel anticipate the disclosure of the hidden light as they feel the darkness of this world—as it is written: “Though I sit in darkness, YHVH is my light.”¹¹ For on the holy Shabbat, God be He blessed reveals to us a semblance of the light of the world to come.¹² As it is written: “God called the light Day . . . ”¹³ The essence of characterizing “Day” and “Light” as “good” is the Torah— as it is written in the midrash:¹⁴ the Torah preceded the Creation of the world by two thousand years . . . which is to say: two days of Creation. “For in Your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that has passed.”¹⁵ And on Shabbat there is a revelation from those two “Days,” Shabbat bestows Ḥokhmah [Wisdom] and Binah [Understanding] upon the children of Israel for all the days of the week.¹⁶ For this reason there is a reading of the Torah on Shabbat, as the light of Torah is revealed in that moment. And thus did our Sages interpret the verse: “If you would but heed His Voice this day”¹⁷ as referring to the holy Shabbat through which [the Jews] can hear the voice of Torah.¹⁸

Translated and annotated by Eitan P. Fishbane.

Notes

Bereishit Rabbah 11:2.

The inner force is always present, pulsing at the center of Being. For the Sefat ‘Emet, the penimiyut is the very presence of God—the life-breath of Divinity that dwells within. But during the six days of the week, we experience that life-force as through a veil of concealment, and only on Shabbat is it fully revealed to us.

Ecclesiastes 8:1.

Building upon earlier ideas, the medieval kabbalists articulated the notion that the Jew receives an “extra soul” on the Sabbath—a spiritual force that dwells within from Friday evening until Havdalah on Saturday night. Here the Sefat ’Emet attributes the glowing countenance of the Jew on Shabbat to the presence of that extra soul within. An influx of Divinity, the Sabbath soul is an entity of pure light descended from the celestial realm above.

The penimiyut—the divine force of inwardness—is not only found in the heart and soul of the person. It is also the life-force that dwells at the center of the world at large, at the core of Being itself. This is the primary way in which the Sefat ’Emet expresses the theology of radical immanence—a view that accords with the broader hasidic conception. God is not relegated to the transcendent heavens above; Divinity is to be found in the world below, in the realm of earthly and ordinary things. But just as the presence of God in the person is often concealed during the six days of the week, so too is that divine light revealed in the world on the holy Sabbath. God’s presence is a force of light, and the sacred time of Shabbat opens our spiritual perception so that we may see that which is otherwise hidden from us.

Genesis 1:3.

This is an allusion to a highly influential passage in the Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 12b, wherein the Rabbis assert that God first created a light so powerful and majestic that one could see through it from one end of the world to the other. But God became concerned that this pure light would be abused by the wicked, and so God hid that light away for the righteous in the time to come. And where did God hide that light? In the Torah, to be discovered anew in each generation by those who study the Torah with pure hearts.

In this statement, the Sefat ‘Emet has transformed the talmudic idea into the seed for an immanentist theology. The first light of Creation—the “va-yehi or”—was cloaked within the world at the dawn of time, and it remains there as the radiance of divine presence, waiting to be discovered by the spiritual seeker. Shabbat is that time of pure discovery, the moment when the veils of darkness recede and the light of Divinity emerges to full glow. The light is the divine presence; “all the work of Creation holds a portion of that light”—God is present in all the details of Creation.

Here the Sefat ’Emet is alluding to the kabbalistic resonance of these phrases. Already in rabbinic literature a distinction is made between those prophets who see God through the ‘aspeklaria she-’einah me’irah (a darkened or cloudy lens) and the prophet Moshe, who alone saw God through the ‘aspeklaria ha-me’irah (the clear lens, the shining lens). In medieval kabbalistic symbolism, the ‘aspeklaria she-einah me’irah refers to Shekhinah, the tenth sefirah, the feminine dimension of Divinity, and the ‘aspeklaria ha-me’irah refers to Tif’eret, the masculine dimension of Divinity.

The candles shine with an otherworldly glow—a reminder of the radiant Presence that has begun to envelop us, transforming our ordinary space into a small sanctuary, a place made ready for God’s dwelling.
God is the pure light that pulses at the core of Creation, the force of all that is. We yearn for that radiance in every unaware moment of our daily lives, crying out from the narrowness of superficial obsession. Slowly finding our way to the bright gleam of Divinity, like the lover and beloved of the Song of Songs, we leap over mountains in quest of the Heart of all hearts.
Most of the week we dwell in darkness—hovering over the face of the deep, unconnected to our spiritual Source. In that time, the time of the ordinary, the light of the divine face remains hidden in the innermost chambers of ourselves—it is unrevealed, and so often inaccessible.
Such is the light that was hidden in the Torah at the dawn of time.

Micah 7:8.

In this passage from the Sefat ‘Emet, Shabbat is presented as that time when the primal light of Creation is once again revealed. For, according to ancient tradition, Shabbat is a semblance of the world to come (me-‘ein ‘olam ha-ba’) that can be accessed while one is still in this world (‘olam ha-zeh). It is a time when the transcendent wonder of all things is disclosed to the human eye, a time when the timeless sparkles with the shimmer of heaven, a moment when a portal to the immortal divine mystery is opened wide to our limited and mortal vision.
It is on Shabbat that the first light of Creation shines through to us; each week we return to Shabbat as a source of warmth and illumination. And this is the hasidic reading of the midrash: a person’s face glows in a fundamentally different way on Shabbat; on that day the full brilliance of Divinity is made manifest, that which is inward becomes revealed, and we are restored to the peace of primordial perfection.

Genesis 1:5.

See Midrash Tehilim 90.

Psalm 90:4.

Already in the midrash, the two thousand years before Creation, when the Torah was created, are characterized as two great cosmic days. In the kabbalistic system, these two “days” refer to the sefirot Ḥokhmah and Binah. These two upper sefirot bestow the primal energy of Torah on the six “days of the week”—the six sefirot between Binah and Shekhinah (Ḥesed, Gevurah, Tif’eret, Netzah, Hod, Yesod). Binah and Shekhinah are both understood to represent Shabbat within the divine realm, and the six sefirotic days between them are like the six days of the week sandwiched between two Sabbaths—the Sabbath that precedes the new week, and the Sabbath that follows the workweek. The primordial Torah is contained within Ḥokhmah (for what is wisdom, both the ancient Rabbis and the medieval kabbalists ask, other than Torah?), and that force of Torah—that primal hidden light—is sent down into the lower sefirot to be revealed on Shabbat.

Psalm 95:7.

The Sefat ‘Emet teaches that the primordial divine light is present in the whole of Creation; it is a glow that dwells hidden beneath the surface of reality, and it is the same light that was concealed in the Torah.

The letters of Torah form the structure of the natural world—all of‎ Being is nothing but the great speech of God. And so Shabbat is the time when the hidden light of Torah is revealed, when the garments of concealment are lifted and we stand in the presence of Divinity.

This, the Sefat ‘Emet says, is the significance of reading the Torah portion on Shabbat: the reading and hearing of the sacred words release divine light into our midst—the first glow of Creation is sent into our hearts and souls on that day that is zeikher le-ma‘aseh bereishit (a remembrance of the work of Creation).

What is more, we are given a beautiful kavvanah (intention) for the lighting of the Shabbat candles (hadlakat ha-neirot) on Friday night. Though we may feel that we wander in darkness during the week, Shabbat comes to light up our homes and our inner lives. Such is the way that the Sefat ‘Emet reads the words of the prophet (Micah 7:8): “Though I sit in darkness, YHVH is my light” (ki ‘eisheiv bahoshekh YHVH ‘or li). During the week of ordinary time, we struggle to make a living and to accomplish our seemingly endless tasks. Sometimes this world can be a place of pain and great suffering; sometimes we can become mired in narrow and superficial thoughts. But Shabbat has been given to us as a precious gift of restoration and healing. As sunset arrives on Friday evening, as we breathe deeply and ignite the sacred flames of the Shabbat candles, the light of the world to come shines bright, and the radiance of the divine face eclipses all of our weekly worries. In this moment we are made whole again, and we are reminded of all that is good and sublime in this world.

Credits

Judah Leib Alter, Sefer Sefat Emet, trans. Eitan P. Fishbane, from Eitan P. Fishbane, The Sabbath Soul: Mystical Reflections on the Transformative Power of Holy Time (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 2012), pp. 13–23. Used with permission of Turner Publishing.

Discussion Questions

How does the Sefat Emet utilize the interpretation of biblical verses to articulate his insights in this passage? What do each of the verses quoted contribute the core points he seeks to convey?
In what way is the Sabbath understood to function as a semblance of and window into the transcendent, otherworldly, Being of Divinity, and how is this contrasted with the six days of the week?
Reflect on the rituals of Sabbath candle lighting and Sabbath Torah reading as events of mystical contemplation and revelatory experience. How are past, present, and future bound up in these rituals and in the mystical experiences of divine light embedded within them according to the Sefat Emet?