Sabbath Candle Lighting and the Revelation of Divine Light Within

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.