Shabbos: Bringing The Light Inside
Understanding Shabbos through the lens of Parashas Chayei Sara
Having explored Shabbos through the worlds of Atzilus and Ohr Ein Sof, this week I would like to follow that light inside, into the home, and look at what it reveals in the light of the Shabbos candles.
The Midrash1 teaches that there were three constant miracles in Sarah’s tent. After her passing they stopped, and when Rivka entered, they returned:
A cloud of the Shechinah hovered over the tent, reflecting the mitzvah of niddah and a state of taharah.
There was blessing in the dough; it always rose with abundance, reflecting the mitzvah of challah.
A lamp burned from Friday night to Friday night, reflecting the mitzvah of Ner Shabbos and the light of Shabbos itself.
These three miracles had deep significance, revealing how Sarah’s life began to repair the chet of Chavah.
Let’s focus on the candles. They reveal that the connection of ohr never cuts. There is a continuous wire of light running through the week. In most homes, Shabbos candles bring the house from darkness into light. In Sarah’s tent the light already filled the space. The Shem MiShmuel explains that a candle burning from one Erev Shabbos to the next shows that the weekdays remain aligned with the light received on Shabbos. When the next Shabbos arrives, ohr nosef al ha’ohr, light is added to light. Shabbos there lifts an already bright home to a higher grasp of that light. The candles in Sarah’s tent that remained lit all week signaled that the ohr of Shabbos, the Ohr HaGanuz, stayed within the home through every day that followed.
When we place this in the context of what we discussed earlier, Avraham lived his life outward, sharing the ohr and spreading light. While Sarah, who merited a cloud of the Shechinah over her tent, lit the candles inside the tent. Most of what we know about Sarah unfolds within that space. What does this inwardness teach us? Why does the Torah root her greatness inside?
It is well known that each of the Avos expressed a primary middah: Avraham embodied chesed, Yitzchak embodied gevurah, and Yaakov embodied tiferes. The Imahos, as I heard from my father, carried the complementary middah. Opposites attract and complete each other. Where Avraham was chesed, Sarah was din, which is why her place was inside, and her ohr shone from within the tent.
Yitzchak expressed din, while Rivka expressed chesed. We first meet her as she runs to draw water and feed the camels, giving of herself in the open. Sarah draws the light inward so it can settle and endure. Light can be shared without being diminished. That is its chesed. When that light is held, focused, and given form, that is its gevurah.
The ohr would still spread, yet like at the Akeidah it needed to be contained. In the home as well, the light needs containment. This is the middah of gevurah. For the Ohr Ein Sof to enter the world in a way the world can hold, it needs form. It needs gevurah, which Yitzchak represents.
Earlier we saw Noach live with the light contained inside the Teivah. The world floated in a kind of Shabbos, yet that light stayed enclosed, more survival than guidance. Yitzchak reveals the next step. His gevurah shows how the light can enter inwardly and then lead a life of listening and awareness. This is why the Torah draws our eye to him as he digs wells. He searches beneath the surface of the land and beneath the surface of self, uncovering the mayim chayim that Avraham already opened. Noach held the ohr inside an ark. Yitzchak teaches how to receive that same ohr inside the heart, to give it shape, and to live from it.
When Yitzchak saw that light return with Rivka, he understood that the Shechinah had returned. He knew she was his wife.
The Zohar teaches that when Rivka entered the tent, the Shechinah entered with her:
תָּא חֲזֵי, בְּזִמְנָא דְבַר נָשׁ הוּא בְּבֵיתֵיהּ, עִקְּרָא דְּבֵיתָא דְּבִיתְהוּ. בְּגִין דִּשְׁכִינְתָא לָא אִתְעַדֵּי מִן בֵּיתָא בְּגִין דְּבִיתְהוּ. כְּמָה דְּתָנִינָן דִּכְתִיב, (בראשית כ״ד:ס״ז) וַיְבִיאֶהָ יִצְחָק הָאֹהלָה שָׂרָה אִמּוֹ, דִּשְׁרַגָּא אִתְדְּלָקַת, מַאי טַעְמָא בְּגִין דִּשְׁכִינְתָא אָתַת לְבֵיתָא.
Come and see: When a person is in his home, the main aspect of the home is his wife.
For the Shechinah (Divine Presence) does not leave the house on account of his wife.
As we have learned, as it is written (Genesis 24:67), “And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother” – the lamp was lit again.
What is the reason? Because the Shechinah came into the house.
The same endless ohr that shone in Sarah’s days now had a new keili.
What all these miracles reveal is where the Ohr Ein Sof settles, where it finds a home. Ner Shabbos brings that light into our home. The light that filled the tents of Sarah and Rivka becomes the pattern for our own Shabbos candles. The flame enters the home and then waits for us to notice, to listen, and to let its ohr shape the way we live the coming week.
When we look at the mitzvah to light Shabbos candles, the Rishonim seek its core. The Rambam2 writes that it is Oneg Shabbos. Rashi3 teaches that it exists for Shalom Bayis.
The ohr of Shabbos enters to light up the home. It lifts the house from dimness into clarity and raises its level. It adds more light, in a simple sense and in a spiritual sense. It helps the home rise to a higher spiritual plateau. Shabbos lifts us into light, into a state of awareness. To live with the light of Shabbos is to live as an enlightened home, where everything is seen in its right place, as it is meant to be, with a clear sense of where to turn and how to move.
Additionally, the Gemara teaches that one who is careful with Ner Shabbos merits children who are talmidei chachamim.
When a person lights Shabbos candles, they tap into a very high level of ohr and stand in a place of daas. That inner clarity gives rise to holy children who can receive daas Torah and, in turn, light up the world with their wisdom.
Through lighting Shabbos candles, you show that you understand the purpose of the world is to draw Hashem’s light down into it. When we pause from certain actions and put aside distractions, we create space and focus for this light to be revealed. That space is the beginning of daas, the state in which Shabbos can be felt, not just believed.
Rav Sasson explains, based on the Chayat (who I assume was a true holy tailor), that when we light Shabbos candles we remove ra, evil, from the world and draw in shalom in its place. That is why, as we light, we daven for the removal of evil and the rekindling of peace4.
He adds that every creation is rooted in a spiritual source. A candle is rooted in the Ohr Elyon, the supernal light. When we light it with kedushah, we draw that upper light into our home. For this reason we look at the candles when we enter the house on Friday night and during Kiddush, so the ohr of Shabbos can enter the home and touch everyone in the family. When a person is infused with that light, they sing Zemiros differently, enjoy the food on a deeper level, and move through Shabbos as an elevated person.
The question remains: why was this holy mitzvah placed in Sarah’s hands rather than in Avraham’s or Yitzchak’s? The miracles in the tent continued through Sarah and then returned through Rivka, not through Avraham. Why is Ner Shabbos counted among the three primary mitzvos of women?
The Rishonim give two core reasons why women light the candles:
Because the woman is the essence of the home and runs it5.
Because lighting Ner Shabbos repairs the chet of Chavah, who caused the ohr of the world to be diminished6.
There is both a physical and a spiritual elevation that takes place when the candles are lit.
Rav Sasson explains that just as the kedushah of a child’s neshamah comes through the mother, and Jewish identity is carried through the mother, so too any extra kedushah that enters the home on Shabbos comes through her when she lights the candles. By bringing the light back into the world in this way, she participates in the tikkun of Chavah.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe explained that this points to the unique koach of Jewish women and girls, the daughters of Sarah and Rivka. The physical candles shine for a short time, yet the spiritual light awakened through their lighting remains for the entire week7.
It is also striking that the miracles in the tent returned with Rivka even before she married Yitzchak. She was still very young, yet the Shechinah rested in her presence. This serves as a source for the custom that even very young girls, from the age of three, light Shabbos candles together with their mother. Through their small flames they draw Shabbos light into the home and, in a hidden way, increase light in the entire world8.
Returning to the Ohel, our homes mirror that tent. Chesed fills them, yet gevurah shapes and protects what lives inside. Our task is to draw the ohr into ourselves and our children, and we do that through the lighting of the Shabbos candles. Ner Shabbos becomes the meeting point between that cosmic ohr and a Jewish bayis.
There is a special feeling that enters the home with that light. The home changes as it becomes a small glimpse of the heavens, a doorway into the secrets of Creation. In that moment we remember why we are here and what the point of it all is.
We take a moment, sit back, and enjoy the light. We enjoy what we have, what we built, how far we have come, and then we spread that light. From there we can carry the ohr into the week, bring it out into the world, and give others a glimpse of that same radiance.
In that way, every Shabbos table becomes a small echo of Sarah’s tent, and every time we light the Shabbos candles we affirm that the original light of Creation still dwells in our world, in our homes.
Bereishis Rabbah 60:15
Hilchos Shabbos 5:1
Shabbos 25b
Ohr Shivas Yamim, p. 236
Rambam, Hilchos Shabbos 5:2
Avos d’Rabbi Nosson 2:9
Likkutei Sichos, vol. 15, pp. 168-172
Likkutei Sichos, vol. 11, pp. 283-284; vol. 15, pp. 171-173
That idea from Rav Sasson is a gem.