Shalom, everyone, welcome to the Light Lab Podcast. My name is Eliana Light and I am here once again with my good friends Cantor Ellen Dreskin,
Hello everybody!
and Rabbi Josh Warshawsky.
Hello!
Hi! It's so so good to see your faces and be together, it's been a long time since the gang has been back together my friends and in these dark and scary times being together in prayer and song and learning is really what my soul needs right now. And it's great that we get to share this with you and hopefully bring a little bit of light into your world and into your week. I've been noticing that the Shabbatot of the past two weeks have felt even more Shabbasy than usual, if that makes any sense. I think needing the rest, needing the break, needing to feel the potential and hope that Shabbat really brings. And so I want to ask both of you and our listeners, when does it start to feel like Shabbat for you on a given Friday? Or not? When does it start to feel like Shabbat? And I'm gonna throw it to you, Ellen first. When does it start to feel like Shabbat for you?
Well, I do think it's a different question to ask of a working clergy person perhaps. And that's not to say that it's any less, it's just different. When I am quote unquote, working or when I am serving a community on Shabbat, then I'm really conscious the entire week of making, preparing for that a spiritual practice. And so I start to ready myself quite early on in the week. But I know that I pay special attention on Friday to how my house looks. And when I start cleaning on Fridays, then I start to get excited about Shabbat. And I was mentioning to both of y'all before we started recording this morning that in these days, in October of 2023, almost November of 2023, it, working Shabbat is the most nourishing thing that I have found. Not only to be able to express myself and song which always feels a little bit Shabbat to me, but more importantly to hear the voices of others singing back. Maybe it's my imagination, but I believe more loudly in the last few weeks than I've ever heard some of my folks singing, and I'm really grateful for that.
Me too. I'm grateful that you're providing that sacred space and container where people feel comfortable and encouraged to sing out and pour whatever it is they're feeling into that song. I think that's really powerful. How about you Josh? When does it start to feel like Shabbat?
To all that and to Elliana the intention that you set in the beginning here and trying to bring a little bit more light in a dark time. I - If you ever if you email me starting on Wednesday, my salutation is Shabbat Shalom. Because we're already closer to the next Shabbat than we were to the last one. Right, you can say Shavuah Tov, you can say Havdalah until Tuesday, and then Tuesday night and Wednesday morning's kind of the farthest you are from any Shabbat, but then you know you can almost start to smell the challahs coming out of the oven, you could start to feel what Shabbat can feel like, and I like orienting my life at all times towards Shabbat. That we're, we're doing our work in the world, but we're doing it and it Shabbat is in some ways a destination because we get to get there and rest and reorient and re energize. And in some ways, it's also a goal, it's a pathway. It's like it's the next step on the journey is our next Shabbat. So I started on a Wednesday, I started saying Shabbat shalom. And then you know whenever I go to a community for Shabbat I always like to arrive by Thursday afternoon so that on Thursday evening, we can start to gather with the community and just sing some of the melodies that we're going to sing over the course of Shabbat so that by the time we get to Shabbat, it feels like they're old friends. It feels like they're already a part of the community, especially if they're new. And so that we can enter Shabbat feeling like we've, we've prepared, we figured out already what we want Shabbat to be for us. You know, this past week I was at the community and I always like to ask people when we're having, when we begin Shabbat services, what - what do you want? What do you want or need Shabbat to be for you this week? Maybe you need it to be quiet, maybe you need it to be noisy, musical, a moment of alone solitude, a moment of community, whatever you need it to be, the more you can set an intention for that, the more you can actually achieve what you want Shabbat to be for yourself. So I love that we can prepare and begin version bought earlier than when it really just arrives. So Wednesday, Thursday, well I'm always looking towards Shabbat.
I love that, and I do appreciate your Shabbat Shalom salutations, it helps me get into the mood, even in those days. I'm thinking about my evolving relationship with technology over Shabbat. I think my Shabbat practice has evolved over the years, and I've been able to let it evolve, which feels really beautiful, actually, and that at different points in my life, Josh, like you say, I need different things from my Shabbat. And these days, when it feels like Shabbat is when I turned my phone on to airplane mode. I still use it as an alarm. And I have the sleep music that I listen to every night that's on Insight Timer. And I sometimes will download like a video to watch, I'll still like watch movies or a TV show to unwind on Shabbat, but I break my phone as much as possible. Sometimes that can be hard when doing a gig, I'll explain to the synagogue, like we're going to designate a time for you to pick me up, and I'll be downstairs at that time, but I'm really going to try not to have my phone on. Like, especially in these days, when social media is both a way to connect, but it's also just a barrage of heartbreak. And I don't want to look away from the madness. And I want to allow my heart to break and to call out for peace and for justice and just in like sadness and grief at out what's going on. And, having a break from that is really, really healthy. I don't know if we're meant to be swimming in that sea all the time. And so taking that break, for me, it just that's what feels like Shabbat, and then sometimes I try to keep my phone on like airplane mode as long as possible. And then when I turn it on, and then the barrage starts coming in, like that's when it feels like the rest of the week. I've been thinking a lot recently about how we say that Shabbat is a taste of Olam Habah, a taste of the World to Come. But we don't just stay there. We don't make utopian enclaves and ignore the rest of the world. We have a taste of Olam Habah. And then we leave Shabbat. And I think maybe our job is to shrink the space between Shabbat and the rest of the week. Like what can we do to make the rest of the week more like Shabbat? More like Olam Habah? That we shouldn't deny ourselves the joy of Shabbat but we should be fully in that joy, so that we can try to make the world a little more like Shabbat during the week. And so, even talking about Shabbat with you, as we're recording on a Monday, like I already feel my body like calming down, I'm like feeling more regulated, I'm smiling more, yeah, Josh is saying me too. Even just talking about Shabbat can kind of get us into that Shabbat mindset, which is exciting. And friends, we're bringing up Shabbat because this is what our next journey is going to be on. What are we going to hold up to the light and see what shines out? We spent about a year and a half exploring the weekday Amidah, which was amazing and beautiful, and I highly recommend that you check out those episodes, and we thought what should we do next? Maybe let's go small, maybe let's go smaller, and see what happens. So we're going to be exploring Shabbat at home. This too is liturgy. These are words that were handed down by our spiritual ancestors for the moment of bringing Shabbat in, in home ritual. And it's also prayer. Times where as Josh said, we get to set intentions for the Shabbat that we want to see. And each of these blessings has its own unique world. When I was a kid, I remember learning potentially from my parents, when we would have Shabbat guests over who weren't used to coming to a Shabbat dinner, we would have lots of folks over most Friday nights, you know, rabbi's family, you know 20-30 people for Shabbat dinner was not an odd thing, it was a beautiful thing. That when the Temple was destroyed, ritual life moved into the home, not necessarily into the synagogue but into the home. And that a lot of the choices that our spiritual ancestors made in that the rabbis made for our Shabbat table. It's meant to be like a Mikdash Me'at, like a little Temple, like a little tabernacle, a little sacred place. And so I've always loved that idea. So what does that bring up for you?This idea of our Shabbat table as this as this Mikdash Me'at?
Yeah, I mean, I think that all this stuff is so intentional. They were trying to find a way and in some ways, just like you know, all of us are trying to do as people who help facilitate Jewish practice, they're trying to help people take these rituals home. Right, there wasn't a central location for people to do the thing anymore. So we needed to find a way for people to continue to engage in this practice and engage with their tradition. And the easiest place to do that the, the place that made the most sense was in their own homes. So like the, the Shabbat table became the altar. Right, and you put the two loaves on the altar, just like they had them in the loaves in the Temple. And they offered salt with it, just like they salted all the sacrifices in the Temple. And, you know, since we're talking about light to me that I'd never thought of this association before of the lights that we light on Shabbat in our home are like the Ner Tamid. Right, we're, we're lifting up that light that's always in the temple, and we're bringing it home with us and seeing how we can make it present for us and help us to notice it and help us be close to it, for all of Shabbat long.
When you say the word Mikdash, I automatically think of Parshat Trumah. And in the book of Exodus, where G?d says Asu Li Mikdash. Make Me this, you know, you recognize the root of Kadosh there in the word Mikdash, make Me a holy space, V'shachanti B'tocham, and I and that's and, I'm, you're bringing me in, and I'm going to be dwelling right there. If you, you know, it's the Jewish, if you build it, they will come. And I love to think about that as the Shabbat table that we have built with our ritual, our home ritual, a Mikdash. And then I want to say, okay, the V'shachanti B'tocham, how am I know that I've done everything I can to bring in this presence, whatever that might feel like to us?
And B'tocham is in the plural, right? It's not with, we know, even from there, that it's not just that way that altar anymore than one singular location, it's in each one of our homes, we can and we should be doing this. And we get to create these altars wherever we are. And wherever we gather is a place where we can do that.
I'm thinking about the giant Temple in Jerusalem, and the pomp and circumstance and the fact that everything was really mediated for the people through the Kohanim, through the high priests, and through the Levites. And the difference between that in the macro, and then everybody's family home, in the micro, where we don't have to have a ritual mediated by the priests and Levites. It does take away some of that awe, perhaps, but how can we bring that awe, really where we are? It really popped out to me when you were saying that Ellen, the word V'shachanti. And that root connected to Shechina, the kind of feminine indwelling presence of the Holy One in this world, but also she Luna neighborhood, like this is what we do in our neighborhoods, what does it mean to think of neighborhoods full of all of these little temples, and also, what came up for me is the idea that bringing ritual into the home makes it potentially more egalitarian, more accessible, and more open to everybody who is there. I remember and I'll try to find a source. But there's just like a general sense in certain parts of Tanakh that like, the women are worshipping their home gods, they still have, you know, little sheroes, and all of that, and we don't like it, and they shouldn't have those. And we've all just got to be go to the temple, you can have your own little neighborhood, altar to your neighborhood, God, friends, you just have to like come here. And we're all going to do it in the same way. And how kind of diffusing it bringing it back into the home might make it more accessible and still communal, because we're using more or less the same rituals and the same blessings but we get to adjust and adapt for our own tuna or no neighborhood our own family, which is a beautiful idea.
I got this great visual in my head while you were saying that if every production I've ever seen a Fiddler on the Roof. When it comes to the scene of lighting Shabbat candles and singing Sabbath prayer, it starts with Tevye, his family around the table. And I don't know how many different productions I've seen, but in every one of them as the song Sabbath prayer continues, mites come up on different table gatherings, different families around the stage from the village, and by the end, you really do have a whole whole neighborhood singing this prayer together each in their own homes and yet entirely connected to each other.
entirely connected. So let's make that connection. Josh, would you like to do us the honors of reading the blessing for lighting Shabbat candles?
Sure. So I'm reading the Hebrew is going to be the same but I was looking at a couple of different city Rebmann that's I'm reading from the new love Shalom Shabbat Siddur because I have a nice translation that I thought I would share too. So I wrote a Tod on I Eloheinu Melech Ha Olam, shira kita Shan Oba mitzvah Tov Bitsy Vanu la huddly, near shell Shabbat. Here's their translation by row Todd and I are going I had sovereign of time and space, who has provided us with a path to holiness through the observance of meats vote, has had and has instructed us to kindle the Shabbat lights. What are we noticing? What are we experiencing? We've gotten the other translations.
I love once again that the left Shalem translate Sparrow habitat on is by Rojas adonai, which is both beautiful and that it lets people kind of put in their own ideas of what does a blessing do, you can go back listener and listen to our episode on parotta adonai. But there's always more to say about these three words. It's like beautiful, but then it's also like, well, what is it? What if you're coming to the Siddur? With no knowledge of these words previously? It's like, well, what, what does it mean? ln Do you have any other translations? That you that you see?
I'm looking at the the quote unquote, literal English translation from Mishcon T'fillah from the reformed Siddur which says bless it, are you adonai are God's sovereign of the universe, who Hallows us with Mitsuko which I other than Halloween, I don't know that I have ever used the word or heard it. The word Hallo. us so I like to hallow us with Beats vote. I'm reminded of kids I know who told me that I thought it was Hallows which I also think is like hollow us out, you know make space of ourselves through meats vote and commanding us to kimberlites of Shabbat I know we're going to get to it in a little bit but I think that Josh in your translation you just mentioned is that instructs us and this is commands us because we're talking about a commandment here to light these lights. So I will come back to that few minutes.
I do think it's very interesting that the conservative movement Siddur has chosen to choose a very flowery translation of all this specifically that that was the word that struck that stuck out to me to instruct it as opposed to command mid for Mitzi Vanu instruct it is much lighter, right? And then I also but I really do like translating I share ketogenic with mitzvah tivity Vanu as who has provided us with a path to holiness through the observance of meats felt like that idea that this is a path for us to walk on for us to choose to take on for us to find our own direction on it, something like that. And I like translating Melech haolam as sovereign of time and space, especially for a Shabbat blessing. Although the how alarm does feel like a physical thing, but all at the same time. Like the alarm via it is like forever, which is a time bound thing. So I think there's interesting interplay of both of those moments and meanings.
First of all, to go back to what you were saying Elon about Hallo or hollow I'm thinking of Billy Jonas's, we are hollow bamboo. I open up your heart and let the look through. That's maybe what we're doing. What does it mean, to hollow ourselves to be vessels for that light. The translation that I have is from the Roma musi door by Rabbi Kohenet Jill hammer and you can listen to the episode with her that just came out, bless it is the indwelling life of the world's who makes us holy with meets vote, and invites us to like the Sabbath candles. So now we have also invite as a word for meats vote. Going back also, because it's just all swirling around just what you said about a path. Right? Isn't that Holika Holika Jewish law literally means path or way. And it feels a lot less maybe intense. To say, This is just This is a path. You can be on this path when you let Shabbat candles. And you're still on a journey. Even if your journey through Jewish practice doesn't look like other people's Jewish practice, you can still be on that journey with all of us which I think sometimes we have a tendency to think of how has an all or nothing sort of thing. And that just hasn't seemed true to my own experience in life and to enter what I've seen
many times of the reform move and not just an informal because we're talking about started off with this lovely interpretive translation Josh that you shared but mitzvah also seen as opportunities. And since we're going there with the mitzvah, now, you know the roots of in the Aramaic has, I've been taught more of a connotation of connection than commandment, that and it is through these communal rituals that we do connect ourselves both to each other, and also to the values that these commandments are meant to keep on our front burners.
Absolutely, yeah. Let's let's talk a little bit about that phrase. I share keychain. I knew about mitzvah tab Fitzy Vanu, which is going to come up more and more hopefully as we look at these blessings. Yes, about sav connective even within the letters themselves. vav is a connecting letter, it's a connecting letter in its use as meaning and when it's by itself. It can also be vowels and oh sound and new sound depending on where that.is and also in its construction. It's a line up and down, it's connecting up with down. I got I don't remember which SLBC it was, but when Rabbah in they were nodding when Rabbi David inkbird, gave a Drash and then talking about Vive, the little Vive and all of the wonderful things you can do. And we ended up saying I love you to each other. And I noticed, I think that I
think the t shirt that year was Vive is all you need,
oh my gosh, it's beautiful Vive is all you need, that little, little humble vive does so much. And that connective now, I looked at in Marcia preggers beautiful book the path of blessings. And she talks about Saudi as that, like a consolidation, you can even kind of hear it in the sound. It's like a little burst, just a little dot, everything's coming together, the energy is coming together and then the vibe, the now it starts to move up and down. So bringing together of energy of building, and then moving it connecting us potentially, to a higher plane connecting us to all that is connecting us to each other, there's a lot in that little root of, of Sati. And five, I think part of potentially the elephant in the room is how uncomfortable it might be or how comfortable we think it might be. To think about me to vote as commandments. You know, I certainly grew up thinking that I'm a mitzvah, maybe even saying it maybe now that I'm saying it. It's like a mitzvah is a good deed. And a mitzvah is a commandment. Of course, they're the same word, but just how they're used. And the discomfort that we might feel as liberal Jews, but I'm also thinking as Americans, the discomfort we might feel as being commanded or obligated to do anything at all. And I'm wondering if y'all have any thoughts on that,
when we're recording this, where our parachute are all in the beginning of the Bible now of the Tanakh. And I'm thinking about left law, because we make a big deal over the idea that of this law of, of if, if God is asking of him or anybody else to do something, you do it luck, there's a personal benefit from it. The commandment to count the Oh, Mayor also says it was fine to have lock him. This this do something look like him is much more common than we realize. And I think it means vote in that way. That these are opportunities, they're strings on our fingers, that it's not just because God says so God says do these things, because they're going to be reminders for you, of when you're done with all these blessings, how you should behave in the world. You know, it's it is for me, I go back to the I share kitchen, who, you know, we are somehow supposed to be changed by performing these meats about. And if we allow these opportunities, these responsibilities to do their work on us, then we will be better human beings and perhaps the world will be a better place. My next show from the net.
I love that idea. I think that I mean, to me, that's what that's what all of these things are about anyway, that Judaism is a religion of awareness and action. And it I believe that it says that what all these things that we're doing, when we're doing things that are Jewish ritual are supposed to empower us to walk in the world as better human beings and better Jews in the world. And what I mean by better is to help each other and to help the world be the best version of itself. Not that you're better if you do this thing or not. But I also I like the idea that Judaism requires something of us that to be a Jew means to engage. And it's not. It's not a passive religion. It's a religion that says these are things that we do. And we do them specific. There are things that we do alone, right candle lighting is something that you can do by yourself. And there are things that we do together, like prayer is something that we're supposed to do in groups of people. There are also prayers you can do by yourself. But there are things that are required of us. And ideally, those things that are required of us change us in some way. Right. Hopefully that when we're doing them, we're doing something that changes the way that We think the way that we act the way that we experience and the way that we interact with the world around us. But that, you know, hopefully these are things that we are trying to do and, and the fact that they are required of us, hopefully means that we engage with them instead of disengaging, saying, You know what, someone's telling me to do this, I don't want to do it at all, which is the idea of being told to do something and then having to do it is very countercultural, like you were saying Eliane right, especially in America, like we don't want to be told to do anything like we have our rights, you know, but I think the idea that there are, there are some things that are required of us means that we have responsibility to hold up the world. That's that's the whole point of what it means to be a human being. And I think it's powerful that Judaism asks us to do those things and tells us that we should?
Absolutely, I'm thinking about a quote that I saw, I'll try to find it, about the difference between freedom and liberation, and liberation. if I'm remembering correctly as being freedom with commitments, which I really love, I think if we look at our kind of story of redemption, it's not like we were taken out of Egypt to do whatever we wanted. It's that we were taken out of Egypt, to be a people for each other. And for the Holy One. I've started translating for myself commandments as commitments. First of all, because it sounds kind of similar, but but also because, right, what am I committing to? What am I taking on? What do we owe to each other? As they might say, in the good place? What do we owe to each other? And thinking about the three different kinds of meats who have also been a damn last Mo, between a person than themselves that what are the commitments I have to myself, in how I treat myself and what I do for myself, being a dynamo have a row between people, this kind of being the core of the moral meats vote, and between a dumb llama comb between a person and the holy one. But also using in this place, the name of God, that means place, and saying, perhaps when we do those meats, vote, these ritual commandments, commitments, obligations, responsibilities, whatever we want to call them, that wherever place we are in, has the potential to be a place of Holiness has a potential to be that we are keyed, shadowed, which is terrible grammar. Please don't call me out on that. But right, it's interesting to note that that's the name for God that we're using in this context. It's also interesting. Oh, yeah, please, Ellen.
I was just gonna say, I want the both of y'all were speaking, I was getting a sense of, you know, God as parent. I used to have the as parents don't just let their children do anything they want to do. I once read a passage and said, That's not love. That's abdication of responsibility when a parent lets a child do whatever they want to, and I got this, the sense while we were talking of meets vote as things that were given to us, out of love, because there's ultimately a lesson in them. And that add just like kids, you know, as we grow up, we have the freedom of weather to do as our parents told us, or, or make new rules or whatever for ourselves, but the fact that it's delivered in love helps me to look at meats vote and say, Well, what can I find here? What was the intent behind it? And can I believe that whoever said this had my best interest in heart? Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no, but I'm allowed to look at it that way is kind of like a child and a parent.
That's beautiful. And with that, we'll be right back
welcome back, everyone. Let's look at the last words of these blessings that kind of connect us specifically to the lighting of candles lahad leak Nair, shell Shabbat to light Shabbat candles, what's coming up for us? With these last four words?
Say I'm curious about the other words for lighting, which are not lahad leak is there? Do we always say what I would think of as Kindle? Do we? Every time we light a match? Is that a kindling? Or is it kindling? A different Lucha? Err that No. So maybe none of this needs to be on the podcast. As curious,
Lucha You're certainly. At work.
Here I feel Yeah, it's like to illuminate I like that idea.
Is della is Delock. Delock isn't fuel is. It is Delock is the Hebrew word for fuel. Long so the HUD league to me does it has this extra energizing to it for a real active act that sounds silly in my heart it's really meaning something important and
I think there's something there's really something to that and ever even in these these four words I think there's right there's a lot of specificity right that they hide leak is like a specific there's like an active act like you're saying the fact that it's Nair as opposed to knee wrote right? This is a singular Nair. So what are some that gotta be something going on with their Why is it and that this Nair this singular Nair is one for Shabbat that, you know, we're not just laying this candle to light this candle, because, you know, we lit candles all the time back back then that was how we saw things. I know we're gonna get to that in a few minutes. But, you know, there's something special about the lighting of this candle that brings in or begins Shabbat and sort of changes our whole outlook illuminates the rest of the days by entering into this moment, this time, this space of Shabbat
and Nair has a particular function like you said, it's like singular, and not the Hadley connais road why aren't we talking about the road just kind of all of these lights as one no matter how many candles we light, but that also and the friends will link in the show notes to these incredible resources from the website dura haha, that rabbinate Lea Sarna pointed me to all of these different sources on the where the commandment commitment, mitzvah of candle lighting comes from, and how and when and why. And we'll share all of that. It's a lot of different things, but that one of the reasons of having more than one candle is that maybe one is for lighting up the home so your home doesn't fall into darkness while you're having Shabbat dinner. And then at least one is designated as like this is the special one. This is the one for Shabbat. This is the one that's really just for our enjoyment for owning Shabbat to keep our house beautiful Shalom buy it to make peace in the home wholeness in the home. And an air also takes me to a quote from Mishlei from Proverbs Nair Elohim, Mishima Damn, that the candle of the holy one, and the light of the Holy One is the soul of a person, and what it means to look at each of our souls, or Nisha Mote as being sparked madly keen by that divine fire and for each of our souls to be a candle that is burning with the same flame that that ignites and unites the world.
I wonder, I'm hearing in my head, a lot of people asking, well, you're saying near is singular, but normally we like to, and I've been at some houses where they light a candle for every person in the house. And perhaps there are places where I know now there are lighting candles for people who are not home. What is what is the story there? Is it? Can we light as many as we like?
Let's see what the sources say. And a via is quoted as saying, it seems to me that they adapted the custom of two candles for One-ness to eat by its light. And it is recognizable, that the lighting is for Shabbat only with two. So like we said, one is kind of the worker candle and what is the Shabbat candle. Furthermore, one can say that one corresponds to the whore, remember, and one corresponds to share more, keep this sources according to this one should not add a third candle. And if one needs it, they should place it at a distance so that it is recognizable that it is not part of this group. But I grew up with that understanding that one candle was for sure more. And one candle was for zohore Remembering Shabbat versus keeping Shabbat the things that we actively do on Shabbat to add to the holiness and the things that we refrain from on Shabbat that we don't do the show morons, a horror come from the different places the two places in Torah where the sad Hadebe wrote the 10 commandments, slash utterances are given with the two different verbs about what are we supposed to do with Shabbat? For Shabbat, as Shabbat is both a remembrance of the first Shabbat at creation, and also the Exodus from Egypt. What it means to be in our kind of resting refraining mode and what it means to be in are actively doing things potentially in a laboratory way for Shabbat. What are some other understandings or things that we've seen about the different number of candles?
Well, I have to take something from the show notes. Dina, you actually put these And then from our outline because I think it's so very beautiful about the number of candles that we like. Evidently Rabbi Abraham torski grew up in a home where there was a candle for each person there at the table lit because the quotation that you brought to her notes Eliana says how edifying it was for me to know that our home was brighter on Friday nights, because I was in existence. And I think that that is also just lovely and what you say about Nair Elohim, and that each of us bringing a larger element, or one more ray of light to the table on Friday nights, just because we're there.
I think that's so beautiful, too. And I mean, I think I'd like to apply, you know, the, the idea that we kind of apply on Hanukkah, or all these other things, is it my lien bucho dish, vein meridian is that we're always trying to elevate in holiness. And so the more light the more holiness that we can bring, the better. I feel like when I was growing up, my mom always tried to have as many candlesticks sets as people wanted to light, so that everybody could at least like light their own one candle or two candles, but everybody could participate. And that made it feel like everyone was bringing more light into that moment. And so I think, you know, at least with light, it's lovely to say, the more the merrier.
I agree. And there's something so kind of deep and primal and beautiful about fire and about lighting a candle. When I'm with a group, particular group of kids, I try to invite us say, Can you pay attention and notice the moment when the fire comes into existence? Right, because it just, it just lights and we need to be aware of that and noticing it, and it can spark something in us. One of the other things I love about this and so many of our rituals is yes, there's a practical dimension to it. lighting a fire is prohibited from the Torah on Shabbat. So if you don't want to eat in the dark, you need to light candles so that you can see. And then we layer on top of it all of these spiritual reasons, and mythic historical reasons. And then our own personal reasons for why it's beautiful. Rabbi Scott Pirlo has a beautiful Eli talk, we'll link to it in the show notes about getting to the simplicity of Jewish ritual practice. Why do we like candles because they're beautiful? Because they're beautiful, and it adds beauty into our home doesn't mean to start there. Yes, adding on all of these beautiful interpretations. But letting saying the bracha have us notice the beauty that's there. And speaking of saying the bracha, let's just take a teeny weeny not really detour at all, but talk for a little bit about how this ritual is performed. Because you would expect as in so many other things that you say the bracha you say the blessing, and then you do the thing. But it's different this time, right? First, we light the candles, then we many of us, at least as I've learned, closing cover our eyes. And then we say the blessing and then we uncover our eyes. What is what does that say to you? What might the meaning there be?
I don't know, I was taught that it's kind of a legal fiction or as playing a little bit of a joke on ourselves. That we shouldn't be lighting until after the blessing. But once we say the blessing, it's Shabbat and we can't light. So we live first, then we sit and we and then we close our eyes pretending that we haven't led yet or that the light isn't there yet. We're not enjoying it yet. Or benefiting from it yet. We say the blessing. We acknowledge that Shabbat and then we say, Oh, look, we uncover our eyes. The light is there. So that's one thing that that I learned and I want to go back a little bit in a moment to the ritual of before that first row to
Yeah, let's talk about that moment. I'm thinking also now of like, what it means to kind of surprise and delight ourselves to be like, Oh, look, the candles are already lit. It's already Shabbat. I don't have to do anything else. Here it is. I can just enjoy these lights. But yeah, let's start from the from the very beginning, which I've heard is a very good place to start. Ellen, what are you what are you thinking?
I'm thinking of my grandmother. And I've never seen I mean, I do see people do three hand wavings before they close their eyes and this was my grandmother and as if to gather the light into us and then hold it dear. Hold it close when we cover our eyes. My grandmother when she would do the three very quickly the three hand covering a hand wavings I never heard these words anywhere else in my life, so I only hear them in her force saying Berra, haber Schreiber feverish my. And I realized that it was her saying borrow who borrow Shimo borrow who borrow shema. But it came out from her borrow Hamish, my Berkeley British my borrow Fetta adonai. And then she went into the blessing. And so I don't know, I never had the opportunity to ask her where, how that became a tradition in her family. Again, I can hear her voice doing it. And in our family, we have an English covenant that is loosely based on each country law that we said every week while our children were growing up, and it relates back to our children, it being so important to us that they grew up understanding why we like these candles that we say in our house, as these candles bring light and warmth to all who behold them. So may we by the lives that we live, bring light more to all behold us, as generations of Israel have kindled light. So may we be among those who can delight so that our entire practice in our house of lighting candles was Don't forget, you have the ability to bring light into the world. Don't forget,
I love that. So, so much. I think the waving of the hands three times, another instance of Judaism being very embodied and inviting us into our bodies and therefore into the present moment. And that it's something that you could easily do without thinking. Like any ritual, it's easy to go on autopilot. And one of the things that we can do as individuals is, take a breath, slow down and use this as an opportunity to say a covenant an intention to set a covenant and intention, just as you said, like what do I want or need from the Shabbat? When I worked at B'nai gesture in in New York, I learned this from them, they would do it at touch about when I took that over. I brought it into my own practice as well with each of the hand wavings they would say, we circle once for ourselves and once for our family. And one more time for all of humanity before we close our eyes by row Hatha. Right and, and how that brings kind of the three Circles of Care. I love that as well. Since we're talking about the ritual, let's talk about the saying of the blessing itself. There are many different melodies for the candle blessing. I grew up with what I would consider traditional or folk though. The wonderful Cantor Ellen Dreskin tells me that just like many things that I sang as a kid, somebody wrote it. We just didn't really think about who was writing the melodies to things when we were growing up. They had just like always existed. Matt's binder. Yes. So I'll sing it for you now. Barbara ha don't i Hello? Hey, no mela ha ha oh lum share key to shine Oba Mitsuko tough Fitzy Eva, new lair, hardly connected layer hardly connected. Shell Shah and now I instinctively want to open my eyes and say Shabbat Shalom and give a hug to the first person I see. That's great. I love getting into Shabbat mode and a Monday. Ellen, what are some candle blessing melodies that you want to share?
Well, after years and years of only knowing that one, in you know, my adult life I've been intrigued. I didn't know anybody else ever wrote another melody to it, but one of my favorites now is by Stacey buyer. And if it's okay, I could share a little bit of that now can I use the guitar? Absolutely. So Stacey buyer wrote a beautiful melody for the candle blessings and her recording of it even includes it's one of those recordings where they're like 7580 Different people singing parts of the the melody so but it's a different feeling and I love to bring it to Shabbat
let's see
let's see
shall shall. Shall shall
commands us to
Thank you for that. Oh that's beautiful Josh White melody I know I kind of put you on the spot before we recorded I've like dough you know another melody for candle blessings I
love that melody that was so sweet.
I was trying to think of I think I also Eliana grew up mostly what the one that you shared but then when we were thinking in the beginning another one came to me that I also remember and I don't know where I know it from and I don't know where it came from but this is it and if somebody knows, you can tell us that would be helpful, but it's Barbara. No, no.
No. Hey, new malleco I share kitchen obey meats, vote. meats. Oh, that's Ivana. retzeih va new they're hardly nervous Ivana mitzvah new their hind leg neck. It's Ivanova. It's Eva, I knew that I leak Nair, shell shell.
That's also beautiful. There's the candle blessing for Hanukkah, and for Yom Tov, which isn't a major key, which I'm wondering also so interesting, that kind of the more traditional ones we grew up with, we're in minor key, but there's always borrow Ha, don't I. But I usually like to save this for Hanukkah and holidays. So it is special. But it's okay. If you use this melody for Shabbat. They're also of course, songs that have been written for the moment of lighting candles, which I love to bring even more beauty and kind of intention into that. I want to bring up bringing the light by Alanna to goto which is so beautiful. And we'll play a clip of that here.
Bring in the light. Bring him bring him out of Shabbat will lie the lines of Shaba bring in the light, bring in the light.
What about you, Ellen? What songs come up around candle blessing itself?
One of my favorites is Debbie Friedman piece called letters like these lights. And it's an E kavanah. A preamble to the blessing itself and it's based on and may even be taken directly from women's poetry and prayers. Not so much poetry but prayer surrounding these meats vote which were attributed to women, women doing them such as lighting the Shabbat candles, they're called heinous. And from hundreds of years ago women writing these phrases such as let us like these lights and see the way to you hear my prayer I sing to you Debbie us as be grateful to the ones I love. And it's lovely to hear some of this old poetry and some of these older women's prayers in the songs that we sing today when we light candles.
Josh How about you?
In our home right after we light the candles we have a tradition of singing Bowie collab by Aviva Chernykh. It's a poem written by Jaime Macklin Bialik, about the sun setting out from behind the treetops and going out to welcome the Shabbat, Queen Shabbat bride with her angels of peace and rest. We like to think of it as like now the sun is set and so now we're bringing her and light into our house and it's just a really beautiful, joyful melody so.
Beautiful if you're looking for songs to sing or listen to around candle lighting itself, we'll make a little Spotify playlist and share it in the show notes and on the Show page where you can hear the songs and other ones, too, to bring some more light into your lighting. And as we wind down I just want to end with a within invitation, a practice that you can do now but I also invite you maybe to tracing the lights of Shabbat as you like them. But here in this moment, wherever we are, we can just take that moment. If you are able to sit stand or lie down in a way that feels engaged yet comfortable. Feel where you are connected to the earth, through your feet or through your seat If you can roll your shoulders back, you can relax your jaw. You relax your shoulders away from your ears. Feel your spine is a sacred ladder from heaven to earth and earth to heaven. And starting to follow the pattern of your breath, in and out. Coming into this very moment, right now
and I invite you to see in your mind's eye, a candle. What does the candle look like? Is it a candle? From a time in your life? Is it a candle you've never imagined before? And I invite you to imagine lighting this candle what sparks what changes as you light? And now gazing at that flame watching it, dance and move or be still. What are the colors that you notice in the flame? The shapes and the movements? Can you regulate your body to the stillness of the candle? Still moving even as it is still. Being present, being alive. And I invite you to imagine in your mind's eye moving that candle from floating in the space before you into the space of your heart. Nair Elohim Nish, Matt Adom. Your soul, your heart, your being is lit by the sacred spark of that candle. The sacred spark that lights all other human beings. Every human, a divine candle? How can we tend to that flame in our hearts reminding ourselves that it is connected to every other flame? And how can we see this light in each other. You can breathe in that feeling that light, knowing that it is always there for you whenever you need to connect to that sacred spark. As we come back, just to say, thank you so much for being with us today on the podcast. Thank you so much, Ellen, and thank you so much, Josh.
My pleasure. And no matter what day of the week it is when you're listening. Shabbat shalom.
Hello.
Yes, my friend. Shabbat shalom. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Christy dodge for editing for Yaffa Englander for doing show notes to Rachel Kaplan, our Podcast Producer. Join us to do some learning with Rabbi Joel Hamer on November 5. We hope that you find a little bit of Shabbat wherever you are. And we will see you again very soon. Bye everyone.
Hey, rally over Whoa. Time to introduce a new one today. Dig in
