Practical Spirituality: Lighting Sabbath Candles

Judaism has a lovely tradition of lighting candles on Friday night to welcome in the Sabbath. I consider this a spiritual practice that creates sacred space and invites in the Divine Spirit. Thus, the ritual can be used by anyone at any time.

In Exodus 25:8-9, God says, “Build for me a sanctuary (mikdash), and I will dwell among you.”  In this one verse from the Torah, or Old Testament, lies an invitation for each of us.  We are asked to create a sanctuary in which to join together with God.  An extremely detailed description of how to build the mikdash, which also is called a mishkan, or tabernacle, follows this verse.  I don’t believe we need to go to such great lengths to create a sanctuary within which we can spend time with God.  If we have the appropriate intention, the desire to invite God into the space we design, and we pay close attention when creating sacred space, we can build a sanctuary without needing wood, stone, gems, or precious metals.

In fact, we can do so with two simply candles, a match and our voices. We can do so with a candle-lighting ritual used every Friday night by Jews all around the world, and people from other religious backgrounds or spiritual traditions can adapt this for their own use.

Although many Jewish men and women don’t take the time to perform this ritual at home, the Shabbat (Sabbath) candle-lighting ritual represents one of the quickest and easiest, and, therefore, practical spiritual practices I know.  You need only clear off the kitchen or dining room table, place a pretty table cloth upon it to prepare your “temple” for Shabbat, or the Sabbath. Even a few small actions will create a mikdash ma’at, a small sanctuary, in your home on Erev Shabbat, the evening Shabbat begins, on Sunday morning or anytime you want to perform this ritual. Then put your candles on the table as well, take a deep breath and allow your Inner Priestess or Priest to light the candles and say the blessing.

Jews have a special blessing to say and a particular order in which the candles are lit and the blessing is said. A traditional hand movement is made around the candles as well. However, if you are from another tradition, you can create your own blessings or prayers and rituals. By simply lighting the candles and invoking the diving into the space, you will, indeed, have created sacred spaced and invited the Divine into it.

Speaking of Shabbat candle lighting as a “spiritual practice” seems like odd terminology. Most Jews have seen this ritual not as a spiritual practice but as a commandment. Yet, I have found that by approaching it as a spiritual practice, I have been able to deepen both the meaning and the spiritual connection I feel when I perform this ritual.  Each Friday night when you begin your spiritual practice, use kavanah, or intention.  Each time you begin to light candles, say, “I intend to create a sacred space and invite the Divine Spirit into that space.”

Synagogues, churches, prayer circles, and other spaces used for spiritual rituals tend to invoke a spiritual feeling even when no rituals are being performed within them. They become vortexes of spiritual energy, and it takes little effort to recreate the sense of sanctuary and to invoke the Divine into that space.  When we create sacred space in our homes on a continual basis, these also become vortexes of spiritual energy. Eventually, just entering the space and performing a small act, such as saying a prayer or lighting a candle, draws the Divine into the space with us.  This represents the beauty of creating sacred space and using it for spiritual practices or rituals on a regular basis.  The more we create and use the space, the stronger become our spiritual experiences in that space.

You can see your home as a sanctuary and create sacred space within it on a weekly basis. Over time, your home will become a vortex of spiritual energy, too, and you can live constantly with God in the mikdash you have built. As promised, when you build God a sanctuary, God dwells with you. As you use your houses more and more often as a sanctuary, then by merely lighting candles, saying a blessing or performing any ritual, you once again draw God into that space. By taking on the spiritual practice of Shabbat candle lighting, each week it become easier for you to feel God joining you.

For more information on using the Shabbat candle-lighting ritual as a spiritual practice, click here.