At Rabbi Yosef Langer’s place, Shabbat gets so busy, they have to light the candles in clusters. On any given Friday, the head of Chabad of S.F. may have up to 80 guests crammed into his home. And while Langer burns through fistfuls of candles every week, last Friday was one to savor.
“Usually, erev Shabbat is a little bit hectic, so there’s a crush for time with everyone rushing. This time, 15 women all lit the candles together,” said Chaya Langer, the rabbi’s 19-year-old daughter. “It was really a special experience. It felt like what we were supposed to be doing, bringing peace to the world, bringing more light to the world by doing a mitzvah.”
The ritual was replicated in Chabad homes around the world. Entitled “Worldwide Solidarity for the Security of Israel,” the weekly lighting of the Shabbat candles is part of a global effort to promote peace and solidarity with Israel. The ritual is the brainchild of the Los Angeles chapter of the Lubavitch Women Candle Lighting Campaign.
The Langers’ lighting featured 30 to 35 guests. Other Bay Area Chabad families, including Dena and Rabbi Yosef Levin of Palo Alto, hosted similar Shabbat gatherings.
“Every candle is more light, more light we bring into the world and more darkness we dispel,” said Dena Levin. “That’s what this is all about, bringing more light into the world.”
In the past, the women’s campaign erected large billboards in Israel, urging women to light Shabbat candles. The advertisements featured weekly updates highlighting the proper time of day to do so.
The candlelighting isn’t the first act of solidarity with Israel undertaken by local Chabadniks. Along with observant Jews from around the nation, they used the recent fast day, the 17th of Tammuz, to focus on the ongoing Mideast violence.
Candlelighting, however, is a major focus of local Chabad families, serving as a natural “entry point for Jews coming back to their roots,” according to Yosef Langer.
“Shabbos is something the family shares together. It’s a time when you stop in your tracks. During the week the husband, wife and children may be going in different directions, but on Shabbos, everybody comes together,” said the rabbi, who led Friday’s ceremony because his wife, Hinda, was out of town attending to a family illness.
“One of our outreach mitzvot is introducing candlelighting to small children and single parents as well as single women and married couples. So I’m very familiar with introducing this mitzvah to women.”
In the past, Chabad of S.F. has offered women a year’s supply of candles if they agree to light them every Shabbat. And, not surprisingly, local Chabadniks urge anyone who missed Friday’s candlelighting to light a candle of their own today. Just be sure to do it before 7:50 p.m.