Lighting Shabbat Candles

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Here at Shir Hadash, the many traditional restrictions on women’s participation in Jewish ritual have broken down. Rabbi, Cantor, Hagbah (Torah lifter) and many other roles are filled by women week after week. Yet in our egalitarian community, in which women read Torah and men serve on the Oneg commitee, it has been interesting to me that I can only remember two occasions on which men have taken the honor of lighting the Shabbat candles at Friday night services for the congregation.

What is it about this role that it remains so strongly a woman’s place? Is it the memories many of us have of our mother’s or grandmother’s lighting Shabbes licht week after week? Perhaps we remember them, covering their faces, praying quietly for the family, even crying, as they expressed their personal concerns to God? Or maybe it is the images from Jewish art, the iconic Jewish woman, head covered, not with a kippah, but with some more traditional piece of cloth, lighting the Shabbat candles?

How ironic that this particular ritual is not mi-Sinai, not one of the most ancient of Jewish rituals, but something that only became established in halachah, as late as the 12th century. This remarkable period, with its expanded role for Jewish women is the setting of two books I read recently- Rashi’s Daughers: A Novel of Love and The Talmud in Medieval France, Volume One - Yocheved and Volume Two- Miriam. Mary Anton, the author, spoke at our congregation about a year ago, about the process of researching these historical novels which grew out of her own love of Talmud study and her search for historical women role models. I had also earlier read a work of historical research, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe by Hebrew University scholar Avraham Grossman.

In this period of Jewish history, this 12th century renaissance in Ashkenaz as it is sometimes called, women were mohalot, ritual circumcisers, and shochtot, ritual slaughterers. Some wore the tallit katan and even tefillin. They were permitted the honor of holding a baby in the synagogue at a brit, a very public honor and one which required a woman to come into the men’s section, and were counted by some for the zimum for the beginning of the bircat hamazon. Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, permitted women to come up for aliyot in certain circumstances, and Rabbi Isaac Ha Levi, Rashi’s teacher and the head of the Yeshivah of Worms, Germany, wrote that one did not prevent women from saying the blessings over the lulav and etrog. The Talmudic restriction on women participating in time bound positive commandments in general broke down in many ways.

It is in this context that the practice of lighting a Shabbat light before the Sabbath began, which fell to women as a household task, was transformed into an important mitzvah ushering in the Sabbath for the entire household and accompanied by a blessing, which had not existed before.

Scholars wonder what it was about this period that saw the expansion in the role of Jewish woman and also an increase in her rights with regard to marriage and divorce. In this period it was firmly established that a woman could not be married against her will and she was given the right to insist on a divorce through the Jewish beit Din. The Responsa of this period are also particularly harsh with regard to men who behaved violently towards their wives. What was it about this time frame that offered women these expanded opportunities and protections?

Some scholars point to the increased piety of Christian women in this time period, a period of religious awakening, as a possible influence on the Jewish community. There was an increase in religious women, both in convents and in religious societies within local communities. The Cult of Mary was strengthened with Mary’s intervention sought in prayer and also a Cult of Mary Magdelene, the model of a sinful woman who had undergone complete repentance.

Other scholars point to the economic and social structure of society as the source of women’s new strength and I lean in that direction. At this time women were playing a significant role in business and, with men traveling a great deal, were often left in charge of the home. This meant first of all that men were used to dealing with powerful women with respect and could not imagine them as being so “under the fear of their husbands”, that they were to be considered like slaves and children, unable to serve God directly. It also meant that with no men around, women took on ritual roles for the family, Kiddush, Havadalah, biur Chametz, which had previously been male roles. The Ashkenazi community at this time consisted of small settlements, communities where women were needed for roles for which in that small community no man was available. All of this must have played a part in the men of Ashkenaz insisting that all of their women were in the Talmudic category of nashim chashuvot, important women, who had a stronger position in Jewish law.

Thinking of the changes that have taken place within the Jewish world since the 1970’s I would make a similar claim. Though changes were also taking place in the Christian world, these were not influencing Judaism so much, as both reflecting the changing status of women in the general society, something very much influenced by economics and culture. Just as Judaism adapted in the 12th century to changing circumstances so too have we adapted in our contemporary times. All of these changes are conducive to our two Bnot Mitzvah, Danielle and Hayley, playing a significant role in our community as adult Jewish women.