Torah Study Blog

At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion we are told that Israelites, “shall kindle no fire throughout your settlements on the sabbath day.” (Exodus 35:3)

Interestingly, traditional Jewish families start Shabbat by lighting candles. Today Rabbi Jaech led us in a discussion of how we got from “you shall kindle no fire” on Shabbat, to a commandment to light Shabbat candles.

The words in the Torah can be interpreted two different ways: 1) you are not allowed to have fires burning in your home on Shabbat, or 2) you cannot start a new fire on Shabbat but could leave one burning if it was already started. Technically, the Shabbat candles are lit just prior to the start of Shabbat.

Scholarship shows that the question about kindling a fire on Shabbat was part of a debate among the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Before we define these groups, we need to review the history of the Temple in Jerusalem. The 1st destruction of the Temple was by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the leaders of the community were forced into exile. The Jews who remained behind still felt the pull of religion and founded houses of study or worship away from Jerusalem.

In 539 BCE the Persians defeated the Babylonians and invited the Jews to return home, and construction of a new Temple in Jerusalem was completed in 515 BCE. Put in place by the new rulers, the Sadducees were the people with political, social and religious responsibilities, including maintaining the Temple. They claimed ultimate authority over the sacred, and they expounded that the written words of the Torah were the laws to live by. The Sadducees interpreted the Torah passage as saying there should be no fires in your home on Shabbat and they told their constituents not to kindle fires on Shabbat.

The Sadducees were wealthy people who lived in cities, and their constituents were also wealthy. Wealthy city-dwellers would have had homes with lots of windows, and they would have had servants to prepare foods before Shabbat. Not being able to light a fire on Shabbat was probably not a hardship for them. Also, because there was always a fire lit at the Temple, not allowing a fire to be kindled at home could have encouraged the people to go to the Temple on Shabbat.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, did not have the authority granted to the Sadducees by the conquering rulers. But they were the people who kept the religion going during the exilic years. During the 70 years that there was no Temple to worship God, the Pharisees taught that ordinary people could engage with the sacred in their daily lives. The Pharisees believed that the Torah was a living thing that need to be interpreted, and they gave themselves the job of interpreting it. They said you cannot kindle a new fire, but if one was already going that was fine.

The Pharisees had the support and goodwill of the common people who lived outside of the cities in small homes with few, or no, windows. These people would have found not kindling a fire to be a hardship because they had to cook and care for themselves.

When the Temple was destroyed a second time, in 70 CE, the Sadducees lost their power and the Pharisees became the voice of Judaism. The Pharisees are the precursors to The Rabbis and provided the beginnings to the rabbinic Judaism we practice today. The teachings of the Pharisees were collected and complied into the Mishnah and, ultimately, the Talmud, in an effort to provide instruction for how to live Jewishly.

Just as the Pharisees sought to interpret the Bible, and that was preserved in the Talmud, the next generation sought to interpret the Talmud. The period from roughly 750 to 1034 CE is known as the Gaonim period in Judaism. The Gaonim resided in Babylonia and were generally accepted as the spiritual leaders of the worldwide Jewish community during the medieval era. If people had a question, they could submit it in writing to the Gaonim, who would debate the question and then render an opinion.

As you can imagine, there were people who did not like the interpretation of the Gaonim. A new sect emerged during this time called the Karaites, which translates to “readers.” These people reject the writings in the Talmud and say that only what is written is Bible is divine. Karaites believe each individual is responsible for interpreting the Bible. There are still Karaite Jews today, with population estimates at about 40,000 in Israel, and another 5000 in total from other countries; including about 1000 in the US.

But back to the lighting of the candles: The Karaites followed the interpretation that no fires should be kindled on Shabbat and would not light Shabbat candles. The Gaonim followed the interpretation that a new fire could not be started, but one could be started before Shabbat. In fact, the Gaonim said Jews worldwide were obligated to light candles – they even call it a commandment! Lighting candles on Shabbat is not a commandment in the Bible and it is not a commandment in the Talmud. The Gaonim simply made it up and created a blessing to go with it. 

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter