I lit 2 candles for 40 days

Posted: Mon, May 31 2010, 2:43 am Post subject: re: I lit 2 candles for 40 days

Ok everyone, chill!
My father z"l used to say that to understand segulos you have to know where they come from.
And in this case actually, it isn't Xtian but rather from sefaradi lands believe it or not.
I had never seen such a thing in America and when I came to sem and heard of it I was a bit surprised, and then when my parents made aliyah later that year and I went with my father to kever harambam to daven, he explained to me what the background of the candle business is...so here goes.

First, it basically comes in place of "official" davening, simply because when it was begun, it was done by yidden who did not know how to read, mostly women in sefaradi lands and it was later said to be "iluy nishmas hazaddik" (sefaradi zaddikim) etc. It gave women and unlearned men the ritual that they needed to feel complete, something like what an official davening and saying tehilim would be had they been able to read. They were always supposed to daven from the heart - that anyone can do including illiterates - at the time, it wasn't just the mystical "light a candle"...without the davening from the heart it was just an act, not even a ritual one.

Anyhow from there (north african lands etc.) it moved to EY and when the Ari z"l lived here he and his group pretty likely connected it to the kabbalistic "ner hashem nishmas odom" and made it part of kabbalistic ritual....from where it moved to chassidus later on which took on so many minhogim of minhag ha'ari.

And that's how we have it today.
BUT, as my father z"l reminded me, it's not the act of lighting a candle that does anything, that's for illiterates (originally) but it's the davening. And as today we have no excuse of being illiterate women etc.....it means that actually everyone is right here on this thread.

This is a historical tradition of pre-kabbalistic origin, that stemmed from the human need for religious ritual. It was not Jewish in origin and not Xtian but Arab, not necessarily moslem but a cultural thing done in Arab lands by illiterate women, and then taken on by illiterate Jewish women and later by illiterate Jewish men. Came from there to Eretz Yisroel, was "megayered" by the Ari and made part of kabbalistic lore and from there to chassidus.

But. Shalhevet it right. If you aren't doing it as an act with historical background to which one has to add full davening, and NOT just as a "light a candle for the soul of a zaddik"...then you are basically not following a Jewish practice.

So for those of you for whom it is your minhog, light the candle, and daven that the Zaddik's pure neshomo should be a melitz yosher for you in Gan Eden, but at the same time, you can daven, with siddur and tehilim, DIRECTLY to the Ribono shel olam, no intermediaries needed...just hoping that the added zechus of the zaddik as we say Zichro Yogein Oleinu, will add to your prayers and you will have the yeshuah you need.
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"Olam Chessed Yiboneh", Tehilim 89.

Posted: Mon, May 31 2010, 8:57 am Post subject: re: I lit 2 candles for 40 days

My Sefardi grandmother's family isn't at all into lighting. She doesn't even remember yarzeit lighting. Now, dh tells me Italkim are into lighting limnuchat nefesh.
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"You will have many many children and make successful shidduchim beh", rebbetzin Esther Jungreis
"It's all cultural, disagree respectfully", me