Is Your Shabbat Table Ready for the Light?

Is Your Shabbat Table Ready for the Light?

This week in Parshat Chayei Sarah, both Sarah and Avraham pass away.

Before Avraham dies, he sends Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzchak. When Eliezer returns with Rivka, the Torah tells us that she enters Sarah’s tent and immediately restores her mitzvot — lighting the Shabbat candles, separating challah, and bringing back the cloud of glory that had disappeared with Sarah’s death.

It’s interesting that the two mitzvot the Torah highlights, challah and candles, each carry something unique.

Challah is the only food where we make a bracha before we bake it and again before we eat it.
Candles are the only mitzvah that comes with a fine, for forgetting to do it.

I’ve been taking a course at Nishmat about candle lighting, and it’s been fascinating. The halacha says the point of lighting candles is to illuminate Shabbat, so the bare minimum is one candle, but two symbolize shamor and zachor, guarding and remembering Shabbat.

Over time, some sources talk about what happens when someone forgets to light, and that a woman who misses lighting even once adds an extra candle as a reminder.

What stands out to me is this: if someone forgets to light, the “fine” is to add another candle in perpetuity.

But what does it really mean to forget?

Do we truly forget, or do things just get out of control?

Do we get so busy, so distracted, that we miss the opportunity altogether?

It has always amazed me that a parsha about death is called “The Life of Sarah.”

But life isn’t only the years we live, it’s what we leave for the next generation.

Rivka picks up the mantle and revives what had died along with Sarah. She keeps the light burning, carries on the mitzvot, and brings G-d’s presence back into the home.

We are that same light for our families, a beacon, bringing continuity and teaching tradition to the next generation so they can carry it on.

But first, we have to light the light.

How do we reach the point of calm before candle lighting so we can bring the light?

Sometimes it’s a real challenge.

All the little piles on the table, the papers, receipts, mail, and notes, the chotchkes and odds and ends that don’t really have a place to go, those are the things that dim our light week after week.

The small bits of clutter that seem harmless actually chip away at our peace.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Imagine walking into Shabbat calm and ready, your table clear, your candles set, and your papers organized, not shoved in a bag “for later.”

Imagine knowing exactly where everything is when you need it, even your 2025 tax papers.

That kind of calm is possible, and it starts with small, consistent action.

Sarah’s light didn’t die, Rivka kept it going.

Let’s keep it going too and bring that same light into our homes this Shabbat.

What do you want your legacy to be? A home full of chaos and paper piles, or one filled with light, calm, and intention?

The choice is ours, every single week.