What makes a home a Jewish home? It is often the objects inside the home and how they are used that help create and define a distinctly Jewish space. One of the most well-known household objects associated with characteristically Jewish rituals is a set of candlesticks for fulfilling the obligation to kindle two lights on Friday evening to mark the onset of the Sabbath. The origins of the custom are unclear; later rabbinic interpreters would attribute it to two biblical passages—one candle to mark the instruction in Exodus 20:8 to “remember” the Sabbath, the other to mark Deuteronomy 5:12’s precept to “observe” the Sabbath. There is little evidence, however, that this was understood as a religious obligation before the Hellenistic or early Roman age. By the first century CE, we have writings from Roman onlookers testifying that Jews light oil lamps—which were used before candles—to mark the onset of the Sabbath. As they did with many rituals that had been only vaguely or sporadically followed beforehand, the early rabbis would take up lighting, elevate it to religious obligation, and discuss it in detail. Most notably, we see this in the Mishnah, the earliest work of rabbinic law (dating to the third century CE), particularly tractate Shabbat, chapter 2. The level of interest in even the most minute detail of these laws is exemplified by the rabbis’ discussions of the permissible kinds of oils and materials for wicks.
The figure at left shows a Hebrew-Latin edition of the Mishnah, translated by Willem Surenhusius (c.1664 –1729) a Dutch Christian scholar of Hebrew, and printed between 1698 and 1703. It includes commentary by traditional rabbinic thinkers (Maimonides, Bertinoro), as well as early modern Christian scholars. Translating the Mishnah into Latin made its teachings—and rabbinic thought—accessible to a broader audience of thinkers, historians, and theologians. Indeed, the earliest rabbis' thoughts and ideas on lighting Sabbath lamps, as well as an array of laws on other areas of socio-religious thought, would reach a far broader audience and have far more influence within Judaism than the third-century rabbis could have anticipated.
