Program Sparks Candle Lighting on Campuses

It wasn’t until Kasiah Weeks, 21, began her undergraduate studies at Arizona State University that she began to earnestly explore her Jewish identity.

“I grew up in a very small town where the Jewish population is very small; and there is only [a Reform] synagogue,” says Weeks, a global politics and foreign languages major originally from Las Cruces, New Mexico. “It wasn’t until I got to college that I even found out about Chabad.”

Since then, Chabad House at ASU, run by Rabbi Shmuel and Chana Tiechtel, has become Weeks’ Jewish lifeline. She attends Friday night dinners and lectures, and most recently discovered a new program that she says has changed her life: “Friday Light.”

The goal of the six-month old campaign, which was initiated by an anonymous donor in Florida, is to encourage 1 million Jewish women and girls to kindle Shabbat candles each week. Organizers, drawing on directives from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory – in 1974, he called on Jewish women worldwide to bring more light into the world through, among other things, the lighting of candles on Friday afternoon just before the beginning of Shabbat – see the mainly home-based ritual as a way to deepen participants’ spirituality and promote world peace.

“Growing up, I would sometimes light candles with my mother, but it wasn’t until college that I really took on the responsibility of performing this mitzvah myself,” relates Weeks. “Friday Light has added a whole new dimension to this ritual for me. It has made me aware of how truly special lighting Shabbat candles is, and it has inspired me to further explore my Jewish identity as part of the larger community of Jewish women.”

According to Rabbi Ari Baitelman, who with his wife Devorie Baitelman directs the program from the headquarters of Chabad of California, the Jewish woman is the crown of the home and brings it light and warmth. “Friday Light is about getting Jewish women of all ages to illuminate their homes and lives,” he says.

The hub of Friday Light is the program’s Web site, www.FridayLight.org, an interactive forum for Jewish women that offers information about the age-old candle-lighting tradition. Included on the site is the Sunset Almanac, which gives specific times to light candles in each region, a registration form to receive cellular-phone text messages or e-mail reminders for lighting times, as well as the formula for reciting the blessing over the candles and several articles.

Registered users can also contribute to the site’s blog, as well as order a free “Friday Light Starter Kit,” containing tea lights, matches, a poster, and a keepsake necklace in a reusable tin box that doubles as a handy candle tray.

While at first, the program targeted professionals and homemakers, says Devorie Baitelman, it wasn’t long before she thought to tap into college campuses, where roughly a quarter of a million young Jewish women across the U.S. live and study for four years. From ASU, Chana Tiechtel serves as Friday Light’s national campus coordinator.

“Bringing Friday Light to college students was a perfect idea,” says Tiechtel. “Young Jewish women are at a pivotal point in their lives when they are reaching out in search of meaning and self-definition.”

When Tiechtel brought the idea to the annual Chabad on Campus International Foundation Resource Fair in Edison, N.J., this past July, the response was overwhelming, she adds. “They loved it, loved it, loved it.”

Since then, Friday Light has caught on at more than 65 campuses across North America. At ASU, Tiechtel has already noted a five to 10 percent increase in the number of students who come early to Shabbat services to light candles.

“Whether they come from a religious background or not, students here are very excited about Friday Light,” she says. “It’s already becoming the new ‘in’ thing.”

What is it that students love about Friday Light? Judging from participants’ responses, it’s about coming together and being part of a community. Capitalizing off of that theme, campus Chabad Houses are pairing with sororities and planning Friday night candle-lighting dinner parties. “There is a real social aspect to Friday Light,” says Tiechtel.

“My favorite thing about lighting Shabbat candles is the fact that it’s one of the only mitzvot assigned specifically to women,” says Weeks. “It’s a powerful feeling knowing that while I’m lighting candles, there are many, many women performing the same mitzvah at the same time.”

Weeks says all Jewish women, regardless of their backgrounds and world views, can connect and unite through candle-lighting.

“Lighting candles is an easy and wonderful way for young women of all denominations to connect with each other and with Judaism without feeling like they are doing something foreign to them,” she says.

Fellow student Rachel Chaskes, 19, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., and the student president at the ASU Chabad House, agrees.

“It can be a great stepping stone for Jewish women who are interested to explore their Judaism,” says Chaskes.

But besides the community-building aspect of the program, Friday Light is equally about looking inward, and finding a moment of inner peace, says Tiechtel. That’s important, because students can easily get so deeply involved in their studies that they lose perspective.

“Lighting candles gives them an opportunity to steal away for a moment and share a personal time with G-d,” she says. “Giving young women a chance to light candles is like giving them a gift.”

Chaskes, a nutrition student, says lighting candles reminds her it is Shabbat, and how special it is.

“It’s my time to relax with my friends,” she says. “It all starts with the lighting of the candles.”

Weeks says she loves the feeling she gets when she lights: “I am always running around, getting ready for Shabbat up until the very last minute, and then finally, when it’s time to welcome Shabbat I strike the match against the matchbox, I light the candles, and that’s it: serenity.

“Everything that happened during the week is behind me,” she continues. “It’s like there is no one else in the world except for me and G-d. That is my time to talk with Him, to really connect with G-d on a personal level, and in a way that only women can. It’s truly amazing.”

Such serenity, says Ari Baitelman, when shared by women across the globe can truly spread light and peace.

“By performing this special mitzvah, women join a growing global community with an incredible power for good,” he says. “Especially now, our troubled world needs this beautiful light to chase away the darkness.”

It’s an appealing approach for ASU sophomore Rachel Siegal.

“I have always lit candles,” but by rote, says Siegal, who grew up in Chicago. Friday Light changed the focus.

“The program helps me feel good about fulfilling the mitzvah,” she says. “It has reminded me that I am helping to make a difference in the world.”