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Why do women wave their hands over the Shabbat candles?
Discuss (7)After lighting the Shabbat candles, women traditionally wave their hands three times in front of the candles, semi-circular inward-leading hand motions. The hand waving is a symbolic greeting for the "Shabbat Queen," ushering her holy presence into the home. After the third wave, the hands end up over the eyes, and the woman recites the blessings on the candles.
See also Why do we cover our eyes when reciting the blessing on the Shabbat candles?
Malkie Janowski for Chabad.org
By Malkie Janowski
Malkie Janowski is an accomplished educator who lives in Coral Springs, Florida. Mrs. Janowski is also a responder on Chabad.org's Ask the Rabbi team.
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Jerusalem, Israel
There is a contradiction. She gathers her hands first gathering the light BEFORE she covers her eyes to BLOCK the light.
Mission Viejo, Ca.
In daily Jewish practices, you say a bracha/blessing before doing the action. When you eat an apple, for instance, you say a blessing before eating it.
However, on Shabbat, you cannot. If you say the blessing before the action of lighting, you welcome in the shabbat with this blessing and lighting a fire is prohibited on shabbat so you cannot light the candles after saying the blessing. Because of this, we light the candles first, but symbolically cover our eyes so that we do not benefit from the light. Then we say the blessing and then we see the light and benefit from it. So in the end, we satisfy both requirements: saying the blessing beforehand and also avoiding doing a prohibited act on shabbat.
austin , tx
Baltimore, MD
Montgomery, TX