How to Light Shabbat Candles: A Step-by-Step Guide

Eighteen Minutes Before Sunset

Every Friday evening, as the sun begins to drop, something remarkable happens in Jewish homes around the world. A woman — or a man, or a child learning the tradition — stands before two candles, strikes a match, and with a simple blessing, draws the boundary between the ordinary week and the sacred day of rest.

Lighting Shabbat candles is one of the most beautiful and accessible rituals in Jewish life. You do not need to be learned, observant, or even sure about what you believe. You need two candles, something to light them with, and a willingness to pause for thirty seconds and mark the transition from doing to being.

This guide walks you through everything: the timing, the setup, the blessing, and the meaning behind each step.

What You Need

• Two candles. Traditional white Shabbat candles, available at any Jewish bookstore, supermarket with a kosher section, or online. Tea lights work in a pinch. Some use oil lamps.
• Candlesticks. Any candleholders will do — from your grandmother’s silver heirloom to a pair of simple glass holders.
• Matches or a lighter.
• A head covering. Many women cover their hair with a scarf or place a lace covering on their head during the blessing. This is a widespread custom, not a strict requirement.

When to Light

Shabbat candles are lit 18 minutes before sunset on Friday evening. This varies every week and by geographic location. Check a Jewish calendar, your synagogue bulletin, or an app like Hebcal (hebcal.com) for the exact time in your city.

The 18-minute buffer ensures you light before Shabbat officially begins at sunset, since kindling a fire on Shabbat itself is prohibited. In Jerusalem, the custom is 40 minutes before sunset.

Who Lights

Traditionally, the woman of the household lights Shabbat candles. This is considered one of the three special mitzvot entrusted to women. However, anyone can and should light candles if no one else is doing so — men, children, guests. If a woman is not present, the obligation falls to the men.

In many families, each family member lights their own candle or pair of candles. Young girls often begin lighting their own candle at age three.

How Many Candles

The minimum is two candles, corresponding to the two biblical commandments about Shabbat: Zachor (Remember) and Shamor (Observe). Many women have the custom of adding one candle for each child born to them. A mother of four would light six candles: two for the mitzvah, plus one for each child. Over the years, the growing number of candles becomes a visual record of the family.

Step-by-Step: Lighting the Candles

Step 1: Set up. Place your candlesticks on the table where you will eat Shabbat dinner, or on a stable surface nearby. Insert the candles.

Step 2: Light the candles. Strike a match and light both candles.

Step 3: Draw the light toward you. Using both hands, make a gentle sweeping motion, drawing the warmth of the candlelight toward your face. This is done three times. It is a physical way of welcoming the Shabbat light into yourself.

Step 4: Cover your eyes. Place your hands over your eyes. This is the moment of transition. The reason you cover your eyes is that, technically, the blessing should come before the action — but since reciting the blessing formally begins Shabbat (after which you cannot light a fire), you light first, then cover your eyes so you have not yet “benefited” from the light, and then recite the blessing.

Step 5: Recite the blessing.

Hebrew: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל שַׁבָּת.

Transliteration: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kideshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.

Translation: Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us to kindle the light of Shabbat.

Step 6: Open your eyes. Remove your hands and look at the candles. Many people take this quiet moment — eyes still adjusting to the light — to offer a personal prayer. Pray for your family’s health, for peace, for whatever is on your heart. There is no formula for this part. It is between you and the light.

Step 7: Say “Shabbat Shalom.” Turn to whoever is with you and wish them Shabbat Shalom — a peaceful Shabbat.

The Moment After

There is something that happens in the room after the candles are lit. The light is softer. The atmosphere shifts. Even if you are not religious, even if you are trying this for the first time, the act of pausing, blessing, and welcoming rest into your home creates a tangible change. The week is over. Whatever you did not finish can wait. Shabbat is here.

The candles should be allowed to burn out on their own — do not extinguish them. Standard Shabbat candles burn for about three to four hours.

A Practice for Everyone

You do not need to be Orthodox. You do not need to observe every law of Shabbat. You do not even need to be entirely sure what you believe. Lighting candles on Friday night is one of those practices that meets you wherever you are — a moment of beauty, a breath of pause, a weekly reminder that rest is not laziness but holiness.

Start this Friday. Light two candles. Say the blessing. See what happens.