[Avodah] R' Ovadiah Yosef re candle-lighting

[Ken Bloom]

>> "Women should make hamin and not deal with matters of Torah," the
>> spiritual leader of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, said in a speech to
>> supporters on Saturday night.  
>> Yosef made the statement in the context of a major Halachic campaign
>> he is currently engaged in as to when women should recite the
>> blessing over the Shabbat candles.  

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:59:20 EDT T613K at aol.com wrote:
> Women make a bracha /after/ lighting because by making the bracha,
> they  have brought in Shabbos, and now cannot kindle a candle.

A quick point of Sepharadi Halacha according to ROY:

* The act of lighting the candles doesn't bring in shabbat (based on
  many authorities).
* According to those who say the lighting does bring in shabbat, we
  make a condition once a year that we're not bringing in Shabbat when
  we light.
* According to those who say the lighting brings in shabbat, it doesn't
  bring in Shabbat until after we light the last candle. The beracha has
  nothing to do with it.
* The language of the Maran indicates that the beracha is said first,
  then the candles are lit.
* Saying the beracha after lighting is an issue of safek beracha
  lavetalla.

Regarding those who say that the beracha ushers in Shabbat, R' Ovadia
feels these authorities are less relevant to the Sephardi minhag than
the authorities who hold the above positions.

See Yalkut Yosef 263:33.

--Ken

-- 
Ken Bloom. PhD candidate. Linguistic Cognition Laboratory.
Department of Computer Science. Illinois Institute of Technology.
http://www.iit.edu/~kbloom1/
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