[Avodah] R' Soloveitchik on Single Women Lighting Shabbat Candles

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/08/single-women-lighting-shabbat-candles

Snippet:

    Torah Musings
    Halakhic Positions of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik
    Single Women Lighting Shabbat Candles
    By Aharon Ziegler on Aug 14, 15 1:00 am in Halakhic Positions
    ...
                        ... Those who have family customs and if their
    minhag [custom] is that the single women do not light their own
    candles then they should certainly not deviate from their custom-
    "Ve'al Titosh Torat I'mecha"...
    ...
                            .... As a matter of fact Rav Soloveitchik
    suggested that Le'chat'chila, all women should indeed first turn off
    the electric lights, light the Shabbat candles, open the electric
    lights and then recite the Beracha.

    Regarding single girls, Rav Soloveitchik noted that this was the
    practice in Europe, even in his town, and that is how the Rav
    practiced with his daughters when they were single-that they lit
    their own candles, even with a Beracha, even when his wife also lit
    candles with a Beracha.

Interestingly, RYBS promoted mimeticism in not taking on the practice
of lighting candles if one's mother and grandmother didn't light when
they were single and still living with their parents.

Yet in the same discussion, he acknowledges how the new reality of
electric lights makes relying on the mimeticism of making the berachah
on the candles / oil alone just a bedi'eved.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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