As we roll into summer, the days are getting longer. With daylight savings time, sunset is really late. For most families, especially those with little children, it is really inconvenient to begin the Friday night meal at 9:00 or 9:30. So, many people take advantage of the halakha that permits us to begin Shabbat on Friday afternoon after pelag haminha.
Pelag haminha means 1 and ¼ hrs. (sha’ot zemaniyot – seasonal hours) before the end of the day. Ashkenazic Jews compute sha’ot zemaniyot as twelve equal time periods between sunrise and sunset. Sefardic Jews compute them between dawn and dusk, and so it important to pay attention to the difference regarding pelag haminha. According to my calculations, for the New York area, pelag haminha for Ashkenazic Jews in the beginning of June is about 6:50, while for us it is about 7:15.
That means that we could finish the Friday evening prayers and be home by 7:45, so that we can begin the meal well before sunset. Of course, that is true if the table is set, the candles are lit and the food is ready. Someone might come home and find the table piled with stuff and food cooking on the stove. He began Shabbat half an hour ago, but his family hasn’t gotten there yet.
“Excuse me,” he begins with a smile, “but weren’t you supposed to light the candles long ago?”
“No, I couldn’t possibly have done so,” his wife replies. “I haven’t finished the cooking and it’s still forty minutes to sunset.”
She’s absolutely right. Normally we say that after a Sefardic woman lights her Shabbat candles, she can then continue her work as long as she finishes a couple of minutes before sunset. She doesn’t even have to declare her intentions to continue working after lighting. This is the ruling of the Shulhan Arukh (263:6), concurring with the great majority of the Poskim. But this is true only if she lights her candles within the last half hour before sunset. If she wishes to light them earlier than that, she will have to cease working and begin Shabbat when she lights them.
Maran explained the reason for this in his Bet Yosef (Siman 263). It must be clear to an onlooker that the lights are being kindled for Shabbat’s honor. If there is less than half an hour to sunset, this is obvious. If it is earlier than this and a woman lights the candles and goes back to cooking, there is no indication that she lit them for Shabbat’s honor. She must therefore begin Shabbat immediately upon lighting them, thus demonstrating that the candles have been lit for Shabbat’s honor and not for some other purpose.
The earliest moment it is possible to do this, however, is at pelag haminha. If the family needs to leave home earlier in the day and will not return until Shabbat has started, candles can be lit but no blessing may be recited for kindling them. If someone is home and mistakenly lit the candles earlier than pelag haminha intending to begin Shabbat at that time, his actions are entirely invalid. He must extinguish the lights and kindle them again at the proper time. He must not repeat the blessing, however.
Another practical example of this halakhah is a couple who is invited to their parents’ home for the Friday night meal. The young woman wishes to light her candles, pack the car and drive across the neighborhood. After the meal, they will walk home in time to see the candles before they go out. She uses extra-long candles or extra oil to make sure that they will still be burning when she arrives home.
This plan is good only if she lights the candles within the last half hour before sunset. If she wishes to light them earlier, she will have to begin Shabbat at that time and then she will not be able to drive afterward.
Many people claim that the custom in Yerushalayim is to kindle Shabbat lights forty minutes before sunset. Actually, this has no basis in the halakha, and as explained here such a practice can cause problems. We have testimony that the great hakham Harav Yaakov Hayim Sofer (author of Kaf Hahayim) and the Rosh Hayeshiba Harav Ezra Attia kindled Shabbat lights no earlier than twenty minutes before sunset.
You can find all these rules and halakhot in the Yalkut Yosef Shabbat English Edition (Vol. I, pp. 174-177).
