The Sabbath Begins At Sunset On

The sabbath begins at sunset on

Donate Question: When it rains on a Friday and it seems to get dark earlier, does Shabbat start sooner?

Answer: Shabbat officially begins at sunset, not when it gets dark, so no amount of clouds can bring in Shabbat earlier. That being said, Jewish communities actually do have the custom of lighting Shabbat candles 18 minutes before sunset shkiah.

These 18 minutes provide a grace period for watches and clocks set to slightly different times, ensuring that no one begins Shabbat any later than the actual sunset. You can easily find out what time candle lighting is in your town by typing your ZIP code in the widget below.

And before wrist and pocket watches became popular, how could communities ensure that everyone was lighting their Shabbat candles at basically the same time? There are a few answers to this question. The first is fairly logical.

For many years, and to a certain extent to this very day, Jews tended to live in close quarters. The whole community would make its home in no more than a few city blocks.

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This made it easy to notify the whole community about all kinds of information, including the beginning of Shabbat and holidays. The shul klapper helped to ensure that the community brought Shabbat in on time every week. How did the shul klapper know when to start his shouting journey?

Generally, he would just go by the time the sun set on Thursday, or the last time the sunset was visible. He then would be well within the 18 minutes allotted before Shabbat begins. When in doubt, a good shul klapper would bring Shabbat in early. These days, we no longer have shul klappers, but there are some cities in Israel notably Jerusalem and Ramat Beit Shemesh that play Jewish music, or a blast a siren on the citywide Emergency Broadcast System, announcing both the beginning and the end of the 18 minutes.]