Obj. ID: 23663  Sabbath lamp, Afghanistan, First half of the 20th century

As everywhere in the Jewish world, the Sabbath is introduced by the kindling of lights. According to a tradition known to us from Talmudic times, an oil lamp was lit. The early Persian oil lamps, and the more recent lamps used for lighting homes in this region of the Orient, generally consisted of a vessel made of clay, glass, or metal within which the wick floated in the oil.

 

A typical Afghan Sabbath lamp is a concave silver vessel with decorated borders, mounted on a shaft that stands in the center of a three or four-legged flat base with raised borders. Protruding from the front of the vessel are two spouts, alluding to the double invocation of the commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day. to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8) and "Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it" (Deut. 5:12). Similar Sabbath lamps were still in use at the beginning of the twentieth century.

 

Later, two separate vessels replaced the two spouts, and each wick burned in its separate container. Eventually, a pair of candle holders, intended for wax candles, were added, one on each side of the base.

 

According to tradition, the women of the Afghan community took great pains to spin the wicks out of cotton or linen, making sure that the number of threads in the wick corresponded to the number of men reading from the Torah on that particular holy day. Thus, on the Sabbath the wick was twisted out of seven threads, on Yom Kippur - six, on other festivals - five, and on intermediate days (Hol Hamo'ed) and New Moon (Rosh Hodesh) the wick consisted of four threads.