Zmanim · Shabbat and the candles
What time do you light the Shabbat candles?
The Shabbat candles are lit eighteen minutes before sunset — the moment the tradition calls shkiah (sundown) — and forty minutes before in Jerusalem. From that moment Shabbat has entered, and no fire is kindled. The exact clock time depends on your city and the date.
The candles are the doorway into Shabbat
Lighting the candles is not a mood or a decoration. It is a mitzvah, and it is the act that draws the line: on one side the ordinary week, on the other a day set apart. That is why the eighteen minutes matter. They are a margin of honor, so that Shabbat is welcomed a little early rather than trespassed on. Once the candles are lit, the workweek is behind you — from here on no new fire is kindled until Shabbat departs.
What the Shulchan Aruch teaches
The Shulchan Aruch (the classic code of Jewish law), in Orach Chaim 261, is where this is laid out: Shabbat is received before sunset, adding from the ordinary into the holy, so the candles are lit while there is still daylight. The widespread custom of eighteen minutes before shkiah, and forty in Jerusalem, grew from that principle. It is a real obligation, and it is also an invitation — a threshold the whole household crosses together.
What to do
Find sunset for your own city and this week's date, and count back eighteen minutes — that is your candle-lighting time. Light before it, never after. If your week has been heavy and all you can gather is the two candles and the blessing, that is enough; the day has still begun. That faithfulness in keeping the appointment is its own honor.
Source: Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 261.
When Shabbat is nearly here and you want the candle-lighting time for your own street and this exact week, let Kimá (the Jewish clock: your city's zmanim and candle times) carry the counting for you.
Open Kimá