Arukh HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 275:7-14

Sugya Map

• Issue: The scope of tosefet shabbat (extending the Sabbath) via candle lighting.
• Nafka Mina: Whether the hadlakah (lighting) itself creates the issur melakha (prohibition of work) or if it is a secondary kabbalah (acceptance).
• Sources: Arukh HaShulchan 275:7-14; Shulchan Aruch OC 263; Tosafot Shabbat 23b s.v. Amar.

Text Snapshot

• Arukh HaShulchan 275:10: "והרי אנו רואים שאין הדלקת נרות קבלה... אלא מצות נר שבת."
• Nuance: The AHS shifts the focus from the act as a formal declaration to the nature of the mitzvah. He rejects the notion that lighting functions as a neder (vow) to cease work, positioning it instead as an independent chovah (obligation) of the day.

Readings

• Ramban (Shabbat 23b): Views the lighting as a kabbalat shabbat by default—the act binds the person.
• Arukh HaShulchan: Refutes this, arguing that if it were a kabbalah, a woman could stipulate t'nai (condition) to continue working. He insists the issur stems from the kiddush hayom (sanctity of the day) triggered by the zman, not the match.

Friction

• Kushya: If lighting isn't a kabbalah, why does the Mishna (Shabbat 2:6) imply a woman accepts the Sabbath upon lighting?
• Terutz: The AHS (275:11) posits that the custom of early acceptance became normative, but it is a minhag of piety, not a constitutive legal act of the candle lighting itself. The sanctity is inherent to the time, not the wick.

Intertext

• SA Orach Chaim 263:10: Discusses the t'nai (condition) before lighting.
• Mishnah Berurah 263:23: Notes that while the AHS is lenient, the poskim generally maintain the minhag follows the stricture that lighting functions as a kabbalah.

Psak/Practice

• Heuristic: In psak, we follow the Magen Avraham and MB: a woman who lights candles is presumed to have accepted Shabbat. The AHS serves as a theoretical anchor to explain why, b'dieved, one who forgot to make a t'nai might still have room to maneuver in extreme circumstances (e.g., tzorech gadol).

Takeaway

The Arukh HaShulchan re-centers the Sabbath from our subjective kabbalah to the objective kedushat hazman, reminding us that the day is holy whether we light the candle or not.