This is a short extract from journalist and writer Dovid Leib Mekler’s “Fun rebns hoyf” (From the rebbe’s court), a collection of stories of the old country, most of which he collected from Hasidic Jews in New York in the 1920s and 30s. In this, Mekler describes the making of Yom Kippur Soul Candles in the Hasidic court of Talne, Ukraine – something he notes was also practiced in other Hasidic courts. While the ritual is led, as elsewhere, by women, this is the first source I’ve come across that describes men (other than male children) participating in or at least observing soul candle making. In Belz, the rebbe himself was known to recite the tkhine.  Indeed, I would argue the fact that Hasidic men seem to have wanted to take some control over the ritual is evidence of its importance in Ashenazi Jewish practice.

It is also worth noting that this source does not mention cemetery measuring. Rather than one long thread that is folded for each ancestor called in, the soul candle is made from multiple shorter threads – one for each deceased member of the family. In fact, it seems to me that this source describes a practice in transition – from measuring cemeteries and calling in ancestors from recent and ancient times, to simply memorializing those we’ve lost in our own families and communities, as is now the custom with yizkor or memorial candles.

We know from other sources that the rituals were changing and that these two practices – cemetery measuring and soul candle making – did not always go together in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In many places soul candle making seems to have outlived cemetery measuring, which was already quite rare by the twentieth century, practiced only by the most religious women.

Yom Kiper in Talne

Yom Kiper, the holiest day for Jews, was quite something in Talne. It was no coincidence that the very finest members of the Hasidic elite used to travel to Talne for the festival. The wealthiest, greatest merchants, who were not able to tear themselves away from business for Rosh Hashone, also always showed up for Yom Kiper. On Yom Kiper, Talne was filled with the crème-de-la-crème of Reb Dovid’s Hasidic kingdom, the most influential Jews from tens of Jewish communities …

… The preparations for Yom Kiper began in Talne several days earlier, once the thirteen attributes had been recited during slikhes. In Talne it was customary to perform tashlekh on every one of the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashone and Yom Kiper, as well as on the day when the thirteen attributes were recited. For many Hasidim, that day was also a fast day. In any case, people fasted until after the ritual of “moulding the candles” for Yom Kiper.

Talne Hasidim, like many other Hasidic communities, used to mould wax candles to light in the synagogue on Yom Kiper. The task of making the candles was undertaken entirely by women. It was their mitsve – their holy commandment. But men also used to gather around and observe, watching that everything should be done correctly.

It was customary to make two candles – one for the living, and one for the dead. In the candle for the dead, the number of wicks would equal the number of deceased people in the family. The same was true, l’havdil, of the candle for the living. The number of threads in the wick would equal the number of living souls in the family.

In the Talne court, the task of moulding the candles was undertaken by the rebetsn, the rebbe’s wife. Unlike other Hasidic rebbes, Reb Dovidl himself didn’t take part. The Belzer Rebbe, for example, used to say a special prayer while the candles were being made, listing the names of the dead, for each of whom a separate thread would be added to the wick. Once the candle was ready, everyone could feel the holiness of Yom Kiper arriving…

… [On Yom Kiper] the great synagogue was packed with people. People were really standing on each other’s heads. The bright lamps dazzled our eyes and the huge number of candles – for the living and for the dead – twinkled mysteriously, as if the souls of those for who they were lit were fluttering around us.

Cite this: Annabel Gottfried Cohen, ‘Yom Kippur soul candles in the Talne Hasidic court’, extract from D. L. Mekler Fun rebns hoyf ( New York, 1931)