Question:

I met an elderly Jewish woman at an old age home who when I asked her if she would like to say a blessing over candle lighting before Shabbos, she was very excited to do so, however asked me if it was allowed for her to say the blessing, as she recalls when growing up in Europe that her parents would often tell the girls not to say blessings and at times her father would say the blessing over the candles and not her mother, and since then whenever she lit candles for Shabbos [which was not often because she was not brought up in a Jewish home after the war] she did it without a blessing. I found this very strange, although of course I can simply dismiss it as a cloudy memory on her part, I just wanted to check if there’s any truth to this concept in Jewish law or tradition?

Answer:

In general, women are obligated in the saying of blessings just as men. It could be that the elderly woman was remembering specific blessings that women don’t say, such as Shelo Asani Isha, or blessings over mitzvahs that they’re not obligated in, by which there are Sephardic Poskim who rule that they cannot say the blessing and perhaps in her family they were stringent like this opinion. However, regarding candle lighting for Shabbos everyone agrees that a woman says the blessing. Nonetheless, it is possible that her family followed an old Ashkenazi tradition, which is no longer practiced, and has been negated by the Poskim, which is for girls and women not to recite any blessings when they are in a state of Nida, and hence it could be that during these times her father said the blessing over the candle lighting. Now, although as I said we do not rule this way, it could be that her mother’s family followed this Old tradition, and never updated to the final Halachic ruling. Practically, women [including a woman who is a Nida ] are obligated in the recital of blessings prior and post eating a food and prior to benefiting one of the benefits that a blessing was instituted for.

See Admur 88:2; M”A 88:2; Rama 88:1; Darkei Moshe 88:1; Y.D. 195:8; Ravayah 68; Hagahos Maimanis Tefila 4 Gimel; Binyamon Zev 153; Or Zarua 1:360; Kaf Hachaim 88:10;  Darkei Teshuvah Y.D. 195:58; Shulchan Melachim Nida 4; Yalkut Hagershoni 658:5; Nitei Gavriel 41:3