Havdalah
Joseph Zitt (1992)
Written for a Havdalah ceremony,
performed at the end of the Sabbath.
The Hebrew words in parentheses note the traditional prayers
inserted at those points.
The Sabbath begins with fire and wine
and ends with wine, spice, and fire.
To that which we joyfully welcomed
a seemingly few hours ago,
we fondly bid farewell,
seeing our Sabbath soul
dissipate and ascend
returning, again,
to its waiting bay in heaven,
feeling the Sabbath Queen,
whose presence lit our day,
drift off again, to spend her week
away from us
(perhaps to visit other worlds,
where time dilation
casts the Sabbath
onto different days,
as the Earth's unchanging spin
makes the nighttime start and end
in other lands
at other hours
than those we experience here)
sensing that the peace of life away from work
resumes its suspended clatter
gliding us back into harsh fluorescence
where we talk shop, cut deals,
make and cancel plans.
So we prolong the Sabbath just a little,
into the night,
sending it off with affection and with song.
While Havdalah was once performed
only in the synagogue, only by men,
Tradition brought the ceremony home,
for the sake, they say, of the children
so that they might understand the feeling
of how the Sabbath comes and goes.
This wine that we bless and drink
rejuvenates the spirit.
Some Jews spill it as they pour,
to represent the overflowing blessings
we hope for in the week.
Some dab wine on their eyes,
their ears, their faces
as an omen of good health
for the body and soul.
With these verses,
we speak of blessing and salvation,
and the gladness and the light that
we hope the week will bring.
(Hiney Eyl Yeshuati...
...borey p'ri hagafen.)
It has been said that the sense of smell
is most vital to memory,
that a familiar scent can bring up
visions long forgotten.
These spices that we breath tonight
can bring back images
of other Havdalah ceremonies, of other comforts,
of departing Sabbaths past and yet to come.
These spices also serve as symbols
of healing and of rememdies.
We hope that some slight remnant of their scent
will remain with us
as an echo of the Sabbath sustains us
throughout the week.
(B'samim)
The first fire came
at the end of the first Sabbath
as the first people, in the Garden of Eden,
were afraid when the sun sank away,
never, they feared, to return.
God gave them stones
named Darkness and Shadow-of-Death
which, when struck together,
created the first flame.
Through this, we are told,
God has placed within each of us the power
to convert evil and darkness
into goodness and light.
As we look at our hands
in the light of these flames,
we perform the first _melacha_,
the first mundane labor,
that separates the working week
from the Sabbath that now ends,
as, with a different brightness,
God began the first day of creation
by saying "Let there be light".
(Borey M'Orey HaEysh)
And now we bless the separation
of the sacred and profane,
light from darkness,
the Sabbath from the working week
And we look to see the blends of each
within which we live
That each day contains darkness and light,
good deeds and regrettable behaviour,
exuberance and withdrawal,
sound and silence,
life both within Judaism and
within the secular civilisations
within which we also thrive.
And we look back and look ahead
to the image of Elijah
who heralds the world within, the world to come
where everyone will live in peace
and Sabbaths happen everyday.
(HaMavdil
Eliyahu HaNavi)
