This article is l’luy nishmas my Rebbe, HaRav Moshe Twersky Hy”d, who was killed in the Har Nof tragedy one year ago this Shabbos.
If you are ever near a school when the dismissal bell rings, I advise you to stand far away from the door – unless you want to be knocked over by the river of students pouring out of the building! The joy on their faces outshines the look of one freed from prison. In some homes, unfortunately, the same can be seen at the Havdalah ceremony on motzei Shabbos. People are itching to get to their phones, computers, (cigarettes), and showers. As Havdalah finishes, they are already off and running! I bet they don’t know that Havdalah over a cup of wine gives many great benefits. For example: Hashem calls the person who makes it a kadosh, takes him as a special treasure, places all the brachos of Shabbos on his head, and more.
Furthermore, we must understand the makeup of the Havdalah ceremony itself: reciting verses, smelling spices, gazing at a fire, and finally saying a bracha of separation. Is there an underlying connection between these components?
The Need for Separation
In addition to reciting Havdalah over a cup of wine, we also recite it during ma’ariv on motzei Shabbos in the bracha of “Atah chonen l’adam da’as – You endow man with wisdom.” The Talmid Yerushalmi explains that the reason we do so specifically in this bracha is that without da’as it is impossible to make a separation.
Rabbi Tzvi Greenhaus of Kfar Chasidim explains this as follows: When the world was created, the snake represented the evil inclination, but it was a force outside of man. Adam had one job: to stand up against the attempts of the snake to lure him to sin with the Tree of Knowledge. Had he been successful, he would have brought the world to its ultimate purpose and completion. Since the forces of good and evil were so clearly separated, it was easier to wage the battle. But once he ate from that tree, everything became mixed up inside him. Sometimes it is only our evil inclination pushing us to do something wrong, but we mistakenly feel that we ourselves want to do it. The battlefield is more complicated, as now it is difficult to tell who is friend and who is foe.
The world continued to deteriorate until our forefather Avrohom came along and stood up against the idol-worshiping practices of the entire world. The first stage in the great separation had begun. It continued with the choice of Yitzchok over Yishmael, Yaakov over Esav, the redemption of Klal Yisroel from Mitzrayim, and finally the spectacular revelation at Har Sinai.
When we entered Eretz Yisroel and Shlomo HaMelech built the Bais HaMikdash, the difference between good and evil continued to be clear. The world saw a holy nation serving the God of the Universe, and the truth was obvious. But when the Jews sinned and were exiled, once again there was an intermingling of good and evil, and darkness covered the globe. Now, there are nations that seem to be polite and benevolent but suddenly show their true faces, performing vicious and cruel acts. Our job became to truly discern the difference between dark and light, holy and profane. To make this delicate separation, one needs to have da’as. Da’as is not mere wisdom; it is wisdom that is so clear it is ready for use. With it, a person can apply what he knows to the situation in front of him. Only in such a manner can one really make sense out of the world.
This is why Shabbos is so important. We know that Shabbos is called an “os” – a sign between us and Hashem. When a person puts a brand or emblem on an object, it is to show that it belongs to him and no one else, and this is what happens on Shabbos. On this day, we rest and separate ourselves from the entire world. When a gentile rests, it is because he is tired; when we rest on Shabbos, we show that we belong to Hashem. We forsake all our personal matters and spend a day with Hashem. By keeping Shabbos, we are already in Olam Haba. But the gentile is totally and firmly planted in this world and has no connection to the holiness of Shabbos.
On Shabbos, we see the difference between light and dark and between good and evil. The clearer this differentiation becomes, the easier it will be to continue it during the week. For that to happen, though, we can’t just fall into the regular weekday. We must first make the separation clear to ourselves, and that is what happens with the Havdalah ceremony. Now we can offer an explanation that connects all the various parts of Havdalah.
Spices, Fire, and Wine
We start with verses that express our awareness that Hashem is our savior and that only with His help can we hope to accomplish anything in the coming week.
Then we say a bracha on the spices. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that on motzei Shabbos we are weakened because we have lost our additional neshama. In order to strengthen ourselves, we smell the besamim. Perhaps we can add that this demonstrates that on Shabbos we were living a different existence. We had a neshama yeseirah, which gave us the ability to strengthen our awareness of good over evil. And although Shabbos has now left us, we must continue the task of separation, using what Shabbos taught us.
Next we look at a flame. The Gemara in Pesachim (53b) explains that we do this because fire was created on motzei Shabbos. On that first motzei Shabbos, Hashem gave Adam da’as, and Adam took two stones and ground them against each other until the sparks ignited a fire. But we can add that we look at the flame in order to make it clear to us that all the work that we will do during the upcoming week, and all things that we create with our intellect, are only due to the wisdom that Hashem gives us. Just as there was no way that Adam could have figured out himself how to make fire without that heaven-sent knowledge, so too we only accomplish thanks to Hashem.
Finally, we sum it all up with the bracha of hamavdil. We point out the various opposing forces – dark and light, holy and profane, Klal Yisroel and the other nations – and we say that Hashem is the One who created all of them and shows us that they are very different from us. Once we know our true status and our job, we will gather strength as we enter the new week. Now, as the darkness and confusion settle in, we will be able to make sense out of the chaos and separate right from wrong.
All of this explains why Havdalah has the special status of being Hashem’s treasure. Havdalah raises us to a level of holiness that is above the world’s present darkness. When we take the clarity we gained on Shabbos into the weekday, it bestows the bracha of Shabbos on everything we do. So let us take a moment before or during Havdalah to realize what we are doing, and thus merit a true “Shavuah Tov!”
