A Havdalah Poem

A Havdalah Poem

This short poem by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat is inspired by the Havdalah ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat and the beginning of a new week. The poem encourages readers to bring intention to this transformative ritual, bidding a heartfelt goodbye to the holiness of Shabbat along with a prayer for a blessed new week. Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, also known by the name of her blog, The Velveteen Rabbi, serves the trans-denomination Renewal Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, MA, She submitted this poem to The Open Siddur Project, an initiative that aims to liberate the creative content of Jewish spiritual practice as a collectively shared resource for students, scholars, artists, and educators to adopt, adapt, and redistribute.

Distinctions (Havdalah) for the End of Shabbat

In the end we’re like children:
we thrive on distinctions
between me and you, us and them.

Made in Your image
we separate light from darkness,
family from stranger, weekday
from that fleeting taste of Paradise.

Wax drips from the braided candle.
Cinnamon tingles the nose
to keep us from fainting
as the extra soul departs.
Stop now. Notice this hinge
between Shabbat
and what’s next.

Plunge the candle into the wine
but don’t cry: even without a flame
our light still shines. This
is our inheritance, better than rubies.
And now it’s Saturday night, the cusp
of a new beginning, another day.
This week, may our hearts be whole.

“הבדלה | Distinctions (Havdalah) for the end of Shabbat” is shared by Rachel Barenblat with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.