Havdalah

The origins of many traditions—especially religions ones—are shrouded in mystery, like the prohibition against eating kitniyos on Passover among Ashkenazic Jews or my family’s practise of tearing the challah at the Sabbath table and passing it round from person to person, round and round the table, thus getting everyone’s germs on everybody else’s holy bread. But there’s one tradition we have of which I do actually know the origin: at the conclusion of the Sabbath, we say havdalah over hard liquor and then extinguish the candle in it, thus setting it on fire. (This is totally kosher, by the way. You don’t have to use wine for havdalah; as long as you make sure to recite the shehakol blessing over it, you can use anything you want other than water.) At any rate, this started when I was spending Shabbos with some people—I don’t remember who they were—and they did this, and I thought, gosh, that was so pretty and fun, we should do it next week when I’m back home! And we did.

Here’s this week’s flaming liquor signalling an end to this Shabbos. (I ran out of vodka last week, so I’ve switched to Canadian whiskey—Crown Royal, if you’re curious—until I can be bothered to go over to the liquor store.) A good week, everybody!