Halloween and Havdalah

 If you're Jewish (or just curious,) ever wonder what to do when two events "collide"? In this case, the end of Shabbat coincides with Halloween. Edmon J. Rodman gives you the answer to this dilemma below.

October 21, 2009

When Havdalah haunts Halloween

By Edmon J. Rodman, JTA

There will be no eerie glow coming from your Havdalah candle on Saturday evening, Oct. 31. No boiling or toiling in your Kiddush cup or smell of sulfur in your spice box.
Shabbat will be ending, Halloween beginning, and you can use this time to light up their differences by creating a Halloween Havdalah.
It’s not that I am proposing a Goth Shabbat.
Each October our print media gives us umpteen articles about how to carve a pumpkin. Here we will also be carving, but for a totally different result the medium will be time.
What I am suggesting is using the transition from Shabbat to Halloween to accentuate the distinction between Holy Shabbat time and the secular every day.
Recent surveys show the average American home with children will spend more than $50 this year on Halloween. How much will we be spending on Havdalah?
Requiring a braided multi-wicked candle ($4), a little kosher grape juice or Kiddush wine ($4), and some cloves, nutmeg or cinnamon in a shaker, Havdalah is a wonderful atmospheric observance whose rewards continue long after the costumes have been put away and the candy gobbled.
The October horror story isn’t whether Jews celebrate Halloween—it’s now observed largely as a secular day—the story that should have us shaking is whether Jews celebrate Shabbat.
Work’s necessity makes us forget: There is an almost tangible distinctiveness to Jewish time.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his classic book “The Sabbath,” speaks of Shabbat as a spiritual place, a “palace in time.”
Using the drama of Havdalah to take leave of the palace helps create a defining change of scene, especially before you and the kids head out into an October’s All Hollow’s eve.
The heart of Havdalah can be found in the phrase “ha’mavdil bain kodesh l’chol,”—“distinguishing between the sacred and the secular.” The name Havdalah comes from the verb “l’havdil,” to separate or distinguish.
Some Jews even say the word l’havdil when they want to make it clear that two things are much different, that they have no business of even being thought of together.
With Havdalah you are saying l’havdil between Shabbat and Halloween, expressing that there is a difference.
For a text for your service, most prayer books have a page or two for Havdalah. A little light on prayer books? Go online.
Rabbi Amy Scheinerman of Beth Shalom Congregation of Carroll County in Maryland has prepared a service complete with Hebrew transliteration, including a tip on how to create a homemade Havdalah candle. She suggests using warm water to soften two or three Chanukah candles and then twist them together.
You can also simply hold two candles together with wicks intertwined. Be sure to wrap foil around the candle’s base for a holder.
Wait till you see three stars to begin. Doorbells may be ringing; the kids restless. Look up to the sky, hold your ground (with three boys, it’s familiar ground) and go for the full difference between darkness and light.
Lower the lights. Light the candle and hold it up. Read the first part about deliverance. In contrast to the fear and shock themes of Halloween, the first line ends with resolute words for both child and adult: “I am confident and unafraid.”
Say Kiddush, the blessing over the wine. Don’t drink yet.
Kiddush wine or grape juice is a simple drink—not Halloween bubbling punch or a Bloody Mary. It’s sweet and hopefully so will be your week.
Next, pick up the spices, “b’samim,” say the blessing. They are a kind of smelling salts to revive your post-Shabbat spirits. Shake them, fully breathe them in, then pass them around. So much of Halloween is a me-me-me grab fest; b’samim is a communal pleasure.
Bless the flame. Two or more wicks burning as one broadcast, especially in a darkened room—no jack o’ lantern or blinking skulls required—the difference between light and darkness. To remind yourself of the difference, hold your palms up toward the candle, curve your fingers inward and see the shadows they cast.
Say the final blessings about God creating everything and everyone distinctly different, as well as distinguishing between the sacred and the everyday. Drink some wine.
Put out the candle in the wine. My kids loved doing this. Listen to the sizzle as the candle is quenched. Better than any sound effect, it is the sound of Shabbat ending and the new week with all its promise beginning.
Sing “Hamavdil,” a feel-good song that connects the blessings of Shabbat to the rest of the week. One verse goes: “Our families and our means, and our peace, may God increase.”
It’s our own kind of candy.
Now, wish each other a “shavuah tov,” a “gutte vokh,” a good week; no “boos” allowed.
Close the ceremony by singing “Eliyahu Hanavee.”
Better than any costumed character or mask, we have Eliyahu, who legend has it ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot. We leave the door open for him at the seder and invoke his name here at Havdalah, hoping for a time of Shabbat-like messianic peace—a time without candy wrappers, fake fog or cardboard skeletons.
(Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist writing on Jewish life from Los Angeles.)

Christmas Trees in November?

I know it is a sign of consumerism more than getting into the Christmas season when living Christmas trees (OK, they're actually dead for the most part) are being purchased this far in advance of Christmas Day. It's annoying enough with radio stations dedicating their twenty-four hour format to Christmas music, or seeing Christmas decorations put up in the city before Thanksgiving.

In my childhood household, it was pretty much a "no-no" to put up a Christmas tree before Christmas Eve, due to this religious season called "Advent." My parents believed the old adage "Keep Christ in Christmas and Christmas out of Advent." I'm sure R. Catholics have heard of Advent, and I know it isn't a religious season observed by every Christian denomination. But whatever one's religious affiliation (I've some Jewish friends who refer to it as a "Chanukah bush" when buying a small Christmas tree.) The Christmas tree, after all, has its roots (I know there's a pun) in pagan observances co-opted by early Christians. Buying a severed tree to me this early just means a lot of dead needles and a fire hazard before Christmas Day. But that's just my opinion, humbly expressed.

Of course, anyone who has waited like my family did to purchase a non-artificial tree on Christmas Eve often was confronted with the little spindly leftovers like the little tree made famous in the animated holiday program A Charlie Brown Christmas. But as Charlie Brown's friend Linus noted, spindly little trees need love too. It wasn't always the case that the trees of my youth purchased on Christmas Eve were that sad-looking.

I also remember the year my mother introduced a "new" family custom when I was a teenager which she had learned as a child and young adult growing up through the Great Depression of the 1930s. It's taking a branch, spray painting (though I don't know if spray paint was available then for household use.) the branch a shade of white or whatever festive color related to Christmas you liked, and then sticking gumdrops (or spice drops) on the the tips of the branch. I thought that was kind of interesting, and I've noticed you can now buy a special silver plated tree to stick the gum drops on, but that doesn't sound as interesting or creative. Though the gumdrops may be safer to eat (if you like to eat gumdrops, which I don't since childhood.) With current economic hard times, I thought I'd just share this with those who don't know about it as an option.

I still wait until Christmas Eve to put up my tree, and some years, it's been a live tree that can be planted, which shares space sometimes with a menorah related to Chanukah. (That's Hanukkah to others) because the seasons sometimes overlap. Chanukah is often thought of as the "Jewish Christmas" but it isn't. It's a very minor but important event in Judaism. Remember, without Judaism, there would be no Christmas. And if you are wondering, I am not a member of the Messianic Jewish group, just one who has studied and participated in several different religions both major and minor. If you haven't heard of Messianic Jews, here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Jews

Happy Holidays.

Thanksgiving not always a time of thanks: personal perspective

While visions of food and families gathered together are the traditional view of Thanksgiving, it will never be the same for me again. Seven years ago today, my mother died from post-surgical complications. Complications, including death, always are a possiblity of many types of surgery,but even though it was written in a consent form my mother signed prior to surgery, I was not prepared for the outcome. The only "thankful" part of her death was it ended a coma she had been in within 24 hours of the surgery which had lasted a week. Initially, I blamed the physician, as did my sibling, but we never took the matter to court, reasoning that our mother wouldn't want that, and no physician is perfect. I suppose I can be thankful that she had lived for nearly eighty years, but it wasn't a consolation then, nor is it now, seven years later though the grief has subsided a bit. Mind you, my mother and I were never close after I reached adolescence, and often got "on each other's nerves" as the expression goes, but I still miss her. Even though Thanksgiving's date changes, I will always remember the season as a time of sorrow in my life. This year it's even harder as I watch a co-worker in emotional pain because like my mother, her own mother has lapsed into a coma from which it is doubtful she will recover due to brain injury. I can only offer prayers and my support should my co-worker need it. It's tough to be thankful at such a time.