Pesach 5781 | March 2021
Rabbanit Dr. Liz Shayne
Class of 2021
Not everyone has a favorite acronym. I confess, however, that I do, and it is one with particular relevance for this year’s Passover. Whenever Yom Tov falls out on Saturday night, we find ourselves in an interesting position: we must both sanctify the new holiday and separate between Shabbat and the weekday using the same ritual act of drinking wine. The Havdalah cup does double duty as the Kiddush cup. But how do we manage these simultaneous obligations? Or, more precisely, in what order ought we combine all the necessary blessings?
The answer is my favorite acronym: יקנה״ז, pronounced YaKNeHaZ: יין (yayin) for the blessing over the wine; קידוש (kiddush) for the blessing over the new holiday just beginning; נר (ner) for the blessing over the flame; הבדלה (havdalah) for the blessing Hamavdil; and זמן (zman) for Shehechiyanu. Granted, the acronym is delightful and may have engendered some wonderful illustrations due to its similarity to the German phrase jag den Has, hunt the rabbit.
However, this order of the blessings was not an inevitability. As those of you who have kept up with daf yomi have undoubtedly discovered, Pesachim 102b-103a contains no fewer than eight suggestions for how to arrange these blessings. These examples leave out Shehechiyanu, which means the Gemara offers 33% of all possible configurations of the four blessings.
Even more interestingly, the Talmud leaves out the reasoning behind each suggested combination. It is up to Rashbam, the grandson of Rashi and a renowned commentator on the Talmud in his own right, to explicate the different opinions and clarify that each combination is not arbitrary, but the application of ideological principles held by the rabbi who suggested it. The Rashbam explains that Rav—who suggests the order that we follow—believes that the blessing over the wine goes first because of the principle of תדיר קודם: when there are two blessings and one is recited more often, we recite the more frequent one first. Kiddush comes next because we prioritize, existentially speaking, welcoming in new sacred moments over bidding farewell to old ones. Finally, we finish Havdalah in the order we usually say it. Shmuel, whose opinion we do not follow, agrees with Rav about the blessing on wine coming first, but disagrees that one ought to say Kiddush next. He believes that one ought to make all the blessings associated with Havdalah first, in their correct order, and only then recite Kiddush. According to him, the principle of תדור קודם ought to apply to all of the blessings, and we say Havdalah over Shabbat more often than Kiddush for Yom Tov.
Rashbam continues to offer interpretations for each of the eight acronyms found in the Gemara. Mar the son of Rabana believes that the blessing over the candle should go first because the candles are the first thing one sees when entering the home. Levi arranges the blessings so that the candle separates between Kiddush and the wine for Havdalah. Rashbam, through his commentary, emphasizes that these arrangements are not arbitrary. They are not a matter of convenience or which acronym sounds the best, but a complicated matter of competing priorities. The eightfold disagreement in this sugya touches on a topic that is probably familiar to many of us: when our worlds collide, how do we decide what to do when?
I imagine many of us have discovered the convenient inconvenience of dissolving boundaries. Our kitchen tables have become our offices, our workplace is now a school, and our carefully delineated spaces and times merge into one another. יקנה״ז reminds us that actions need structure if we expect them to maintain internal coherence. To create a sacred experience, we need all our ducks (or rabbits) in a row. Both Shabbat and Yom Tov deserve our full attention and, with the framework of יקנה״ז, we create space for each to receive its due. Seder night is a night of order and structure; we make meaning not only through content, but also through organization. יקנה״ז teaches us how to care for the chaos in our lives by noticing the character of the individual pieces. It is the nature of acronyms to represent simultaneously their constituent parts and the new word those parts have created. So let us enjoy our moment of יקנה״ז while also taking to heart the message of careful attention that it conveys.
