How to Havdala: A Mystic's Guide

Intro to Havdala

Havdala is a liminal space---a kind of synaptic gap---between the week that's coming to a close and the week that's about to begin. It's a time out of time, a time when the veil between our world and the spirit world is very thin, a time to set intentions and resource ourselves for the week ahead.

We bring in Shabbat, the close of the week, with two candles, as if to say one candle is for me and the other for the world and I am pulling myself out of the world to focus on me. In contrast, the candle of Havdala is traditionally a single candle (often braided) with multiple wicks. This candle represents integration. After the retreat of Shabbat we are using this ritual to mindfully weave ourselves back into the world.

Note the way that the Havdala ritual calls upon the senses with sacred fire, sacred spices, and sacred wine. Feel free to use this as inspiration for developing your ritual.

This guide includes many words and many ideas. Be selective and curate what resonates for you!

Welcoming in Miriam

There is a mystical tradition that on Saturday night all of the fresh water in the world becomes the water of the well of the ancestor Miriam. Miriam is our people's survival guide in any spiritual wilderness. She is the one who was with us in slavery, she is the one who walked with us to freedom, she is the one who sustained us with the healing water of her well, step by step, as we walked through the desert. The mystics say she walks with us still, an ancestral energy of love, resilience, and healing available to us whenever we are ready to open our heart to her presence.

Some folks set out a cup or bowl or fountain of "Miriam's" water before Havdala to be activated by the songs and prayers and intentions of Havdala, and then everyone meditatively or ritualistically drinks from that water in a ceremony of healing at the end of Havdala.

[To learn more about Miriam check out my limited series podcast Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness, created by Temple of the Stranger in partnership with Judaism Unbound.]

Materials

• A cup of grapejuice or wine
• A candle with multiple wicks (or two candles held together to make one flame)
• Sweet smelling spices
• Optional: water

Each blessing has suggestions for deeper explorations that may require additional materials

INTRO

There is a tradition for folks to sing or chant some or all of the following pre-Havdala texts:

WINE BLESSING

In the Jewish ancestral tradition we often activate sacred moments with blessings over wine. The mystics remind us that wine, a liquid of potency and transformation, emerges when we put grapes under pressure. Pressure can facilitate a process of becoming. So it is with us: In the week ahead we might find ourselves in places where we feel squeezed. Even as we do the sacred work of freeing ourselves, we can remember that power and transformation can emerge from a process such as this.

Explore further: A white cloth is laid out. Each person is given a grape and invited to press it into the fabric, leaving behind a mark, each smudge a trace of something personal, something that emerged under pressure. Some choose to make their own individual imprint, while others let their stain bleed into what’s already there, joining their experience with another’s. Together, these gestures form a communal creation. Throughout this process we chant together: "We are the fruit. We are the pain. We are the sweetness. We are transformed."

Calling Miriam in: Miriam accompanied our ancestors when they were under enormous pressure as slaves, making sure they did not forget that they were sacred even in their pain. We can call in Miriam to remind us of the same.

SPICES BLESSING

In the Jewish ancestral tradition, scent is highly sacred. We now pass around these holy spices, inviting each of you to inhale them sharply like smelling salts. Allow the scent to wake you up from the trance of unworthiness. Allow the scent to attune you to the sweetness of who you are in this very moment, a sweetness that lingers around you like the sweetness of these spices.

Explore further: In small groups, take turns naming the trance you are waking up from. After each person speaks, the group echoes their words together, then inhales from the spices sharply. Then the next person names the trance they are waking up from, and the cycle continues.

Calling Miriam in: The wisdom of sacred spices and incense was often carried by women in our tradition—perhaps even by Miriam herself. Though much of this ancestral art has been lost, we know that the olfactory bulb, where scent is processed, connects directly to the limbic system—the part of the brain that holds emotion and memory. As we inhale these spices, we open ourselves not only to personal memory, but to memories older than we are, memories of the wisdom of Miriam and of ancient mothers and aunties, ancestral intuitions, intergenerational flow.

FIRE BLESSING

aEvery one of us has within a fire that will never go out. But sometimes it can be hard to access that fire. There’s an tradition in this moment to lift our hands toward the Havdalah candle and gaze at the light dancing on our fingernails. Why? To remember that even when we can’t find our own fire, the light of the community, the glow of our ancestors, and the radiance of the One can still shine upon us, reflected back into our hands.

Explore further: Prompt folks to use echoing voices or mirrored physical movement to explore the truths that refract through us when we become reflections of each other.

Calling Miriam in: Miriam had a fiery spiritual chutzpah: the ancestors tell us she challenged her father in one instance and the Pharaoh in another, so confident was she in her own moral clarity. The fire of Miriam's spiritual chutzpah is a fire we all need in our lives. We can call it in with this blessing.

INTEGRATION BLESSING

It is no great feat to find sanctity in that which feels holy---in a vibrant sunset or a baby's smile. The true act of spiritual genius is the ability to remember the sacredness that is also present in the mundane. To remember that every object we encounter this week, every habit we repeat and every human we meet, offers as opportunity to make contact with transcendence if we approach with full presence and an open heart. We close the ritual of Havdala with a blessing of the One who dances within, between, and beyond the holy and the mundane.

Explore further: Rabbis/Miyas/Ritual leaders/elders use towels moistened in basins of warm water to gently wash participants hands (or participants wash each other's hands), blessings the hands that will perform acts both sacred and mundane throughout the new week.

Calling in Miriam: Miriam's well, a stone that produced life-giving water, walked with the people day by day---in seasons of triumph and in seasons of heartbreak and in seasons of boredom. Each step of the way Miriam found a way to produce water from a stone, releasing life from what appeared barren. We can ask Miriam for support in our efforts to do the same.

CLOSING

In addition to any rituals of now imbibing Miriam's healing water there is also a tradition to close the Havdala ritual with a song that speaks to our longing for liberation. It is extra powerful to chant a word or phrase from these songs while dancing together in ecstatic circles. Circle dancing is a sacred art taught to us by Miriam the ancestor and beloved to our mystics for generations. It is believed than when we lose ourselves in a sacred dance, pouring our passion into the movement, our bodies, churning round and round, stir up what is stuck in the spirit world to enable blessing and spaciousness and liberation to pour into our lives.

אֵלִיָהוּ הַנָבִיא, אֵלִיָהוּ הַתִּשְׁבִּי, אֵלִיָהוּ הַגִלְעָדִי בִּמְהֵרָה יָבוֹא אֵלֵינוּ עִם מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דָוִד

Eliyahu Hanavie, Eliyahu Hatishbi, Elyahu Hagiladi, Bimherah Yavo Elenu Im Mashiach Ben David

Eliyahu the oracle, Eliyahu the one who rests, Eliyahu, the hill-of-witnessing,

Quickly in our days return to us with liberation from the lineage of love

מִרְיָם הַנְּבִיאָה עֹז וְזִמְרָה בְּיָדָהּ
מִרְיָם תִּרְקֹד אִתָּנוּ לְתַקֵּן אֶת הָעוֹלָם
בִּמְהֵרָה בְּיָמֵינוּ הִיא תְּבִיאֵנוּ אֶל מֵי הַיְשׁוּעָה

Miryam ha-nevi'ah, oz v'zimrah b'yadah Miryam tirkod itanu l'taken et ha-olam Bimheirah v'yameinu hi t'vi'einu el mei ha-yeshuah

Miriam the prophet, strength and song in her hand, Miriam dance with us to repair the world

Quickly in our days she will bring us to waters of redemption

After extinguishing the Havdala candle and drinking the sacred wine or grape juice there is a tradition to dip ones hands in the liquid and touch the places on the body one seeks more blessing---sight, speech, heart, pockets etc...

***

May you be blessed with a week of grace.

May you feel Miriam's love each step of the way.