Shabbat - On The Way Out

The Havdalah blessing is recited, once in the Amidah prayer of Maariv, in the blessing of “You endow man with knowledge and teach discernment to humankind...,” and once again, over a cup of wine.
(Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 294:1)

Blessed are You, God…Who separates between the sacred and the mundane, between the light and the darkness…between the seventh day and the six days of the week (the Havdalah Blessing).

In the beginning, when “the earth was yet unformed and empty, with darkness over the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:1), God created hierarchy. He thus replaced chaos with order: He set the earth below and heaven above; He placed an expanse of sky in the midst of the waters to separate the upper waters from the lower waters; He fashioned a greater light to preside over the day and a lesser light to preside over the night.

When “God then blessed the seventh day and declared it holy” (Genesis 2:1-3), He created a hierarchy of days, designating Shabbat as primary and all the rest as secondary. Creation – as the introduction of a hierarchical code – was thus complete; to bring an egalitarian rejection of hierarchy into this scheme of the universe would throw the creation back into chaos.

Shabbat is the essence of creation, the root of all that is holy. The rest of the week has purpose solely within the context of its relationship to the seventh day. Yet unless we ourselves recognize the primary place Shabbat holds in creation – unless we discriminate between the holiness of Shabbat and the mundanity of the weekdays – it is easy to mistake Shabbat for just another day. For what perceptible difference is there, after all, between one day and another?

Only God’s introducing a hierarchical system into a universe “yet unformed and empty” replaced chaos with organization and order. Only our discernment of the hierarchy – primary and secondary, Shabbat and the weekdays – spares us from the chaos and emptiness of one day running into another.

Reciting the Havdalah blessing at the close of Shabbat instills this recognition in ourselves. Through the Havdalah ceremony we distinguish the sacred from the secular, the seventh day from the six days of the week. Paradoxically, this discrimination, which underscores the essential absence of holiness during the week, is the bridge that imparts sanctity to the mundane; it is this that carries the holiness of Shabbat over to the weekdays. These six days are rectified and elevated predominantly by means of the efforts we invest during the week for the sake of Shabbat. The first of these weekday efforts for Shabbat is our recitation of Havdalah – introducing hierarchy to a week that is “yet unformed and empty.”

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The Havdalah (literally, “separation”) ceremony constitutes an essential distinguishing between “the sacred and the mundane…between the seventh day and the six days of the week.” In making these distinctions we are discerning between two truths: the higher, perfect truth that peeks through on Shabbat, and the partial truth that dominates the weekdays (see Section II: “Candle Lighting”).

The truth of Shabbat is a truth pristine and absolute – truth as it was prior to the six days of Creation. The truth of the weekdays, on the other hand, is an altogether different semblance of truth – truth as it has been ever since the time of Creation. For concurrent with the creation of the world there came into existence the first traces of a lesser truth, a relative truth. This was the inevitable byproduct of the emerging reality of our universe, a dualistic reality in which a multitude of created beings live their lives ostensibly separate from God. This first falsehood of seeming separation from God engendered a weekday truth – a truth that begs to be distinguished from and refined of the falsehood in which it is entangled.

Once this second truth emerged in the cosmic realm – an amalgamated truth embodied within the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – it was not long before it became part of everyday human reality. The moment Adam ate from the forbidden fruit of the Tree, the first human reinforced the commingling of truth and falsehood, internalizing it as an integral component of his consciousness. Truth, once apparent and absolute, became clouded and partial. Distinctions, once evident and unequivocal, became relative and mired in ambiguity. Sacred and secular are thus barely distinguishable.

In reciting the Havdalah we distinguish between two levels of truth. We note the difference between the weekday truth, which emerged during the six days of Creation, and the truth of the reality that existed prior to Creation. It is this second truth that we come to know through our observance of Shabbat. At the core of this awareness that Havdalah affords is the recognition that there is a difference – a very great difference – the mundane is less complete than the sacred, the darkness less than the light, the weekdays less than Shabbat. When we make this awareness a part of our everyday reality, we infuse the weekdays of our lives with priceless morsels of hierarchy, higher truth and holiness.


Breslov Research Institute is pleased to present this weekly excerpt from our publication, "7th Heaven -- Shabbat with Rebbe Nachman," to help you experience that taste of Shabbos during the week. Have a "good Shabbos"!