Havdalah: Three Meditations on Holy Separations, by Trisha Arlin

Contributor(s):

Trisha Arlin

Shared on:

27 December 2010 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Motsei Shabbat

Tags:

21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, paraliturgical havdalah, הבדלות havdalot, Kolot Chayeinu, first person

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Ⅰ. Praise the Before Praise the After Praise the Time In Between
	Praise Kadosh, the holy Praise Khol, the mundane Praise Ha Mavdil Bein Kodesh L’khol, the one who differentiates between them
	Praise Kabbalah, welcome the Bride Praise Shabbat, the deepest rest. Praise Havdallah, farewell to the departing soul
	Ⅱ. I construct four walls and a roof and no windows I put in only one door, open it once a year, and never go in. Inside the walls, Holy of Holies Outside the walls, everything else. All I did was build a temple.
	I buy some fabric. I put fringes on the corners and cover myself with the cloth. Inside the cloth, I am “kadosh” and I can pray. Outside the cloth, I am “khol” and I gossip. But all I did was cover myself with a piece of fabric.
	I have a rimless cap. I put it on my head and call it a kippah. Inside my kippah, I’m alone but in conversation with God and my kehillah. Outside my kippah, I’m by myself All I did was put on a cap.
	I have a candle, wine, and sweet smelling spices I light the candle and dip it in the wine, I smell the spices and call it havdallah. Before sunset, guilt and sin and begging for forgiveness After sundown, onto a year of new mistakes and hope. All I did was wait for it to get dark.
	I make a flimsy hut with branches overhead and fruit within. I call it a sukkah and sit down for a meal. From inside the hut, I see three stars appear. Outside the hut, I see the same three stars. Inside outside, same thing? All I did was build a hut.
	Ⅲ. Wine Growth, harvest, creation, sexuality, body, love. Purged of guilt, at least until tomorrow
	Spice Sweetness, Fragrance, art, luxury, flavor, comedy. It is good to live well if you can.
	Fire Sacrifice, spirit, usefulness, justice, inspiration Clear thinking at last and the work begins.
	Ⅳ. Blessed Was•Is•Will Be, that brings the harvest in its due time, And wine to drink, fire to light our way and spices to make us happy
	Blessed HaMavdeel, that which Divides, And separates the whole into increments that we may comprehend it.
	Blessed Echad, that which Unites, And connects us all that we may be one.
	Amen.

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“Havdalah: Three Meditations on Holy Separations, by Trisha Arlin” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Trisha Arlin

Trisha Arlin is a liturgist, teacher, performer and student of prayer in Brooklyn, NY and was a part-time rabbinic student at the Academy of Jewish Religion (AJR), 2012-18. Trisha was the Liturgist-In-Residence during the National Havurah Committee’s 2014 Summer Institute, has served as Scholar or Artist In Residence at many synagogues where she has read, led services and taught her class, Writing Prayer. since the pandemic began, Trisha has been on Zoom teaching prayer writing, sharing her liturgy and doing readings with Ritualwell, Haggadot.com, for synagogues around the country as well as small freelance groups. She is a founding builder of Bayit’s Liturgical Arts project. Trisha received a BA in Theater from Antioch College in 1975 and MFA in Film (Screenwriting) in 1997 from Columbia University. In 2009/2010, Trisha was an Arts Fellow at the Drisha Institute. In 2011, she graduated from the sixth cohort of the Davennen Leadership Training Institute (DLTI). A longtime member of Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of our Lives, a progressive unaffiliated congregation in Brooklyn NY, Trisha’s liturgy has been used at services and ritual occasions and in newsletter there and at venues of many denominations around the world. Her work has been published in her book, Place Yourself: Words of Poetry and Intention (a collection of liturgy and kavannot. Foreword by Rabbi Jill Hammer, Artwork by Mike Cockrill. 2019 Dimus Parrhesia Press); the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion; Seder Tefillot, Forms of Prayer: Prayers for the High Holydays (Movement for Reform Judaism); B’chol Levavecha (CCAR Press); Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal (Bayit & Ben Yehuda Press); A Poet’s Siddur (Ain’t Got No Press); Studies in Judaism and Pluralism (Ben Yehuda Press) and can be found online at TrishaArlin.com, at RitualWell, and of course, the Open Siddur Project. You can support her work by buying her book, making a one time donation through PayPal @trishaarlin or monthly support via Patreon.

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

"The Alchymist, In Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers" (1771) by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1791)

Distinctions (Havdalah) for the end of Shabbat, by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

Image: Challah by Brad Greenlee (license CC-BY-2.0)

Motzi, a kavvanah before eating ḥallah by Trisha Arlin

Heal Me, a prayer-poem by Trisha Arlin

"Benches in the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, West Bank" (credit: Guillaume Paumier, license: CC-BY 3.0 Unported)

If I Let It: A Kavvanah for Kabbalat Shabbat, by Trisha Arlin

"Peripatidae. Found in Yasuni National Park, Ecuador" (credit: Geoff Gallice, license CC BY)

A Blessing for the Bugs on the Jewish New Year’s Day for Animals, Rosh Hashana La-Behemah, by Trisha Arlin

An illustration of Seraḥ later titled (on postcards) "Shirat bat Tsiyon," originally published at the beginning of the chapter "Lieder des Lebens" (Songs of Life) in Lieder des Ghetto (1902) by Ephraim Moses Lilien

סֶֽרַח בַּת־אָשֵׁר | Seraḥ bat Asher, a Havdalah Song by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

"Ashkelon residents run for shelter during a bomb alert" (credit: B'tselem/Baz Ratner, license: CC BY)

A Prayer for Compassion During Violent Conflict, by Trisha Arlin (2014)

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=2026

Associated Image:

Ed in Candlelight (credit: Sam Cockman, license: CC-BY 2.0)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Trisha Arlin.
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=2026>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17