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Vayechulu Getting More From Friday Night Kiddush – By Rabbi Pinchas Winston:
The climax of my week is on Friday night while standing with kos and wine in hand, ready to make Kiddush. For me, it feels as if everything that occurred the entire previous week since Havdalah last week was to get to this point, and I am totally there.
Everyone knows to be quiet and listen. They know that Kiddush is not a mechanical act for me, not just a gateway to the rest of the meal I know they can’t wait to start. But they are patient. They are used to my taking my time over each word, trying to focus on who knows what, assuming that I must be thinking something kabbalistic as I put heart and soul into what I am doing.
I am certainly trying to. But the truth is, despite all of this, I always feel as if something is missing, at least with respect to the first paragraph, beginning with vayechulu:
Heaven and the earth were completed—vayechulu—and all their host. And God completed on the seventh day His work that He did, and He abstained on the seventh day from all His work that He did. And God blessed the seventh day and He sanctified it, for He abstained from all His work on it that God created to do. (Bereishis 2:1-3)
It might just be me, but I feel like fireworks should go off inside of me as I say each word. We’re recalling how God made all of Creation, and that should be phenomenally mind blowing each time!
I mean, when I look at drawings of the Milky Way Galaxy among billions of others, I lose my breath. The vastness and intricacies of it all is just too overwhelming for me so that I have to stop looking. Just the fact that our own sun is “just right” from 93,000,000 miles away is just too hard to take for granted.
And when I investigate in the other direction, on a molecular level, my reaction is the same. There are so many moving parts just for life to happen and continue from moment to moment. And that’s all before even discussing the miracle of the body and the mystery of human consciousness and intelligence that we barely pay attention to…until some malfunction forces us to.
It’s like the Rambam instructs:
What is the process for coming to love and fear God? When one contemplates His actions and His wondrous and great creations and sees in them His wisdom, that it has no limit and no end, immediately he will love and praise Him, and desire tremendously to know His great Name. (Yad Chazakah, Yesodei HaTorah, 2:2)
That’s what should happen during Kiddush on Friday night. It’s what we’re doing, right? As we say Vayechulu, etc., we “contemplate His actions and wondrous and great creations.” We look at His unfathomable wisdom in them and realize that it has no limit or end. So, who wouldn’t at such a climactic moment love and praise Him, and desire tremendously to know His great Name?!
If we don’t, then something is wrong.
It helps to talk about it…and talk about it…and talk about it. I have found that the more I discuss something, the more my appreciation of it seems to increase. The more my appreciation of something increases, the more excited I get about it. Before I know it, I am smiling from ear to ear and tickled with joy, sometimes unable to contain myself.
However, I don’t think my family would appreciate it if I did this while saying Kiddush. As it is, they are patient with me, so tiching the words as I go along would probably force them to make their own Kiddush in the end and get on with the meal. On the contrary, any expansion of Kiddush is going to have to take place in my head without skipping a beat.
But it won’t, not unless I do all the brain work in advance. Kavanah (intention) is not something you just show up and have. If Shabbos teaches us anything it is the importance of preparation, of being ready before the moment so you can be ready at the moment. We all know how fast moments can come and go, and with them opportunities we can never get back again. It always pays to be ready.
So that is where this book comes in. This book is part of that preparation for Friday night Kiddush. It is a look at things to think about when saying the words of Kiddush, ideas that most certainly will enhance other parts of life all week long. Kiddush is not just a gateway to the rest of the meal, but to the entire Shabbos experience, regarding which the Gemora says:
“For I am God Who sanctifies you” (Shemos 31:13), [meaning that] The Holy One, Blessed is He, told Moshe: “I have a good gift in My treasure house and Shabbos is its name, and I want to give it to the Jewish people. Go tell them.” (Shabbos 10b)
And the thing about gifts is that the more you understand them, the more you enjoy them. Good Shabbos? Is there really such a thing as a bad Shabbos? Before you answer that, read the book.
