Shabbat & Havdalah

Do a mini Havdalah with candle, spices, and grape juice.

Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.

• Why do we celebrate Shabbat?
• How do we mark Shabbat as special in the week?

Shabbat is weekly sacred time. Havdalah (‘separation’) ends it Saturday night with a braided candle, sweet spices (b’samim), and wine — a multi-sensory goodbye to Shabbat.

• Shabbat — rest
• Havdalah — separation
• B’samim — spices

“Why smell spices?”

To carry Shabbat’s sweetness into the new week.

• Children understand Shabbat as a holy time of rest.
• Children learn Havdalah as the ceremony separating Shabbat from the week.

Honor that families rest differently; all ways of keeping Shabbat are welcome.

Folktale. Joseph Who Loved Shabbat (Talmudic) — honoring Shabbat brings hidden blessing.

Changemaker. Ahad Ha’am — wrote the sentence people still quote: more than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jewish people.

How is Shabbat time the same as, and different from, the rest of the week?

“We learned Havdalah. Try at home: smell something sweet Saturday night and say goodbye to Shabbat together.”