[Avodah] Havdalah during the nine days

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 03:24:14PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: R' Eli Turkel wrote:
:> Rav Tzvi Rimon suggests using grape juice since it is only a
:> minhag to not drink grape juice during the 9 days.

: I had thought that nowadays just about everyone puts grape juice
: and wine in the same category...

This is exactly what I was thinking about when I wrote my post. Clearly
from subsequent emails, I did a bad job writing it. So let me try to make
the point again. As a prelude to rejecting it in light of an off-list
conversation with R' Doron Beckerman.

RZR appears to be taking the approach that aveilus during the 9 Days
or Shavua sheChal Bo is more about a feel than halachic categories.
Therefore, once the mitzvah of havdalah forces the minhag to bend,
he recommends the non-alcoholic choice.

The other approach to making decisions that involve how to go beyond
halakhah would be as RAM assumed -- looking at applying halachic
categories to measure the distance we're bending things and what bends
things less. In which case, "just about everyone puts grape juice and wine
in the same category" of yayin, and choosing beer would make more sense.

But RDB asked me off-list on different grounds.... When it's not havdalah,
beer is permitted and grape juice not. So what's the question? Of course
one should choose beer.

First, not my idea, just material I dug up during that conversation:

The SA (OC 551:10) says it's mutar to make havdalah on wine. The Rama
quoting the Maharil says nohagin lehachmir and give the wine to a qatan
where there is one, and to drink the yayin oneself when you don't have a
qatan present. The earlier Ashkenazi acharonim don't recommend sheikhar
to get out of the hole.

The MB (s"q 68) notes that one can have wine at a se'udas mitzvah, and
Ashkenazim are only more machmir by havdalah than by a se'udas mitzvah
because it has the kid option.

So it would seem that they thought: Of course you should choose grape
juice.

So, my second theory:

What's happening here to make grape juice an option is that havdalah
makes yayin preferred over other drinks -- just as se'udas mitzvah would.

So the question is whether one chooses the yayin preference for havdalah,
or the yayin avoidance for the 9 days.

The question of grape juice vs other yayin would be entirely to minimize
alcoholic consumption at a time when it seems inappropriate. Which would
seem to make sense to me just in terms of the mood, but then why isn't
beer minimized during this period (and not just se'udah hamafseqes)
as well? I don't know. Maybe people then had less reaction to beer's
alcohol than those who tell us to choose grape juice over wine are
assuming we of today's culture have to wine.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
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