[Avodah] With Which Hand?

[MPoppers at kayescholer.com]

In Avodah Digest V23#158, RYM asked:
> Due to my wife's trip to visit parents in the USA, I was left to my own 
to
make Havdalah.  As I began to recite, I suddenly thought to myself - well, 
here I am with
the becher in my left hand and the candle in my right but is that the 
proper
way?  Should it be the other way around, with the becher in my right (the
more important hand?), or if I feel more safe with the flaming candle in 
my
right, is the way I am okay?
> Trying to be on the safe side, after placing the becher down to sniff 
the
b'samim, I then switched.
> Afterwards, I tried a perusory check and found in the MB, Hilchot 
Shabbat,
298:3, that the Rama notes that when looking at one's fingernails for the
reflection, it is one's right hand fingernails that get the look and the
becher is in the left hand.  But that doesn't fully answer my question: in
which hand does one start out with holding the becher: the left or the
right?
> Any summer bachelors out there with the answer? <
After reviewing the Talmudic sources noted by RMT (see 
http://www.hamakor.org/shabbos/havdalah/index.htm), esp. BT P'sachim 
105b-107a, I got the impression that the kos should be treated as a kos 
shel b'rachah and, therefore, held in one's dominant hand.  FWIW, SA OC 
296:6 states that one keeps the kos in the right hand except during the 
time of making the b'rachah on the b'samim.  As for the neir, seems to me 
from that s'if as well as from the language throughout OC 298 that the 
neir is an existing fixture and not held by anyone -- extrapolating from 
296:6, my educated guess (in the absence of your checking with your LOR) 
is that it's better that someone holds the objects involved than that one 
of them be put down, but if there's no fixed neir to be m'vareich upon, no 
way to fix one's neir, and no one besides you to hold it, I would humbly 
suggest holding the neir in your non-dominant hand and putting the kos 
down while being m'vareich al hab'samim v'al haneir.

As for that Rama (RMA 298:3), it seems to contradict SA 296:6 -- RMA is 
saying the kos should be in one's "left hand," as you mentioned, while SA 
says one should return the kos to one's right hand after making the 
b'rachah on the b'samim (additional SA 296:6 implication: don't contort 
your right hand while being m'vareich al haneir -- as per 298, IIRC, just 
look at the light).  Additionally, the method by which RMA recommends 
looking at one's nails (also see BH 298:4) would imply that one's hand 
isn't holding anything, in which case the further implication is that one 
isn't holding the b'samim anymore, while at the least SA 296:6 implies 
that one continues to hold the b'samim after making the b'rachah on them 
(whether in the same hand as during the b'rachah or in the other hand, I'm 
not sure).  Bottom line: I'm not sure what SA would say about my humble 
suggestion above, but if RMA allows putting the b'samim down in order to 
see (or not see) certain aspects of one's right hand, there seems to be 
room to allow putting the kos down when one has to hold the neir and wants 
to act upon one's b'rachah al haneir in the manner he notes (hence, 
likewise when one wants to act upon one's b'rachah al hab'samim, although 
I suppose it would be possible to avoid putting the kos down by, prior to 
havdalah, "fixing" those b'samim in such a manner as the neir was "fixed" 
in the days of yore -- however, not sure whether it would be proper to 
"fix" them below one's nose, e.g. on a table, and then lean down to smell 
them after making the b'rachah).

All the best from
Michael Poppers * Elizabeth, NJ, USA
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