<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">In Avodah Digest</font><font size=3 color=#000080 face="Verdana">
</font><font size=2 face="sans-serif">V23</font><font size=3 color=#000080 face="Verdana">#</font><font size=2 face="sans-serif">158,
RYM asked:</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">> </font><tt><font size=2>Due to
my wife's trip to visit parents in the USA, I was left to my own to<br>
make Havdalah. As I began to recite, I suddenly thought to myself
- well, here I am with<br>
the becher in my left hand and the candle in my right but is that the proper<br>
way? Should it be the other way around, with the becher in my right
(the<br>
more important hand?), or if I feel more safe with the flaming candle in
my<br>
right, is the way I am okay?<br>
> Trying to be on the safe side, after placing the becher down to sniff
the<br>
b'samim, I then switched.<br>
> Afterwards, I tried a perusory check and found in the MB, Hilchot
Shabbat,<br>
298:3, that the Rama notes that when looking at one's fingernails for the<br>
reflection, it is one's right hand fingernails that get the look and the<br>
becher is in the left hand. But that doesn't fully answer my question:
in<br>
which hand does one start out with holding the becher: the left or the<br>
right?<br>
> Any summer bachelors out there with the answer?</font></tt><font size=2 face="sans-serif">
<</font>
<br><font size=3 color=#000080 face="Verdana">After reviewing the Talmudic
sources noted by RMT (see </font><font size=2 color=#800000 face="Verdana">http://www.hamakor.org/shabbos/havdalah/index.htm</font><font size=3 color=#000080 face="Verdana">),
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.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=3 color=#000080 face="Verdana">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).</font>
<br>
<br><font size=3 color=#000080 face="Verdana">All the best from</font>
<br><font size=4 color=blue face="Monotype Corsiva">Michael Poppers</font><font size=4 color=blue face="Verdana">
</font><font size=3 face="Verdana">*</font><font size=4 color=blue face="Verdana">
</font><font size=4 color=blue face="EngraversGothic BT">Elizabeth, NJ,
USA</font>