The gemara discusses the argument between Beis Hillel and Shammai about the order of the brochos for kiddush on leil shabas. As I understood the problem, it is whether the birchas hayom is a hefsek between the brocha on the cup and drinking the wine. Havdala seems to have this problem too, but I saw no discussion about it. Why can one make the brocha on the cup and then make brochas on besamim and ner (and do something immediately following each one) and then make the brocha hamavdil all before drinking the wine? Wouldn't there be the hefsek problem for Beis Shammai? Even according to Beis Hillel, most of the reasons given that it is not really a hefsek in Kiddush don't seem to work so well when there are 3 brochas before actually drinking the wine.

Martin Fogel, carlsbad, ca USA

I guess I was not very clear in my question, and I misunderstood the Mishna.

What I wanted to ask is the following and this question goes according to Beis Hillel: Berachos are said "over l'asiyasan" just before one does the particular action. One would not say the beracha on tefillin, do something else, like for example say a beracha on the tallis and put it on, and then come back and put the tefillin on. In this case it may be necessary to say another beracha. Whether that is required or not, l'chatchela this is not the appropriate thing to do. Yet in Kiddush and Havdala, and in other situations you mention, that is precisely what we are doing.

In Kiddush, we say the beracha on wine, then a second beracha on the yom and then drink the wine. Perhaps one can make a case that the second beracha is part of the total package and so it should not be considered a hefsek. I am not sure exactly how this argument would run, but this does not seem so difficult to me, especially since it is "just" a second beracha.

But in Havdala we insert two berachas with their actions (ner, and spices) and then go on to the beracha for havdala, This is very much like the tallis and tefillin case above. I find it more difficult to say that it is all one package and these are not a hefsek. To put it perhaps differently, if one can wait between the beracha on the wine and drinking the wine, why not say all the berachas first and then do all the actions, after all the berachas have been said?

We do not do that. We say the beracha on the ner and immediately after use its light. The same for the besamin. Why are these berachas treated differently than hagefen? Certainly we could have ordered the berachas so that the action followed each immediately upon the completion of the beracha.

My recollection with the Bris and Chupah is that only additional blessing are said, no other action requiring a beracha is done between the hagefen and drinking. Perhaps this follows the kiddush example more closely than havdala. But no matter, even if it is like havdala the question applies to them too.

I guess I am asking more about the origin of this way of doing havdala than about the gemarrah. I was just struck by the discussion about the order of blessing for Kiddush, but apparently no one had any problems with Havdala which is harder for me to understand.

Regards,

Martin Fogel