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Thought for the Day: Kiddush Shabbos Morning When You Have No Wine

Since the horrifying massacre of October 7, my wife and I have started a regular daily seder in hilchos Shabbos. We are using the s'farim and schedule from the Shabbos Daily project. Review is always valuable in any area of halacha, but it is absolutely essential to proper Shabbos observance. You are, after all, going to be thrown into Shabbos each and every week; Baruch HaShem. Given that frequency, you are bound to hit some uncommon situations at some point and you want to be prepared ahead of time.

Here's an uncommon situation (for us rich Americans): Imagine you have only enough wine for two ceremonies and you have no other liquid refreshment other than water. Water can be used for neither kiddush nor havdalah, so you are going to have to make a decision about which two ceremonies of the three required -- kiddush Friday night, kiddush Shabbos morning, and havdalah -- you are going to be able accomplish.

Let's review the issues. Kiddush at night certainly can be accomplished with challah. In fact, the Mishna Brura brings opinions that if you like challah more than wine then you actually should use challah for Friday night kiddush. However, Rabeinu Tam doesn't like it, so the custom is to always use wine. You absolutely cannot use challah for havdala. For havdalah you need either wine (huge preference) or at least some drink of importance/חמר מדינה. Shabbos morning... well... the Shabbos morning kiddush is nothing but the bracha, so we use wine or חמר מדינה before the challah, which indicates it is a change and that makes it kiddush. Using challah for the Shabbos morning kiddush will obviously be problematic, as there is nothing about the bracha that indicates you are also making kiddush. So what to do?

One of the cups will, of course, have to be used for havdalah. Challah absolutely cannot be used for havdalah, so there is no option. No brainer. That leaves Friday night and Shabbos morning kiddush. I reasoned thusly: You can (and according to some opinions in some circumstances) use challah for Friday night, whereas no one says to use challah for Shabbos morning kiddush; and it even seems like you aren't accomplishing anything. As much as Rabeinu Tam doesn't like it, I felt confident that in this situation even Rabeinu Tam would accede to keep the wine for the morning.

Nonetheless, the Shulchan Aruch (271:3) says to use the wine for Friday night kiddush. The Mishna Brura (sk 8) explains that since the Friday night kiddush is rooted in a Torah obligation it just isn't appropriate to not use wine for the Friday night kiddush. What about Shabbos morning kiddush? The Shulchan Aruch in siman 289 says that if you don't have wine (nor חמר מדינה), then just eat without kiddush. The Biur Halacha there notes that if you are able to acquire wine later that day, then you should certainly make kiddush then.

The only problem is that the sefer we were learning said to make kiddush Shabbos morning with challah. I asked R' Fuerst and he confirmed that is the halacha. "But, but... ", I stammered... what about the Mishna Brura and Shulchan Aruch that -- from what I can tell -- say not like that. R' Fuerst, Baruch HaShem, is very patient with me. He told me to find all the sources and he'd be happy to go over it with me.

So I went home and spent another half hour collecting and reviewing all the sources; this time, though, looking for where I was erring. I found it. On the Shulchan Aruch (289:2), that says to eat Shabbos morning without kiddush, there is a Mishna Brura (sk 10). That means to say: when you have bread -- even if only a slice -- say המוציא on that bread and it is forbidden (according to some poskim) to eat before that. If you have no bread, though, then eat without kiddush.

Ah. So even though the Mishna Brura never says explicitly to make kiddush on bread -- even a piece of bread, and of course also cake -- he alludes to it by saying "and it is forbidden to eat before making המוציא. It comes out that the only practical difference in having bread in the morning -- as opposed to other foods, including pasta, btw -- is: (1) you are not allowed to eat before making that המוציא; and (2) if you find wine later you would not need to make kiddush at that point.

Whew! All that work for a very unlikely scenario? Yes, indeed. Look at how I deepened my understanding of Hilchos Kiddush in general. I also gained a renewed appreciation for the precision of the Mishna Brura. All in all a win-win-win situation.

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