One of the fundamental halachos of kiddush is “ein kiddush elah b’makom seudah,” kiddush must be recited in the place of a halachic meal. Practically, this means that we need to start a bread meal or to eat at least a k’zayis of mezonos at the time and place that we recite kiddush. If necessary, drinking a revi’is of wine or grape juice may also be enough.
The rishonim connect this halachah to the words of Yeshayah Hanavi (58:13), “v’karasa l’shabbos oneg, you shall call Shabbos a delight.” The act of keriah, calling and sanctifying Shabbos, must be joined with oneg, physical delight.
This is not merely a technical requirement of kiddush. Rather, this halachah expresses something remarkable about what kiddush (and perhaps kedushah in general) truly means.
We might instinctively imagine holiness as an escape from the physical world. The more elevated the experience, the further removed we are from eating and drinking, homes and families, work and errands, and all the ordinary details of human life.
The halacha of “ein kiddush elah b’makom seudah,” teaches us just the opposite.
Real sanctity is achieved specifically b’makom seudah, in the place of eating. True kedushah is not found above life, but within it.
The Gemara derives a detail of this halacha from an incident about Shmuel, one of the most prominent amoraim. If he was on the roof of a building when time for kiddush came, he would walk down stairs to the ground level of his home, and say kiddush there. Since he was only going to eat his meal on the lower level, he held it would not suffice to make kiddush on the roof, even though that area is part of the same building.
The Tiferes Shlomo explains that the Gemara is not referring only to a literal roof and ground floor, but to the idea of finding holiness on the “roof” of the world versus the “ground floor” of it. Shmuel was on the iggara, the rooftop, i.e., he was in some elevated state, above the ordinary world. Shabbos came and had lifted him into a place of extraordinary spiritual elevation. But when the time came for kiddush, he came down to the “ground,” back into the this-worldly realm, because that is the place of true fulfillment of kedushah.
The goal is not to remain on the roof. The goal is to bring what we encounter on the roof down into the home, the table, the food, and everything else in our physical world.
In kedushah on Shabbos and Yom Tov, we quote the angels asking, “ayeh m’kom k’vodo, where is the place of His glory?” We might assume that the angels cannot find Hashem’s place of glory because it is so elevated and lofty that even they cannot reach it.
But perhaps the opposite is true as well. The angels cannot find Hashem’s place of glory not only because it is so high up, but because it is so low down. Hashem’s true glory is down here in the world we live in. In our homes, at our meals, in our humanity.
The halacha of ein kiddush elah b’makom seudah teaches us to believe in our lives as the location of Hashem’s presence. As Rebbe Nosson of Breslov taught, “ikar kedushah — babayis, the primary place of kedushah is within one’s own home.”
If we want to find a “holy place,” we don’t need to run into the forest or climb any mountain. What we need to believe deeply in ourselves and in the lives Hashem prepared for us in order to be vehicles for His Presence.
This article was found in Nekuda Tova Issue 104.
