Question to Menachem M. Bluming Why do we make the Blessing of the Shabbat Kiddush over wine?

Here’s a thought:

It all goes back to the world’s first Friday. Adam and Eve were created on Friday afternoon. On that first day, they were told not to eat from the fruit of one tree, the Tree of Knowledge, until nightfall.

The mystics teach that this fruit was a grape vine which is a fruit that contains the potential for great good and great evil. Over a cup of wine friendships are made and lost, lives are enhanced and destroyed, and hopes are created and ruined. It is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The prohibition was only to last until nightfall that day. They were allowed to eat from the fruit of the tree once Shabbos came in. But they did not wait.

We correct this mistake by making Kiddush on Friday night over wine or grape juice. It reminds us that we can only enjoy the pleasures of this world if we can also defer our enjoyment. If you have control over yourself and wait, then you are the master of your desires. If you can't, then you are slave to them. The key to being a good person is the ability to control yourself. It starts with the way we eat, and extends to every choice we make. It elevates us above our basic desires and empowers us to be masters over ourselves and reach for a higher calling.


Menachem Mendel Bluming and Rabbi Moss taken from Shach al Hatorah, quoted in Likkutei Torah Kedoshim 29a

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