Myrrh or Moor: The Iconography of “the Other” in the Havdalah

Concluding the Shabbat, the ceremonious “separation” or Havdalah is marked by a sequence of actions. Verbal utterances are joined with deeds that highlight other senses: tasting the wine, looking at the fingernails, smelling the sweet aromatic plants or dried herbs.

Among the Jews of Ashkenaz, a special tower-shaped receptacle became the most commonly used vessel for storing sweet-smelling spices and herbs. Usually made of silver, these objects were often adorned with various ornaments emulating the details of a local spire, sometimes also with human figures performing the rite of Havdalah.

A silver filigree Havdalah tower in the collection of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt shows such features. It is parcel-gilt and beautifully decorated with multicolored enamel, creating a composite structural and iconographic scheme of columned arches, each enclosing a human figure. Whereas five men are dressed in typical Ashkenazic Jewish garb, the sixth shows entirely different features that have previously been given varied iconographic interpretations. These elucidations will be examined and a new suggestion will be presented, based on (con)textual considerations and with comparisons with similar representations in both Jewish and non-Jewish art. It will be argued that the correct reading of the facetted scene needs to be regarded in light of the final blessing is the Havdalah, which blesses Gd for separating between a number of phenomena as well as between “Israel and the Nations”, and that the sixth human figure is the visual representation of “the other”.