Kiddush Cup Making

A program developed by Adira Rosen, Jewish Life Specialist

May 2025

OVERVIEW: 

Help your community deepen and personalize their Shabbat experience by making their own kiddush cups! In this program, participants will prepare for Shabbat through the process of making and (eventually) using their own kiddush cups. Participants will make their own kiddush cups and learn how to say kiddush for Shabbat evening and/or Shabbat day. If this program is hosted in the days leading up to a MoHo Shabbat meal, participants can leave their cups to use at the meal or they can take them to use for an upcoming Shabbat in their own home. This is a great way to help people take ownership over this Jewish ritual perhaps even empowering community members to lead this ritual in the future! 

MATERIALS: 

• Choose what kind of kiddush cups you want to make:
  • Paint your own wine glasses. Check out the following links for inspo and instructions:  

■ Option 1   

■ Option 2

■ Option 3  

■ Option 4

○ Etch your own wine glasses. Check out the following links for inspo and instructions:

■ Option 1  

■ Option 2  

• Printed copies of Friday night and Shabbat day kiddush with Hebrew, transliteration, and English translation.
  • Friday Night Kiddush  

○ Shabbat Day Kiddush  

• Laptop/TV/Projector to play the videos to teach kiddush 
• Video/audio of kiddush for Friday night or Shabbat day
  • Moishe House Rocks – Friday Night Kiddush (excluding vay’chulu paragraph)

○ Prayer–eoke: Friday Night Kiddush (excluding vay’chulu paragraph

○ My Jewish Learning – Friday Night Kiddush (including vay’chulu paragraph)

○ Siddur Audio – Shabbat Day Kiddush (including zachor paragraph)

○ Mayer Davis – Kiddush for Shabbat Day (including zachor paragraph) 

PROGRAM OUTLINE: ~60 min

• Welcome Guests & Framing (10 min)
• Learning Kiddush (20 min) 
• Making personal kiddush cups (30 min) 

PROGRAM DETAILS: 

Beginning – Welcome Guests & Framing (10 min)

• Welcome everyone and thank them for coming. 

• Consider having some snacks or wine for people to enjoy as they learn and make their kiddush cups. 

• Explain the order of the program: 

○ Example of what you could say:  

■ Kiddush, the blessing over the wine, is all about sanctifying the day. We are going to bring a bit of that holiness into this moment by learning kiddush and making our own kiddush cups! We’ll spend the next 20 or so minutes taking some time to learn kiddush [for Friday night or Shabbat day or both]. And then we’ll have about 30 min to make our own kiddush cups! 

Middle – Learning Kiddush (20 min) 

• Decide if you want to learn Friday night kiddush, Shabbat day kiddush, or both! Then choose one of the options for learning kiddush below. 

• Option 1: A resident or community member who knows kiddush can teach the community kiddish.
  • Print out and distribute copies of the kiddush(s) you plan to learn from the materials list above.
• Option 2: Choose which video(s) you want to show your community and have a viewing party to learn the kiddush(s) from the videos.
  • Project/play the videos on your laptop/TV/projector.

○ Print out and distribute copies of the kiddush(s) you plan to learn from the materials list above.

• Option 3: Learn/study the words to the kiddush just from reading the text.
  • Print out and distribute copies of the kiddush(s) you plan to learn from the materials list above.

○ Break off into pairs and practice reading the text of the kiddush(s) and explore the meaning of the words with a pair (or in a small group). Reach out to your JLS if you want some specific discussion questions for this paired/group learning.