BS"D
WINE'S WISDOM: PESACH I
Shira Smiles shiur 5783/2023
Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
One of the main components of
the Passover Seder is drinking four cups of wine. The most well known reason
for this ritual is that the four cups of wine are meant to represent the four
different terms Hashem uses in the Torah to describe our deliverance from the
Egyptian enslavement. But the Gemarrah also gives a somewhat lesser known
reason, that the four cups parallel the four times Pharaoh's chief butler
mentioned the cup as he related his dream to Joseph. What is the power of wine,
and what relationship is there between these two interpretations?
First, as Rabbi Senter notes
in his Haggadah, each of the four cup representing a different term of
redemption serves as the climactic note at a different part of the Seder: at
Kiddush, at the end of the narrative itself, at the end of Grace after Meals,
and at the conclusion of Hallel. If one did not drink at these designated
times, one has not fulfilled the mitzvah of the four cups.
There is an aspect of wine
that is different from most food, writes Rabbi Kluger. First, psychologically,
wine seems to free one from the confines of his logical mind; he seems to enter
a different reality. Further, notes R. Auerbach z”l with most foods, generally
one reaches a satiation point where one "cannot eat another bite."
With wine, however, one continues to crave more and more with each drink,
raising one's spirits not only more intensely, but also to a different
characteristic of his psyche. Perhaps shedding further light on this matter, the
number four is especially significant here. As Rabbi Yechiel Michel Zilber
notes in B'Yam Derech, citing the Maharal, four cups is the ideal amount
of wine for true freedom. The "free, rich" have exactly four cups of
wine at their meal. Less than four cups is not totally freeing, while more than
four cups puts you in the category of a drunkard. While we pour a fifth cup of
wine, we refrain from drinking it, proving that we are still free and masters
over our desires, appetites, and passions.
Our redemption from Egypt
actually illustrates two complementary emotional components, writes Rabbi Wolbe
in Daas Shlomoh. First, it is proof of the great love Hakodosh Boruch Hu
has for Bnei Yisroel. In freeing us from physical enslavement in Egypt, Hashem
also frees us from enslavement to our personal, physical impulses. But the
second stage is the elevation of Bnei Yisroel, and our desire to reciprocate
that love and to dedicate ourselves to His service. These aspects of redemption
are active all year long. We always have the ability to go beyond our nature
and recognize that Hashem will help us. It is for this reason that the Kiddush
of every holiday includes a reference to leaving Egypt, and that we remember
the exodus multiple times every day in our prayers. Our entire Torah observance
is predicated on the belief that we can leave the narrow straits that confine
us.
This is also the reason, notes
Rabbi Weiss is Ziv Hechochmah, that the Ten Commandments themselves
begin not with identifying our God as the God of creation, but as the God who
took us out of Egypt. Just as God was able to change nature to extricate us
from Egypt, so do we have the ability to overcome our nature and achieve
spiritual freedom. Just as it was Hashem Himself Who took us out of Egypt, so
do we need His help to free us from the confines of self, from the negative
tendencies we each have, whether of anger, jealousy, arrogance, or other
characteristic. Thus, metaphorically, the cleaning we do before Pesach should
include the removal of chametz within ourselves as well to achieve a
level of freedom of self.
In Night of Watching,
Rabbi Pruzansky quoting R. Pincus z’l suggests that just as our nation was born
on that first Passover, so are we each reborn every year at the Passover Seder;
just as there are three partners in a birth, the father who contributes the
"white bones" of structure, the mother who contributes the "red
blood of passion, and Hashem Who contributes the neshamah/soul, so are
there three major elements to the Seder; the white matzah, the red wine, and
the soul of the Seder—telling and reliving the story.
While the three matzoth
represent our three Patriarchs and the four cups of wine represent our four
Matriarchs, Rabbi Zilverberg notes that maternal love is greater than paternal
love. When we drink the four cups of wine, we are arousing in Hashem that never
ending love that leaps over mountains, and should arouse in us similar love in
reciprocity. As Rabbi Reiss reminds us, the exodus was the beginning of that
journey of faith and love, following Hashem through the wilderness without
question, just as wine removes questions from our minds.
When we work on ourselves to
improve our middos/character, how much of our success do we attribute to
ourselves and how much to Hashem's help? R. Gamliel Rabinowitz reminds us
that this is the night to show gratitude and love not only to the people who
help us—the deliveryman, the mechanic, the doctor, the neighbor - but to our
ultimate Helper Who has given us all that we need. It is a night to train
ourselves to see the hidden hand of Hashem providing for us through all
intermediaries, of recognizing and sharing that recognition of His concealed
love in so many aspects of our lives.
This love and passion brings
us back to one of our original questions - what is the connection between the
four cups at the Seder and Pharaoh's butler's dream. In truth, suggests Rabbi
Frand, it was not the differences in the dreams themselves that elicited
different interpretations, for the butler and the baker, but how each related
his dream to Joseph. While the baker told his dream objectively, he was passive
in all that happened. In contrast, the butler revealed his passion for his
position and his job, "Pharaoh's cup was in my hand... I
squeezed the grapes... I put the cup on Pharaoh's palm." The Shallal
Rav adds that the butler's love extended not just to the job, but to his
master Pharaoh as well, repeating Pharaoh's name multiple times in the narrative.
That love and passion convinced Joseph that the butler would indeed be
reinstated.
Similarly, continues Rabbi
Frand, if we want to be reinstated in our own land and again bring the
sacrifices, especially the Pascal offering, we, too, have to express passion
for that to come and for Hashem to reinstate us as we were before, so that we
can have the privilege of serving Him so much more fully, in our own land with
a rebuilt Beit Hamikdosh. The four cups of wine, representing the role of
the mothers of passion, which is reflected in the butler, is the mindset we
need to feel each time we drink one of the four cups of wine.
If we want to know a thing's
significance, we must go back to its first appearance in the Torah and trace
its importance from there. In Bni Bechori Yisroel, Rabbi Kluger does
just that. He reminds us that wine first appears at the very first salvation of
mankind, as the first creative activity Noah engaged in when he and his family
left the ark. But the wine that symbolized Noah's freedom was also the catalyst
for enslavement, as Noah curses the son who disgraced him in his drunken state
with the curse of slavery. It was Ham's descendant, Mitzrayim, that forged that
ultimate house of slavery we were destined to endure millennia later.
Our next encounter with wine
comes when Yaakov brings his father delicacies and wine, and receives
Yitzchak's blessing of wheat and wine. Although Yitzchak asked only for the
delicious meat, our Sages tell us this was the night of Pesach, and Yaakov
brought Yitzchak the wine that would later be part of the Passover Seder.
Rabbi Kluger continues and
tells us that the entire time Joseph was in Egypt, he did not drink wine until
his brothers came down, even though when he sent Yaakov the "best of
Egypt," he was sending him old wine.
Wine is unique among products.
The grapes themselves are worthy to be eaten straight from the tree, yet they
are picked, thrown into a pit and trampled upon. You think you have lost the
grapes. After that, they are allowed to ferment for a long time, and they
are transformed to something even better than the original grapes, something
fit for a king's table.
Yosef Hatzadik is the paradigm
for this transformation. When he interprets the butler's dream, he is
interpreting his own life. In this context, we remember Yosef himself when we
dip the karpas/vegetable into the salt water, symbolically dipping
Yosef's coat in the blood of the goat. Yosef himself went from being a lowly,
trampled upon slave to sitting at the king's table.
This is the message of the
wine, continues Rabbi Kluger. This mindset of patience and endurance is what
has sustained us throughout our history. The difference between גלה /exile, and גאלה /redemption
is seeing the א, the One of
the world. In hindsight, we understand that our suffering in Egypt, our being
trampled upon, was a necessary step in fashioning the character of Bnei
Yisroel, of making us fit to be the chosen of Hashem.
When we understand that all
that Hashem does to us is for the good, we can understand that even Hashem's
anger derives from His love. At the end of the Seder, we can sing,לך אף
לך /Yours, surely Yours with a
new understanding, that even Your אף/Your anger
is coming from a place of love.
The four cups of wine that we
drink at the four demarcations of the Seder symbolize ourselves and our own
lives: We sanctify Hashem's name, we face challenges, we thank Him, and we sing
His praises. Each step of the way, we must have faith that Hashem is with us.
The wine imparts this wisdom to us. As we drink these four cups, let us
integrate that wisdom into our minds and hearts.