Weekly D'Var

The Fifth Cup and More

The classic reason for having four cups of wine at the Seder is to remind us of God’s four promises to the people in Egypt (Exodus 6:6-7), “and I will free you… and deliver you… I will redeem you … and I will take you ….” This reason is the first of a variety of reasons for having four cups given in the Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim. As the Babylonian Talmud itself includes no reasons for the four cups, Rashi’s commentary on the Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 99b cites it as the reason for the four cups, and so it has been perpetuated to this day as a quartet symbolizing the redemption (geulah) of the Israelites.

It struck me, though, that the sentence following these two, Exodus 6:8, contains two more promises, “I will bring you… and I will give it to you,” so that two more cups of wine are called for if one is to drink to all six of the God’s promises to the Jewish people. Moreover, as these last two promises in their entirety read “I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession,” the appropriate point in the Seder for these cups of wine is when we say “Next year in Jerusalem.” And so, I offered this observation as a sermonette on the Shabbat of Pesach.

I have to announce, though, that I was “scooped.” There was indeed a tradition for a fifth cup, precisely to remind us of the fifth of these promises. In Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 118a we are told “for the fourth cup one finishes the Hallel and recites the Great Hallel (Psalm 136); these are the words of Rabbi Tarfon.” Yet there are manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud (one found in Egypt, one found in Yemen and now at the Jewish Theological Seminary, one in the Vatican collection, and one at Columbia University’s library) that have the word [chamishi] (fifth) in place of the word [r’vi’i] (fourth) in this text.

Reference to a fifth cup is also made in the writings of Rabbi Sherira Gaon (968-997), the Rif (1013-1103), the Rayad (1120-1198), and even Maimonides (1135-1204), who, in Chapter 8 of his Laws of Chametz and Matzo says “and there are those who join with a fifth cup and recite on it the Great Hallel…and this cup is not obligatory as are the four cups”). In commentary on the quote from Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 118a, the Tosafists (1105-1290) explicitly argue that the reading is “fourth” and not “fifth,” so obviously this variant was known to them. And the Maharal of Prague (1512-1609) details the function of the fifth cup (Gevurot Hashem page 304, chapter 65), referring to it as the cup of sustenance (parnasah), saying, “after the four cups for redemption were established, a fifth cup was established for sustenance, because it is more important than redemption”

There is a hitch, though. The Code of Law (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, item 471), written in 1563, rules that “after the four cups of wine, one isn’t permitted to drink wine, only water”. This unequivocal statement is followed by a loophole: “anyone who is refined or has a great craving to drink wine can drink a fifth cup, and he recites over it the Great Hallel.” Note

even here we see a tie-in to the (disputed) fifth cup of Rabbi Tarfon. So whether it’s for refinement, great craving, parnasah, or to celebrate “I will bring you” a fifth cup is in order. Now how’s about a sixth cup for “I will give you” and to celebrate in advance l’shana habaah b’yerushalayim, next year in Jerusalem?

Al Madansky z’l May 2000