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The Fifth Cup of Wine
Contributed by Shoshanah Tornberg

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

(Contributed by Richard Molish):

We’ve acknowledged the foods set forth on the Seder plate and their ceremonial significance, but you will notice that in addition to the plate there is a cup of wine. It is the cup that is reserved for the prophet Elijah. It is said that the prophet will join us, and when he does he will herald in the coming of the Messiah. Usually the cup is filled before we sit down but tonight as in past years it remains empty. It is a tradition that I learned from Francie Schwartz in her book, Passage to Pesach.  

            Our sages, who developed the Seder rituals, ordained that we must imbibe four cups of wine throughout this festive celebration. The four cups represent each of God’s four promises stated in Exodus 6:6-7.

            I will free you; I will deliver you; I will redeem you; and I will take you to be my People.

            But in verse 8, there is fifth promise “I will bring you into the Land…”

            So if there are five promises shouldn’t we have been instructed to drink five cups of wine?

            That question was the subject of a Talmudic debate. Some of the sages argued for the fifth cup while some argued against it.

            In a rare ritual compromise the rabbis decided that the fifth cup should indeed be placed on the table, but whether we should drink from it now or later is a decision that only Elijah the prophet can answer. Therefore the cup will be placed on the table but no one will drink of it until Elijah comes to tell us what the correct ritual is.

And that of course raises the question, when will Elijah arrive? When will he be here to herald in the Messiah, or as many liberal Jews prefer, the Messianic age.

Our tradition does supply an answer. The Messianic Age will be upon us when all of us treat one another with dignity and respect. When we acknowledge that the same spark of divinity that exists in you and me is the same spark that exists in everyone else;

when peace shall endure within our hearts, our homes, our communities; and when peace shall descend upon all the earth; “the lion shall lie down with the lamb”, “nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore”. But paradoxically, at that time of great tranquility, we won’t need the Messiah; his work will already have been done here on earth by all of us.

            So the lesson quite simply is that all of us have it within our own ability to bring about that great and awesome day-the Messianic Age. We bring it about in the way we talk and the way we treat one another. It starts in our own families, spreads throughout our communities and in turn throughout the entire world.

            So now we will take this fifth cup, Elijah’s cup, and we pass it around the table as each of us contributes some of our own wine (or grape juice) into it. In this way we symbolize our own ability, each in our own special way, to contribute to the hastening of the day when the prophet Elijah shall join us and the world shall know enduring peace and tranquility, when all the world shall be One.
haggadah Section: -- Cup #2 & Dayenu

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