Va’ayrah 1 Shevat 5767 / January 20, 2007

Time for show and tell. I hold in my hand the goblet we use for the Seder. No, as much as I like to drink wine, it is not my cup, though I do have a smaller cup set aside for the seder. Rather it serves as Kos Eliyahu, as Elijah’s cup. Just as in my parents’ home it sits out during the year on the long refectory table, which I also inherited from them. But come Passover an attempt is made to polish it and then it is filled with wine. In my parents home it was the better part of a half gallon jug of Carmel Malaga. It is hard to believe that I used to like drinking that stuff. In between the two sedarim, it was covered over with plastic wrap and sat in the refrigerator. Come the end of the second seder, I believe the Carmel wine jug was refilled. For our part it is one of two Elijah cups that we use: this one reveres our parental tradition and it continues to be filled with a sweet wine, though now a Concord grape variety, and it, too, sits in the refrigerator in between seders. The second Elijah’s cup is a cut glass goblet which I purchased a few years ago and serves as the receptacle for a tradition I have added, of having each participant pour a little wine into the cup, as a symbol of being part of the act of redemption with which Elijah is associated.

This act of show and tell comes to you because of the very beginning section of the Torah reading—one that we read at Minchah last Saturday afternoon and will read a year from now on Shabbat morning. There at the beginning of the portion of Va’ayrah, God proclaims His intention to liberate the people of Israel. There is a succession of verbs used to describe the process, which serve as the rabbinic basis for the 4 cups of wine. Personally, I am convinced that the practice of having 4 cups preceded the rabbinic proof text. And frankly, I continue to wonder if the original practice was not to have three cups of wine: one for Kiddush, one with the meal, and one immediately afterwards. However, since Trinitarian models fell out of favor because of the rise of Christianity—the exception is the passage of Rabban Gamliel, who mentions only 3 symbols--, a fourth cup of wine was added and the text here at the beginning of Va’ahyrah came to mind. Of course, as a careful reading will reveal, the text doesn’t promote the drinking of wine with the verbs of liberation.

“V’hotsaytee etchem metachat Sivlot Mitsrayim, I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people.” Voila, 4 statements of redemption. However, continue on to the next verse and we find “I will bring you into the land…and I will give it to you for a possession.” That clearly is a fifth statement about redemption. (And, I should add perhaps a sixth. But that is a discussion for another time.). In rabbinic times this extra text ended up as underpinning for the 5^th cup; the cup of redemption in the future. Living in an age of exile from the land or under alien occupiers, the hope for ownership of the land became in time associated with Elijah and the redemption that he heralds. With the creation of the modern state of Israel, Rabbi Menachem Kasher was one of a few prominent rabbis who suggested that it was time to reclaim that fifth cup. But it is not a practice that has caught on; for we still live in an unredeemed world; in an era in which Israel does not enjoy the security and peace one wishes for it. Hence, most of us continue to set aside a 5^th cup for Elijah and most of us refrain from imbibing yet a 5^th cup at our sedarim.

But hidden in the text, hidden away is another assertion. It is in the section between the 4^th statement of redemption and the fifth and final promise. There you will find the following: “V’yedatem Ke Ani Hashem Elokachem…And you shall know that I, the Eternal am your God who freed you fro the labors of the Egyptians.” In these three sentences we have God’s actions; God acting in history. But this seventh phrase directs our attention to the people of Israel, and our role. What does it mean that we shall know God?

Rabbi Chayim ben Attar, an 18^th century Moroccan scholar and author of Or HaChayim, a commentary on the Torah, raises this very question: how is it that the consequence of knowing God is grouped together with the promises of salvation? He goes on to point out that the understanding of the people should logically come at the end of the list, when all of God’s promises of redemption had been fulfilled. He answers his own question thusly: “You shall know that I am your God” is a precondition for the fulfillment of “I will bring you and I will give you the land.”

Not so incidentally, the Neteuri Kartaniks, who have been recently profiled because of their anti-Zionist activities with Iran, would probably point out that this part of the bargain has not been met—that there are too many irreligious Jews-- and so therefore the current state of Israel is not part of a new act of Divine redemption.

But what of us? Are the Neteuri Karta wrong? Have we collectively lived up to our bargain; not losing faith—at least most of us—even in the face of the horrors of the Shoah, of the Holocaust? Perhaps Israel’s re-establishment is divine payback for this fidelity. I admit that this is dangerous theological territory and I am not going to pursue it for the moment. This hidden phrase nonetheless stands as a challenge for us. As a people we have returned to the Land of Israel, though the Messianic era seems far away. And so what is our role in this intermediate stage of history?

That extra passage proclaims that our actions are required before ultimate redemption. If this is true on the metaphysical level, it is true, as well on the very physical level. We can not be passive and let history wash over us. I think that we need to look not at this huge Elijah’s cup, but think of this smaller one, in which we follow the practice of adding to the cup, as a symbol of our commitment to participate in Tikkun Olam, in repairing this world. There are so many causes that cry for our attention: ongoing support for Israel; aid to those in Darfur, and Global Warming are just a few that come quickly to mind.

God’s promise of redemption comes with a message of responsibility. And though the first Seder is not until the beginning of April—2 ½ months from now, the message of its 5 cups should resonate even now.

Shabbat shalom.