Libation and Liberation

In this drash, I want to talk about wine, Purim and Passover, and how all of those connect to liberation in our time. But to do so properly, we first need to establish what the purpose of Passover is. And to do that, we need to understand what a seder is for.

For the more flamboyant among us, it’s important to remember that seders are all pageantry. The roots of the ritual lie in a few sparse biblical passages, as most amazing Jewish rituals do. But those passages provide the thread with which the Rabbis spin the magnificent mountain of Passover observance. And it all centers around telling a story with flair.

The context in which Passover’s ur-commandments are found in the Torah is unbelievably dramatic. In the midst of our unfolding escape from five centuries of enslavement to the world’s strongest empire, Hashem mind-bogglingly asks our soon-to-be fugitive ancestors to pause and reflect:

זָכ֞וֹר אֶת־הַיּ֤וֹם הַזֶּה֙ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְצָאתֶ֤ם מִמִּצְרַ֙יִם֙ מִבֵּ֣ית עֲבָדִ֔ים כִּ֚י בְּחֹ֣זֶק יָ֔ד הוֹצִ֧יא ה’ אֶתְכֶ֖ם מִזֶּ֑ה 

Remember this day, on which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how Hashem freed you from it with a mighty hand (Exodus 13:3, Sefaria, edited)

Remember your liberation, Hashem, through Moses, tells people who had not even experienced it yet. Memory is so central to this freedom story that it was commanded before the thing to be remembered was even experienced. Hashem was willing to jeopardize the escape, to ensure that we would be present enough to recall it.

One anchorpoint for this memory, classically, was determined to be food. Earlier in the text (Exodus 12), we get commandments on how to celebrate Pesach culinarily, which will be familiar to anyone who has sat at a seder feast. But three other times, the other key aspect of Pesach is brought up – children.

“And when your children ask” (12:26)

“And you shall explain to your child” (13:8)

“And when your child asks you in the future” (13:14)

The questions of children – our desire to both elicit them and answer them – are what truly drive our yearly observance. It is for this reason that every element of the narrative becomes represented by something physical on the table. It’s so that a kid can (and will) point to it, and, as is their most fundamental nature, ask, “What’s that?” Through the tangible, the new, the interesting, we almost dare our young ones to question what lies before them and then take every opportunity to turn an herb into an epic, a cracker into a fairytale, a table-side quirk into theater.

The conceit here is that if we tell a story well enough, with enough examples and interactivity, we can pass on a memory to someone who does not have it. The Mishna codifies this thusly:

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה’ לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם.

In each and every generation a person must view themselves as though they personally left Egypt, as it is stated: “And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of this which Hashem did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Pesachim 10:5, Sefaria, edited)

Thus, the commandment to remember was given before the Exodus actually happened, and continues even a thousand generations beyond. No matter the historical distance, a parent must “commit to the bit,” our Rabbis say, so that they can impart that sense of ongoing liberation to their children, who will then pass the same onto the generation after them.

In this sense, the table items are for us big kids, too. The bitterness of the maror, the sweetness of the haroset, the comfort of reclining, all conspire to bring old and young together into an altered state, to transport us both millenia into the past and towards an ever-present truth, where we can teach each other what it means to be in enchained, and then, through the hand of the Divine, be freed.

This is what, to me, makes wine such an interesting part of our observance. 

The seder is famous for requiring us to drink four cups throughout it. This set of drinks is said by the Talmud to represent “freedom”: 

אַרְבַּע כָּסֵי תִּיקְּנוּ רַבָּנַן דֶּרֶךְ חֵירוּת

The Sages instituted the drinking of four cups in the way of freedom (Pesachim 117b, Sefaria)

Exegetically, this is understood to be rooted in the various ways Hashem took liberatory action for us, expressed by the four different verbs used in Exodus 6:6-7 (I will take you out, I will deliver you, I will redeem you, I will take you). Some Rabbis understand it as related to the sense of wealth and abundance that drinking four cups of wine imparts to the imbiber. But, others understand its connection to liberation as more rooted in its basic effects:

Reb Simcha Bunim, of “the world is made for me/i am but dust and ash” fame, was at the table of the Rebbe of Kotzk for Passover. Reb Simcha set a gigantic goblet in front of the Kotzker Rebbe, to fill for each of the four glasses of wine. He explained to the rebbe: “You have a very powerful mind, therefore you should use this goblet to drink the four cups.” The teller of this tale explained: “Because he had such a powerful mind and his awareness would only be affected by a large cup of wine, he needed a large cup in order to draw down the consciousness of Passover.” (Credit to Carey Averbook for this story, and inspiring various other parts of this drash.)

In this way, wine, according to Reb Simcha, is like the bitter herbs and the saline solution – its physical properties (in wine’s case, inebriation) are why it’s on the table.

We’ve all probably seen this in action. My father (may he live ‘til 120), is generally an effusive and talkative man, but the grandioseness of his mannerisms and speech skyrockets around the third or fourth drink. Wine can loosen your body and tongue, transport you and open you, release the sort of inhibitions that could prevent you from truly feeling what your ancestors did. In this way, wine, though a substance that can slur, is intended on Pesach to be one that clarifies and enables: “I did experience Mitzrayim,” you can say, “and I will convey that with proper theatrics to those I’m tasked with teaching here.”

Of course, alcohol is a dangerous substance. And wine’s desired effects can be achieved in various ways. But the point is that for those of us who can and do drink it, we do so to give ourselves permission to do the silly thing of remembering something we don’t remember, and helping the children in our lives do so, too. (Perhaps the reason children don’t need to drink it is because they already feel this permission inherently. Wine just helps us get on their level.) This task is so critical that the Rabbis require every society to provide even the poorest of its poor with four cups to enable their remembering on this day.

But there are some key ways in which this is different than the role wine served a month ago, in Pesach’s sister holiday of Purim. 

On Purim, drunkenness also occupies a traditionally central function. Mashke flows at traditional megillah readings during both the night and the day. In the way Purim serves as our people’s yearly bacchanal, wine allows us to drop our inhibitions, wear what we want (even cross-dress!), take on a new character, and generally let loose.

The theatrical nature rhymes across both holidays: Taking on the role of either a fireman on Purim or a liberated ancestor on Pesach can both be aided by an elixir to relieve our anxieties. But according to our tradition, Purim’s foundational connection with inebriation seems to be for the opposite reason of Passover – not to remember, but to forget:

אָמַר רָבָא: מִיחַיַּיב אִינִישׁ לְבַסּוֹמֵי בְּפוּרַיָּא עַד דְּלָא יָדַע בֵּין אָרוּר הָמָן לְבָרוּךְ מָרְדֳּכַי.

Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between “Cursed is Haman” and “Blessed is Mordecai.”

Megillah 7b, Sefaria

Same potion, different outcomes. On Purim, our potables bring us to holiness by not knowing the main characters, forgetting the story, losing the thread and the plot. On Passover, we attempt to reach the opposite through the same means – a connection as deep as possible to the story we’re telling, so that we can convey a story of liberation as if we were there.

Pesach and Purim are holidays that are meant to be connected. The Rabbis feel this so deeply, that when the month of Purim, Adar, is doubled in our calendar, we celebrate Purim in the second of the two, to make sure it’s always exactly a month from Pesach (Thank you to Ya’aqov Shenkin for reminding me of this Torah). So what can we learn from the two ways these holidays treat inebriation?

At first blush, Passover’s purpose feels more powerful and touching. We become like children to teach children well. We loosen ourselves just enough to time travel, and pass on a history of struggle, to build connection and empathy across the generations. “Do not oppress the stranger, for you were once strangers,” becomes much easier to enact, if the last time you were a ‘stranger,’ is only as distant as your last seder.

And Purim’s aim to “drink to forget” carries explicit warnings of the violence this can cause. Immediately after the piece of Talmud referenced above, the Gemara relates that one Rabbi got so drunk on Purim that he killed his colleague. The lesson seems clear: Unable to differentiate between the friends and enemies of his story, he treats his friend like an enemy in the real world. Not knowing the difference between good and bad can beautifully open up the possibility of redemption for the wicked. But equally, it can put the righteous at risk.

So is the answer to always make sure to “drink to remember”? Never to forget? That would be a powerful and pithy end to this drash.

But unfortunately it’s more complicated than that.

The moral clarity of Passover is neither complete nor without attendant risks. In the seder itself, we limit our consumption of wine specifically because of all the death that led to our liberation, meaning that not drinking is also a key element of remembrance. And the Passover story of “We were once slaves, now we’re free; We were once in Egypt, now we are in Israel,” can lead to arrogance and chauvinism. When seders are celebrated over rubble in uniform, or our history of suffering is understood to give us the right to oppress others, we could use a healthy dose of Purim’s humility: Do we know which side of the curse/blessing paradigm we’re on? Are we sure?

Wine, like everything else in our world, can serve to heal or hurt, for life or for death. The Torah’s admonition around questions like this is simply:

וּבָֽחַרְתָּ֙ בַּחַיִּ֔ים לְמַ֥עַן תִּֽחְיֶ֖ה אַתָּ֥ה וְזַרְעֶֽךָ

Choose life, so that you and your offspring can live (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Great, Hashem, if only it were that easy!! Is “life” the dionysian enjoyment of Purim, or the didactic performance of Passover? Is it defined by letting go or holding tight? If the stakes are this big – us and our children forever after – tell us: How and what do we choose??

Okay. It’s hard. But blessedly, there’s always another Rabbi to consult. And we’ll close our wondering with the words of Ibn Ezra, a medieval commentator, who explains לְמַ֥עַן תִּֽחְיֶ֖ה, “so you can live,” to mean:

בגוף או בזכר. ופירש כי החיים הם לאהבה:

So that you may live in body or in memory. Because the purpose of life is to love.

This incredible, cryptic, heart-warming exegesis exemplifies a synthesis of all the discussions we’ve been having on Purim and Passover up until now. Choosing life means living in body: enjoying the pleasures of this world, surviving mortal threat, being grounded and humble and on this earth, keeping our children alive. But it also means living in memory: never forgetting where we came from, never forgetting why we’re here, surviving moral threats, staying connected to the heavens, teaching our children what it means to be alive.

And how do we navigate that impossible web? 

Love, Ibn Ezra says, almost sappily. Love for Hashem. For ourselves and others. For this generation and those to come. For our bodies and our souls. For the world as it is and as it could be. 

This is our purpose. So no matter what beverages you choose this Passover, I hope that you choose life. And pray that out of that, only love flows.

Pesax alegre <3