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What is the formula for pouring the wine from the cup during the seder?

by Rabbi Yosef Resnick

  

Library » Holidays » Passover » Seder » The Wine | Subscribe | What is RSS?

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We spill wine from our cups three times during the Pesach Seder:

1) At the mention of “blood, smoke, and pillars of fire.”
2) At the mention of the ten plagues
3) At the mention of the simanim, the mnemonic devices given by Rabbi Judah.1

Altogether we spill sixteen times. Some have the custom to spill only thirteen times—at the mention of the plagues and the simanim.

There are several customs pertaining to the spilling of the wine:

•    Some use the finger, to commemorate the admission of Pharaoh’s sorcerers after they failed to replicate the plague of lice: “It is the finger of G-d.”2   This custom itself isn’t uniform—some use the pinky while others use the ring finger.
Some, in accordance with the custom of the Arizal, pour the wine out directly from the cup without using any finger. (This is also the custom of Chabad.)

Some, in accordance with the custom of the Arizal, pour the wine out directly from the cup without using any finger
•    Some pour the wine into a chipped vessel.

•    Some pour out all the wine and then wipe the cup dry, as they do not wish to drink wine that the plagues have been mentioned over. Another reason given is that dipping a finger in the wine creates a Halachic “cleanliness” issue.
Others consider this practice to be a waste of wine, and merely add wine to the cup at the conclusion of the pours.

•    Some use a separate cup for the pouring out of the wine, so the cup that was filled before the Four Questions remains full until the end of the entire recounting of the Exodus from Egypt.3

See also Why do we pour wine out of our cups when recounting the ten plagues in the Haggadah?

Footnotes

  • 1. Rabbi Judah took the first letter of the Hebrew name each of the ten plagues, and created a three word “symbol” – “detzach adash b’achav” -- to easier remember the plagues and their order.
  • 2. Exodus 8:15.
  • 3. Source: “HaSeder haAruch,” Rabbi Moshe Yakov Vingarten. Yerushalayim.

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RELATED CATEGORIES

Holidays » Passover » Seder » Laws and Rituals
Halachic
Pertaining to Jewish Law.
Chabad
Chabad, an acronym for Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding, is the name of a Chassidic Group founded in the 1770s. Two of the most fundamental teachings of Chabad are the intellectual pursuit of understanding the divine and the willingness to help every Jew who has a spiritual or material need.
Seder
Festive meal eaten on the first two nights of the holiday of Passover (In Israel, the Seder is observed only the first night of the holiday). Seder highlights include: reading the story of the Exodus, eating Matzah and bitter herbs, and drinking four cups of wine.
Exodus
1. The miraculous departure of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage in 1312 BCE. 2. The second of the Five Books of Moses. This book describes the aforementioned Exodus, the giving of the Torah, and the erection of the Tabernacle.
Pesach
Passover. A Biblically mandated early-spring festival celebrating the Jewish exodus from Egypt in the year 1312 BCE.
Arizal
Rabbi Isaac Luria, the 15th Century founder of Modern Kabbalah.
G-d
It is forbidden to erase or deface the name of G-d. It is therefore customary to insert a dash in middle of G-d's name, allowing us to erase or discard the paper it is written on if necessary.