SIZE MATTERS
One might wonder: if the Seder requires four full cups of wine, and if a “full cup” means what it means today — somewhere between 8 and 12 oz. — wouldn’t drinking four of them leave a person intoxicated? After all, four standard glasses of wine at an average alcohol level is enough to be considered legally drunk.
We know that the Seder is meant to be an experience of joy and gratitude to HaShem for our freedom — but certainly not an occasion for intoxication. To understand why this concern is misplaced, we need to look briefly at the history of wine drinking, going back approximately 2,000 years to when the guidelines of the Seder were formulated by our Sages.
THE SIZE OF THE CUP
The wine cups used in antiquity were very different from the glasses we use today. As seen in the image above, there has been a dramatic increase in the size of wine glasses from the 17th century to the present day. The Sages of the Talmud specified that the cups used for the blessings of the Seder — and for all other religious ceremonies requiring a cup of wine — must be no smaller than a revi’it: approximately 3 oz. (86 ml. according to most opinions). That is a substantially smaller quantity than what we typically consider a cup of wine today.
PURE OR DILUTED WINE?
Maimonides (Hilchot Chametz uMatza 7:9) explains that the wine consumed at the Seder must be mazug — diluted with water. The ratio recommended by the Sages of the Talmud, and by Maimonides himself, may surprise the modern reader: 3 parts water to 1 part wine.
The reasoning is straightforward. The Sages taught that for wine to serve as an expression of freedom and nobility, it must be consumed in a pleasant, healthy, and moderate manner — what they called שתייה ערבה, a “pleasing drink.” Maimonides is explicit on this point: if one drinks four cups of pure, undiluted wine at the Seder, one has technically fulfilled the obligation of drinking the four cups, but has failed to fulfill the obligation of cherut — of conducting oneself on the night of the Seder as a free and noble individual.
Maimonides also establishes a precise minimum: across all four cups combined, the total amount of pure, undiluted wine must be no less than one revi’it — approximately 3 oz. The rest of each cup may be water. The requirement, in other words, is not that each individual cup contain a full revi’it of pure wine, but that the total pure wine content distributed across all four cups together reaches that minimum.
WHY SO MUCH WATER?
This may seem strange to us today. In our time, diluting wine is associated with poor quality. In antiquity, however, the opposite was true. Pure wine — yayin chai — was considered undrinkable, or at the very least unsuitable for refined and educated people.
This was not only a Jewish view. A friend who attended one of my classes — M.B., an expert in wines — pointed me to a Wikipedia article on the Greek krater, the vessel used for mixing wine at ancient symposiums. The Greeks followed a nearly identical practice, mixing wine with water at a ratio of 1 part wine to 3 parts water — precisely what the Talmudic Sages prescribed. Drinking ákratos, undiluted wine, was considered in ancient Greece “a serious error of judgment,” sufficient to characterize a person as a drunkard or someone lacking moderation and principles. Ancient Greek writers held that a 1:3 ratio was the optimal mixture.
The same article addresses the obvious question of how such a diluted mixture could still taste like wine. The explanation offered is that ancient wines were likely produced to a much higher concentration than modern wines — made from dehydrated grapes, with significantly higher alcohol and sugar content — and could therefore withstand substantial dilution while retaining their character and flavor. Rashi and Maimonides make a similar observation, noting that the wine of Talmudic times was considerably stronger than the wine we have today.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO TODAY?
Contemporary practice reflects these realities while remaining faithful to the underlying principles.
The minimum cup size has not changed — a revi’it, approximately 3 oz., remains the standard.
On the question of dilution, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zt”l and other contemporary poskim explain that we should not add water in the proportions prescribed by the Talmud, because modern wines lack the concentration to sustain such dilution without losing their flavor entirely. Rabbi Yosef’s position is that more than half of each cup must consist of wine, so that the taste, essence, and in some cases the color of the wine still prevails. The maximum amount of water will vary depending on the type and quality of wine being used.
In my own experience, mixing a medium-quality wine — one not produced with added water — with up to one third water satisfies both essential requirements: it tempers the wine, as the halacha demands, while preserving its flavor and color. But the precise proportion will depend on the wine, and some experimentation is worthwhile.
