How To Drink Four Cups Without Getting drunk?

שתה ארבעה כוסות אלו מיין שאינו מזוג יצא ידי ארבעה כוסות ולא יצא ידי חירות

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.

Why do we recline at the Seder?

A UNIQUE SITTING POSITION

The Pesach Seder is a very special celebratory dinner in which we have certain traditions, like consuming certain foods or drinks, to help us recreate the experience of slavery and freedom. We do this following the indication of the Sages who said “…in every generation we should feel as if we ourselves had left Egypt.” The Seder abounds in symbolisms related to experiencing as much as possible physical slavery and physical freedom. One of these symbols is a physical gesture, a sitting arrangement or position we adopt when we eat at the Seder to express (and / or feel) cherut “feeling free by displaying prosperity”, which in the past usually came together. This sitting position is known in Hebrew as haseba, leaning, reclining. The Talmud, Maimonides, the Shulhan Arukh, and practically all rabbis indicate that it is an obligation to eat the Matsa, drink the four glasses of wine, and eat the festive meal while leaning on our left side. Let’s now see the origin and history of this custom. In ancient times, common people would sit on the floor to eat. In other places, like Athens or Rome (where slaves constituted around 80% of the population) slaves were not even allowed to sit on the floor: they had to eat while standing.

At the time the Rabbis of the Talmud established the traditions of Pesach, the nobles, the royalty, and the aristocracy of Rome ate in a “triclinium”, especially when they celebrated an important occasion. It should not be surprising then that the arrangement of the tables and seats modeled the arrangements of the contemporary royalty and aristocracy.

THE ROMAN TRICLINIUM

The triclinium consisted of three or six couches organized in a U-shaped manner, which were “wide enough to accommodate three diners who reclined on their left side on cushions”. The tables, where the food was served, were small semi-individual tables.

You can see here, in this old Roman mosaic, an ancient Roman triclinium. A Jewish triclinium, like the one conceived for Pesach, must have looked like this, but obviously with much more decorum, cleanliness, and good manners.

As you can see, the couches were arranged in a “U” shape manner, which was “ wide enough to accommodate three diners who reclined on their left side on cushions” (see this ). In the center, you can see three tables where the food is served. We can now understand better that when the Sages said, for example, that the table should be “lifted” (עוקרים את השולחן) in order to awaken the attention of the children, they literally referred to lifting and removing the individual small tables (called then: qe’ara) where the food was served. You can also see that people used their hands to bring food into their mouths (forks were invented after the 15th Century). And they also recline on the left side. Why on the left? Simply because most of the diners are “righty” and therefore they recline on the left and naturally use their right hand to eat. Additionally, the sages explained, that if a person reclines on his right side while eating, he risks choking with the food (perhaps, the risk was greater than usual for people who were not used to eat reclining). Now we can understand a little better the symbolism of the haseba. The Sages of the Talmud established that to feel free on this night we should recline as the nobility and the aristocracy do. Even poor Jews should feel the night of the Seder as free, important and well-off people, by reclining comfortably on the left side when eating.

FROM TRICLINIUMS TO TABLES

Over time the habit of eating in the triclinium fell into disuse. And some rabbis, like the Raaban (Abraham ben Nathan de Provence, France, 1155-1215), proposed to interrupt this custom, since in Europe the nobles sat on chairs, around a table. The vast majority of the rabbis, however, held that we should not discontinue this ancient custom. And that if we do not recline while eating the Matsa or drinking the glasses of wine, we will not be fulfilling our obligation to its fullest. Some rabbis reassigned the tradition of reclining into a different category: shinui, that is, doing something unusual during the Seder to awake children’s attention and provoke their questions.

THE BEGINNING OF FEMINISM

Another issue that was discussed for centuries is whether women also had to recline while eating. The Talmud says unambiguously “no”. This is better understood when we take into account that at that time, as you can see in the mosaic, it was not part of the protocol for decent women to recline in the triclinium. The Talmud, however, mentions some exceptions, such as isha chashuba, an important woman. In the Roman Empire there were some women who belonged to the elite and were known as “roman matrons” (matronita in the Talmud) who would fully participate in the triclinium. Some rabbis of the Middle Ages, especially in Europe (Tosafot, Rema, etc.) thought that in their own times (12-16 century) all women should recline, since “all our wives should be given the status of important women” …. And who would argue with that?! Over time, the original tradition was “readjusted”, and nowadays men and women, in all Jewish communities, are equally obligated to recline while eating and drinking at the Seder.

ESTHER 9:31. Shushan Purim, Jerusalem and Yom haAtzmaut

In the times of Esther and Mordekhai the Jews of Shushan asked King Ahashverosh (Xerxes, 486-465 sec) for an extra day to fight against their enemies. The King granted their request and the Jews of Shushan fought on the 13th of Adar and on the 14th of Adar and celebrated their victory on the 15th of Adar. In chapter 9 of Megillat Esther it is told that Mordechai wanted the Jews to celebrate 2 days in a row, as if it were a Yom Tob, on the 14th and 15th of Adar. This new “festival” was not easily accepted. As is the case today with the celebration of Yom haAtzmaut or Yom Yerushalayim or the commemoration of Yom haShoa, some Jews argued that we should only celebrate the festivities mentioned in the Tora.

For this reason, some resisted that Purim was declared a day of celebration and others, who accepted to celebrate Purim, refused to celebrate for two days in a row (verse 27). Why? Although the text of the Megillah does not make any direct reference to it, there are indications that there was some tension between the Jews of Shushan and the Yehudim who lived in the land of Israel. Where was the center of the Jews? Shushan or Yerushalayim? On the one hand, Shushan was the Empire’s Capital and everything that happened in the Empire was decided there and influenced all the Jews of the world. What happened in Purim was the best example! Jerusalem, on the other hand, was only a “small” province of the Persian Empire, and although the Second Bet haMiqdash was already functioning, the city was in ruins. But it is still the heart and soul of our nation.

To avoid these tensions and finding a consensus among all Jews, the Megillah tells (v. 29) that Queen Ester and Mordekhai send a second royal edict (et kol hatoqef), mentioning, very succinctly, an apparent agreement between the Jews of Shushan and the Jews of the rest of the empire, dibre shalom ve-emet, words of peace and truth. What was this agreement about?

Part of this agreement is mentioned in the text of the Megillah, the other part, in the Mishna.

DIBRE HATSOMOT

Verse 31 of chapter 9 says: “[And Esther wrote and sent the second royal edicts] to establish these days of Purim in their appointed times, as they had established for them Mordekhai the Yehudi and Queen Esther, as they had set for them and his descendants the times of fasting and lamentations. “

According to Rabbi Abraham Eben Ezra, “the fasts” mentioned in this verse do not refer to the fast of Esther. What it actually means is that finally all the Jews of the empire, including the Jews of Israel, agreed to celebrate Purim in the same way that they had already agreed to observe the fasts decreed a few years earlier, mentioned by the prophet Zechariah (8: 19): “Thus haShem said, God of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth month, will be converted for the house of Yehudah into joy and joy …”. These fasts, like Purim, had not been mentioned in the Torah but had been universally accepted. The Megillah says that ALL Jews finally accepted to celebrate Purim, and compared the accepting of observing this new Holiday with the observance of the public fasts.

SHUSHAN PURIM

The Megillah also mentions the celebration of the second day of Purim. But, as an alternative day, not as an additional day of celebration. The Jews who live in towns and villages, the vast majority of Jews, would celebrate Purim on the 14th of Adar. While Jews who live in “walled” cities, these are fortified cities (usually, capital cities) would celebrate Purim on the 15th of Adar

Now, the second Beth haMiqdash had already been built, albeit precariously, by Zerubabel, but the city of Jerusalem was still in ruins. Jerusalem, then, did not have a wall! This situation only changed about 25 or 30 years later, with the arrival Nehemia to Yerushalayim, who built the wall to protect the city. In order to keep the dignity and honor of Yerushalayim, and consider it a walled city, the Rabbis established that cities that were walled since in the days of Yehousha bin Nun would receive the status of “walled cities” and that would include, therefore, Jerusalem.

Since then, in Jerusalem, Purim is observed on the 15th of Adar. According to some opinions, the city of Tiberia in northern Israel is also considered a walled city. Tiberias has walls in some parts of the city and the Lake Kineret, a natural fortification of the city, is also considered part of the city “walls”.

PURIM: What happened to the Jews that did not want to move to Israel?

רוצים בגלות … שלא יפָּרדו ממשכנותיהם ועניניהם

In chapter 4 of Megillat Esther we find the first reactions of the Jews to the edict that announced the planned genocide. The Jews were terrified by these terrible news.

“And in each of the provinces, in every place where the King’s order and his decree had arrived, there was a great mourning and fasting among the Jews, weeping and lament; garments of mourning and ashes, displayed in public places. “

The words of this verse remind us the terms used by two prophets, Joel (2: 12-14) and Yesha’ayahu (58: 5) referring to a fast of contrition.

“Garments of mourning and ashes” is a clear allusion to the famous prophecy of Yesha’ayahu, chapter 58: 5, which we read no less than on the day of Yom Kippur. The great prophet of Israel mentions that during the day of forgiveness, many people focus on gestures of repentance, “dressed in mourning, and ashes, fasting and reclining “like a bush that bends [by the force of the wind] touching the ground” . But in spite of these dramatic acts, the prophet sees that repentance does not exist in the heart, these gestures of sorrow seem “an attempt to persuade God to spare them from punishment” rather than sincere manifestations or willingness to change and improve their actions. The prophet Yoel (2: 12-14) expressed a similar idea when he asked the people not to “tear their clothes, but their hearts,” for their repentance.

If we assume that by mentioning these words the text of Esther is subliminally indicating that at this time the Jews had not yet reached a level of sincere repentance, it leads us to a significant question that our sages addressed long time ago. What did the Jews do that they had to repent for? Why were they about to be punished?

The Sages of the Gemara discussed this subject. They spoke, for example, of the participation of Jews in the non Kosher King’s feasts, which indicates an advanced level of social assimilation. Or, according to other opinions, Jews did not make enough efforts to avoid practices associated with idolatry, etc.
Rabbi Yehuda haLevi in his famous book “The Cuzari” formulated a harsh, and extremely relevant (and somewhat shameful) response, especially for those of us who do not yet live in Israel.

The King of the Khazars asked the Rabbi: What happened in the times of the Second Temple, when the Jews were praying to God to return to Israel, and when this was possible, in the times of Cyrus (or Ahashverosh) the Jews opted for remaining in exile, and [ironically] they kept praying that God would bring them back to Zion?”

This was the response of the Cuzari:

“This sin, not having returned to the land of Israel when they had the opportunity to do so, is what prevented us from completing the Divine plan during the time of the Second Temple, as the prophet said:” Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion [God is once again in His land! Zekhariah 2:14] The prophecy, the Divine voice, was about to return to Israel as it was in the First Temple , and it was waiting for the Jews to return joyfully to their land. But [incredibly], this did not happened, and only some Jews returned, [the poorest] while the majority remained in a voluntary exile, since they did not want to separate themselves from their worldly affairs, their mansions and their businesses.

The waves of anti-Semitism that Jews experienced in Purim, the shadows of a potential genocide, was a wake-up call for many who lived comfortably in exile. After what happened with Haman, many Jews woke up and decided to return to Israel with Ezra and Nehemia.

ESTHER 3:8. The story of two edicts

Cyrus’ Edict (538 BCE)

The last book of or Tanakh (=the Hebrew Bible) is the book of Dibre haYamim, or chronicles. It ends with a very special declaration. The announcement of Cyrus, the first Persian emperor. It says in Dibre haYamim II, 36:22-23, the verses which close the Tanakh. “In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia… HaShem moved the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout all his realm by word of mount and in writing. “Thus said King Cyrus of Persia: HaShem, God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and has charged me with building for Him a Sanctuary in Jerusalem, which is in Judea (=Israel). Any one of you, of all His people, may HaShem God be with him and let him ascend [to Israel. In the original Hebrew, veya’al, “he should make Aliya”]” .

During the wars and invasions of the Assyrians and Babylonians hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed . Finally, in 586 BCE Nebukhadnezzar, the Babylonian emperor, destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem and 70,000 Jewish captives (the survivors) were exiled to Babylonia.
In 538 BCE the Persians conquered Babylon and, in what is nothing short of a nes galui, a a public open miracle, HaShem moved the spirit of Cyrus, and he decides to invite the Jewish people to come to Israel and rebuild the city!
More than 42,000 Jews went back to Israel and began the construction of the second Bet haMiqdash.

Haman’s edict (ca. 474 BCE)

Haman was the Primer Minister and most trusted man of the fourth Persian emperor, Ahashverosh (Xerxes 486- 465 BCE). He planned to kill the Jews and to that effect he said to King Ahashverosh, ‘There is a certain people, dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will confiscate ten thousand talents of silver for the king’s royal treasury [the King agreed and]…on the thirteenth day of the first month of, on the 12th year of Ahashverosh, the royal scribes were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders…these documents were written in the name of King Ahashverosh himself and sealed with his own ring. Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to exterminate, kill and destroy all the Jews, young and old, women and children, on a single day… a copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province, and made known to the people of every nationality, so they would be ready for that day.”. (Esther, Chapter 3). It is important to remember that the Persian Empire at the time of Ahashverosh was the largest Empire in human history. And all the Jews in the world, including those who came to Israel 64 years ago invited by Cyrus, lived in it. The decree of Haman would not have affected just the Jews of Shushan, the Persian empire’s capital, but the entire Jewish people. As we all know, Haman’s decree was reversed and the Jews were saved by HaShem, through Mordekhay and Queen Esther.

THE BOOK OF ESTHER: An Introduction

MYTH or HISTORY?
Unlike some books of the Hebrew Bible which deal with poetry, like Tehilim, or literature, like Job (according to some opinions) the story that Megillat Esther tells, is absolutely factual. Two elements distinguish a true story from a myth or a fiction: real stories are presented with references of time and space, while myths are not. Myths, we are told, happened “once upon a time”, that is: in no specific time, and “in a far away kingdom”, in no specific place. The story of Esther begins precisely by providing us these two coordinates: “This happened during the days of Achashverosh (Xerxes), the King that rules the Persian empire that stretches from India (in the East) to Ethiopia (in Africa)…. In the third year of his Kingdom” (that is 483 b.c.e. Xerxes reigned from 486-465 b.c.e).

MORDEKHAY, OFFICER OF THE KING
One of the elements that makes Megillat Esther unique is that it was not written by a King or a prophet in the sovereign Jewish State, like most of the Bible, but “under the auspices of a non-Jewish government.” According to the text, Esther and Mordekhay, an official of Ahashverosh’s government, wrote the Megillah at the time when Mordekhay was “working” for Ahashverosh. And for this precise reason some things which could be offensive to the sensibilities of the King or the Persian empire were not to be explicitly described. For example, the name of God is not mentioned in the entire book, because Persians had their own gods and religion. For that reason Jewish religious practices like “prayer to HaShem” is also omitted in the Megillah and the text uses instead “fasting”. Obviously, the text cannot directly or indirectly criticize the Persian sovereign. When the text describes Haman’s plan to exterminate the Jewish people, the King appears to be uninformed about the identity of the victims and mislead by Haman’s deception. Towards the end of the story the text subtly credits Ahashverosh with saving the Jews sealing the new decree. Without realizing that the story of Esther was written in this diplomatic way, and under these circumstances, it is not possible to understand these and other anomalies in a Jewish book.

ONE TEXT, TWO AUDIENCES
There is something else, related to this last point, that makes Megillat Esther a particularly sophisticated book. Megillat Esther is the only book, that I know of, that has been written simultaneously for two different audiences: on the one hand it had to be written to be approved by the scrupulous censorship of the Persian empire, and on the other hand, it had to be understood and appreciated by Jews from all over the world. But how is it possible to do this? How can a text reveal and hide at the same time? I will try to explain it very briefly. Hebrew terms have a more or less fixed semantics, like in any other language. But beyond the simple meaning of the words, Hebrew language is unique because it is intimately associated with the biblical text. And for any member of the Jewish people who knows (or should know) the biblical text by heart, words, especially infrequent words, and certain combinations or words, invite the reader to establish an immediate mental connection with other texts of the Hebrew Bible. Once the reference text is recognized, the words in the original text take on a new dimension. In this way the author creates two different messages in the same text: a simple one, for the reader who only understands Hebrew, and a more sophisticated one, addressed to the “linguistic community” who recognizes the Biblical text of reference.

WEALTH AND PRESTIGE
One example. The book of Esther begins with the description of a mega-party that lasted for six months and seven days, that King Ahashverosh offered for the generals, ministers and officers of the Persian empire. After giving us the technical details of the party, the text explains the purpose of this great celebration (1: 4): Ahashverosh literally wanted to “show-off his wealth and the glory of his kingdom (‘osher kebod malkhuto) in front of his guests. ” Ironically, on the very last day of the party, the King gets drunk, loses his wisdom, and makes a fatal mistake: he summons his wife, Queen Vashti, to expose her and show her beauty before the men. Vashti refuses to come and this creates a great scandal that ends up being a great humiliation for king Ahashverosh. The King wanted to gain fame and prestige by showing off his great “wealth”, but his lack of wisdom did not allow him to do so.

WISDOM AND PRESTIGE
The words “wealth and glory” used by the Megillah are easily identifiable by those who know the story of the coronation of another king, Solomon. When he is about to ascend to the throne, Solomon had a dream. In that dream God offers to fulfill any of his wishes. Solomon, who could have chosen wealth and glory, like all other kings, asks God to grant him “wisdom,” to guide his people with righteousness and justice. God grants him wisdom, and in the end God also rewards him with “wealth and glory,” ‘osher vekhabod.

LESSON LEARNED!
The contrast between these two kings could not be clearer. The Megillah, through these two strategic little words “wealth and glory”, points out that Solomon, who renounced wealth and honor and sought wisdom, in the end also obtained wealth and honor. On the other hand, Ahashverosh, who pursued wealth to gain glory and prestige, and did not seek wisdom, lost miserably his honor, and despite his great wealth he ended up making a fool of himself in front of his guests and the entire Kingdom.

ESTHER 3:14. Hiding Genocide From The King

פַּתְשֶׁגֶן הַכְּתָב, לְהִנָּתֵן דָּת בְּכָל-מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה, גָּלוּי, לְכָל-הָעַמִּים–לִהְיוֹת עֲתִדִים, לַיּוֹם הַזֶּה.

Hiding the inconvenient truth is an essential part of any political plot.

The plot of Megillat Esther, at least at its superficial level, only makes sense if we assume that King Ahashverosh was not aware of the content of Haman’s decree. As it happens innumerable times in all kinds of political contexts, monarchies and democracies, ministers, government officials or advisers many times hide certain information from the King or the president due to partisan or personal considerations, etc. Haman not only did not reveal to Ahashverosh that the edict he was about to write decreed the genocide of the Jews, but it is reasonable to assume that he did everything necessary to prevent the content of that edict from reaching the ears of the king.
Rabbi Almosnino in his masterful work Yede Moshé explains one of Haman’s tactics to hide the information from the king, and how this is mentioned with exquisite subtlety by the text of Megillat Esther.

KETAB HADAT
There were two official documents announcing the edict. The first document was the ketab hadat (chapter 3:14). This was the official text. And in spite of not having been written directly by the king, this document was officially read in presence of the king for final approval. According to Rabbi Almosnino, this document was drafted in an ambiguous way. It only mentioned that all the subjects of the empire “should be prepared for that day (להיות עתידים ליום הזה), the 13th of Adar”, awaiting new instructions. Like a modern ad saying “Save the date, instructions to follow” . This document was read publicly in Shushan as well as in all the cities of the Persian empire.
With this ambiguous document Haman made the king think that the final plan was to strip the Jews of their civil privileges and take their properties and assets (לאבדם), and thus, forcing them into slavery. In this way, Haman suggested, the Jews “who disobey the king’s laws and follow their own laws” would be punished, and an important sum of money would be collected for the royal coffers. Haman would have justified the deliberate inaccuracy of this text, explaining to the king that if the edict were more explicit, the Jews would discover its content, escape, hide their property, etc. and the surprise factor would be lost.

PATSHEGEN HAKETAB
The second document was the patshegen of the ketab hadat (chap. 3:13). The word patshegen means: explanation. This second text (called in that verse sefarim) provided the details of the implementation of the ketab hadat and explicitly mentioned that on that day it would be allowed, I quote, “in all the provinces of the king, to destroy, kill and exterminate all Jews, young and old , children and women, on that same day, the thirteenth day of the twelve month, which is the month of Adar, and their possessions would be given to looting. “ Rabbi Almosnino maintains that this second text was written by Haman, without the king’s knowledge, and was sent through the “couriers” to all corners of the empire, together with the first document. However, this second document was not revealed in the capital city, Shushan, to prevent its content from reaching the ears of the King. All that was announced in Shushan was the ketab hadat, the first ambiguous document that only mentioned the date for which citizens should prepare while waiting for new instructions. The king, thus, did not know the nature of Haman’s true plan.
In this way it is also understood why while in all the cities of the empire Jews were in mourning (Esther 4: 3), in Shushan, the city was perplexed, that is, people–Jews and non Jews– were confused because they did not know what that mysterious edict was about.

THE TWO DOCUMENTS
At the beginning of chapter 4, the Megilla says that Mordekhai knew about the content of the second document, and in verse 8 we can clearly see the distinction between these two texts. Verse 4: 8 says that Mordekhi “gave to Hatakh a copy of the Patshegen, [the instructions for the implementation of the] ketab hadat … mentioning the genocide of the Jews, so that Hatakh would show it to Esther, to be notified, and he will send her to see the King, to implore his favor and to intercede before him for her people. ” Mordekhai hands Hataj a copy of the second document,” the patshgen” of the ketab hadat, a document that the common people of Shushan did not know about, to show to Esther and proceed with the plan: INFORMING Ahashverosh that he had been tricked by Haman–who is hiding from the King the genocidal plan– and convince the King to prevent this.

The rest of chapter 4 deals with Esther’s difficulties in reaching the next step: getting an audience with the king.

To read the book of Rabbi Almosnino, see this link. The subject that we explained today is briefly mentioned on pages 452-453 (.רכו ע”ב-רכז)

PURIM: The Holocaust Averted

WHAT HAPPENED ON PURIM?

Tomorrow is Rosh Chodesh — the beginning of the month of Adar. In a few more days we will celebrate the holiday of Purim, remembering once again that some 2500 years ago HaShem saved us from total extermination. Many times we Jews were threatened by a people or a nation; at one time or another, as if threats or persecutions of Jews were something to be expected, common and that does not deserve to be questioned. In any case, what characterizes “Purim” is that at that time, ALL THE JEWS OF THE WORLD lived under “the same roof”: the Persian empire. In 475 BCE, Haman, the prime minister of the Persian Empire and the right-hand man of the Persian Emperor Achashverosh (Xerxes), issued a royal decree ordering the murder of all Jews in the Empire, promising those who participate in the massacres, that they could keep all the properties and money of the Jews. It would have been, God forbid, the first Holocaust. I clarify that I never use the word “Holocaust” lightly: and I reiterate that unlike 1940, in the times of Achashverosh, ALL the Jews of the world lived in the same Empire! Purim, then, could have been חס ושלום the “final solution” every anti-Semite dreamed of. And as it can be seen on the map, the Persian empire (in green) included, among other countries, Egypt, Turkey and also Judea or Yerushalayim where some 50,000 Jews lived at that time. In fact, there were no Jews outside the Persian empire. In that sense, the Jewish people never were so close to being completely erased from the face of the planet.

It is important to realize this historical fact to understand and appreciate the magnitude of the miracle of Purim (פרסום הנס) .

WHEN ALL JEWS WERE PERSIAN

But when and how did we become citizens of the Persian empire?

After leaving Egypt, our ancestors lived for approximately 800 years as a sovereign people in the land of Israel. In the year 586 B.C.E the Babylonian emperor Nebukhadnetsar conquered Yerushalayim. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered or died of starvation or disease. The Bet haMiqdash –or Great Temple of Jerusalem– was destroyed and more than 50,000 Jews were taken as captives and taken to Babylon.

In the year 539 BCE, Cyrus (called Koresh in Hebrew) defeated and conquered the Babylonian empire and proclaimed himself the first emperor of the Persian empire.

In the year 538 B.C. An enormous miracle occurred: the Persian Emperor — inspired by God, as he himself admitted (see below)– invited the Jewish people to return to Yerushalayim and rebuild the Bet haMiqdash. This great event is recorded in the last words of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible (see below). Thousands of Jews arrived in Israel led by Zerubabel and in the year 516 BCE, after 70 years of exile, as Yirmiyahu had prophesied, the reconstruction of the second Bet haMiqdash began. Over time the Jewish population of Israel continued to grow and at the time of Purim, in the first half of the 5th century B.C.E. no fewer than 50,000 Jews lived in Israel.

A VOLUNTARY EXILE

But not all Jews resided then in Israel. As it is unfortunately the case today, although everyone “could” live in Israel, the majority of Jews continued to live outside of Israel. Why? Because the Persian empire –the largest empire that existed in the history of mankind– gave the Jews the extraordinary opportunity to establish an international trade network that was very successful. Jews spread to all corners of the Persian Empire, reaching what is now the area of India and China. Taking advantage of the fact that the trade routes were protected by the Persian imperial guard, they set up an international trade network dedicated to export and import between Indochina and the West. Through the famous “silk road”, also protected by imperial guards, they imported silk and gold from China and exported spices, dyes, jade, lapis lazuli, and glass.

THE FIRST BANKERS WERE JEWS

The fact that the Jews were, as Haman confirmed (M. Esther 3:8), “scattered among all the peoples of the Persian empire” facilitated this type of international trade, and allowed the Yehudim to establish a new industry, in which also excelled: credit. A document written (in Hebrew) by a Jew in today’s Turkey could be cashed in India, when presented to another Jew living there. And in this way, those who traded with the Jews, avoided the enormous risk of transporting money, silver or gold over hundreds or thousands of kilometers. There is also a fascinating archaeological evidence about a Jewish family of “bankers” of that time, the Murashu (for more information, see this article ).

All these data is important to understand

1. That Jews lived voluntarily scattered throughout all the confines of the Persian empire.

2. That as a result of the success of their trades, Jews did not intend to return to Israel for the time being. Although it should be noted that they supported Israel financially by permanently sending generous donations to the Bet haMiqdash and to the Yehudim who resided there.

3. That Haman’s edict was not going to affect only the Jews of one city or one province. On Purim, we celebrate that the elimination of ALL JEWS ALL THE WORLD was miraculously averted.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

THE PROCLAMATION OF KORESH (CYRUS) FIRST PERSIAN EMPEROR

These are the last words of the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible

DIBRE HAYAMIM 36: 22-23

22 “In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia, HaShem inspired the heart of the king so that he promulgated a decree throughout his kingdom and thus the word of the Lord that had been announced by the prophet Jeremiah would be fulfilled. Both orally and in writing, the king decreed the following:

23 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia commands:

HaShem, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and has commissioned me to build him a temple in the city of Jerusalem, which is in Yehudah. Therefore, whoever belongs to Yehudah, let him go [to Yerushalayim to build the Bet haMiqdash], and may [HaShem] his God be with him.”

–

Rabbi Abraham de Sola (1825-1882), a Forgotten Sephardic Giant

EARLY LIFE

Rabbi Abraham de Sola (1825-1882) was a Canadian Rabbi, an orientalist and a prominent scientist. Rabbi De Sola was recognized as one of the most influential leaders of Sephardic and Orthodox Judaism in America during the second half of the nineteenth century, at a time when the struggle between the Orthodox and Reform wings of the community was at an acute stage.

His father was rabbi David Aaron de Sola, a famous Rabbi from the Sephardic Community of London, and his mother was the daughter of rabbi Raphael Meldola (see this).

In 1847, at the age of 21, Rabbi de Sola arrived to Montreal, Canada from London and there he served as the rabbi of Shearit Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese community. In 1852 he married Esther Joseph, whose father was one of the earliest Jewish settlers in Montreal.

SEPHARDIC TORA UMADA

Rabbi de Sola soon established himself at the center of Montreal’s English-speaking intellectual community. An eloquent and esteemed lecturer, and a man of broad interests, he frequently addressed the Montreal Mercantile Library Association, the Montreal Literary Club, the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, of which he was elected as an honorary member , the Montreal Mechanics’ Institute, and the Natural History Society, which he served as president in 1867-68, as well as several organizations associated with McGill University.

In 1848, Rabbi de Sola was appointed lecturer, and in 1853 professor, of Hebrew and Oriental literature at McGill University in Montreal –the most prestigious university in Canada– and he eventually became the senior professor of its Faculty of Arts. 1858, in recognition of his extraordinary scholastic accomplishments, McGill conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. (legum doctor, an honorary doctorate degree)

In 1873, by invitation of President Ulysses S. Grant, Rabbi De Sola opened the United States Congress with a prayer. He became the first British subject to open the US House of Representatives with a prayer.

Rabbi Abraham de Sola was the pioneer in what is known today as Tora uMada’, the way of looking harmoniously at Science and Judaism.

HIS WORKS

He was a very prolific writer and the author of dozens of books, articles and papers.

Among them:

“Behemoth haTemeoth: the identification and classification of the prohibited animals of Leviticus, Montreal, 1853.

“Biography of David Aaron de Sola”, the late senior Rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community in London, Philadelphia, 1864.

“Critical examination of Genesis III”. 16; having reference to the employment of anæsthetics in cases of labour,” published in the British American Journal of Medical and Physical Science, Montreal 1849.

Canada’s first Rabbi, Abraham de Sola, supported obstetric anesthesia in defiance of diehard traditionalists. Like Professor James Simpson, de Sola reinterpreted the key passage of Genesis 3:16. In three articles for a Canadian medical journal, Rabbi de Sola explains how God had ordained that woman should bring forth children with “toil” or “labour”, not pain. See here

“The Day of Atonement: a sermon delivered in the synagogue Shearith Yisrael, Montreal,” published in Occident, and American Jewish Advocate Philadelphia, 1848.

“A few points of interest in the study of natural history,” Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, .1868.

“God’s judgments on earth: a sermon delivered in the synagogue ‘Shearith Yisrael’ Montreal, during the Asiatic cholera pandemic.

“Hebrew authors and their opponents,” Jewish Chronicle London, 1849.

“History of the Jews of Poland,” Jewish Messenger, New York, 1870..

“History of the Jews of France, after Bégin and Carmoly,” Jewish Messenger New York, 1871.

“An inquiry into the first settlement of Jews in England”

“Life and writings of Saadia Gaon,” Cincinnati, Ohio, 1881

“The Mosaic cosmogony,” (creation of the universe) Jewish Messenger, March 1870.

“Notes on the Jews of Persia under Mohammed Shah” Occident, and American Jewish Advocate, 1850.

“Observations on the sanatory institutions of the Hebrews as bearing upon modern sanatory regulations,” Canada Medical Journal and Monthly Record of Medical and Surgical Science, Montreal, 1852.

“The revelation at Sinai; its possibility and necessity: a sermon delivered in the synagogue, Shearith Yisrael, Montreal,

“The righteous man: a sermon commemorating the bestowal of public honors on Sir Moses Montefiore, by the city of London; preached in Montreal, on Shabbat Noah 5625 , Montreal, 1865.

“Life of Shabethai Tsevi, the pseudo-Messiah . . . ,” Jewish Messenger, March. 1869.

“Yehuda Alcharizi and the book Tachkemoni,” Jewish Record Philadelphia, 1879.

A FORGOTTEN GIANT

Rabbi de Sola died in New York, in 1882 and was buried in Montreal.

There is a street bearing his name: Rue Abraham-De Sola , in Côte-Saint-Luc, Montreal.

For a more detailed biography of this exceptional Rabbi and for an impressive list of his articles and publications, see this.

Rabbi David Nieto (1654-1720) and the Sephardic community of London

Portrait of Rabbi David ben Pinehas Nieto

FROM VENICE TO LONDON
Rabbi David Nieto was born in Venice, Italy, in 1654. At an early age he moved to Livorno, a very important Jewish community at the time, and devoted himself to Tora study. In Livorno, he acted as a rabbi, Dayan and also as a physician , since like many other rabbis in Italy at that time, he studied medicine at the University of Padua. Rabbi Nieto was also a Renascence man: a distinguished scientist, philosopher, physician, poet, mathematician, and astronomer. In 1702 at the age of 48 he was appointed Hacham of the Sephardic Community of London “Sha’ar HaShamayim”. Let us remember that the Jews were expelled from England in 1290, during the reign of Edward I, and did not return for centuries. In 1655, following the intervention of the famous Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel, Oliver Cromwell readmitted Jews to England and thus began what is to this day called the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic community and its splendid building, Bevis Marks, the oldest synagogue in England (see here). The first members of this Spanish-Portuguese community in London were mainly Jews from Amsterdam, including some highly successful businessmen. All members of the community spoke and wrote in Spanish or Portuguese, since they or their parents were originally from Spain or Portugal. Rabbi Nieto served the London community until his death in 1728. His son, Rabbi Isaac Nieto, was appointed in his place as rabbi of this community.

HIS FIRST BOOKS
Rabbi Nieto wrote his first book on one of his favorite subjects: the calendar. “Pascologia”, was written in Italian and explains the differences between the Gentile calendars—the Greek Orthodox calendar, the Roman calendars—and the Jewish calendar, showing the miscalculations in the gentile calendar since the first Council of Nicaea. (325) until 1692. Two years later, he published his book “De la Divina Providencia” which explains, among other things, that the concept of “nature”, as opposed to “Creation”, is a secular idea. The way Judaism explains the dynamic between God and Creation is by using the verbal construction “hif’il” which in Hebrew defines when: “A” causes “B” to produce “C”. Thus, for example, when the Sages describe that the Creator produces rain, they formulate the idea using this conjugation. For example: mashib haruach morid hageshem, which means: God (A) produces natural phenomena (“B”) —temperature changes, air pressure air, etc.— that produce wind and rain (“C”). What Gentiles call “nature” is, so to speak, God’s modus operandi. But nature cannot be confused with God, as Spinoza, a contemporary of Rabbi Nieto, affirmed. This book was highly praised by the famous Hacham Zevi Ashkenazi and by Rabbi Hayim Yosef David Azulai (the “Jidah”).

THE SECOND CUZARI
Rabbi David Nieto’s most famous book is undoubtedly “Matteh Dan” (this is how the author writes these two words in Hebrew). It was written in a bilingual edition: Hebrew and Spanish, and published in London in 1714. In this book, Rabbi Nieto shows the authenticity of the rabbinical tradition (Tora SheBealpe) demonstrating the intellectual integrity of the rabbis of the Talmud. He explains that the disagreements among the Sages—supposed evidence of a faulty tradition—never focus on the essential laws of the Torah (shorashim or roots) but only on the details (anafim or branches) of the commandments, or the new halakhic cases that had no legal precedent. “Matteh Dan” is also called the Second Cuzari, and is divided into five chapters, which the author calls “dialogues”, because it was written in the style of imaginary conversations between a rabbi and a gentile king, “the Cuzari”, the king of the Khazars. Rabbi Nieto explains that the reason he modeled his book after the famous book by Rabbi Yehuda haLevi (1075-1141) is that “…the Cuzari demonstrates the truth of the Written Torah, and this book, which will be called the second Cuzari will prove the truth of the Oral Torah.”

MATTEH DAN, CHAPTER BY CHAPTER
1. In the first dialogue Rabbi Nieto demonstrates that the Oral Torah existed even before the written Torah, and that an oral tradition is always necessary to understand any written law.

2. In the second dialogue, in my opinion the most original of all chapters, Rabbi Nieto proves —using arguments and principles of history, psychology, logic, and even economics— that the Oral Tora could not have been made up by the rabbis, because it benefits no one, particularly the rabbis who transmitted and sanctioned it. Rabbinic Judaism, he says, was received and passed down from generation to generation with extreme care and devotion.

3. The third chapter talks about the different categories of laws included in the Oral Torah. He also explains what kind of laws there is consensus among the rabbis and what laws do not.

4. The fourth chapter shows that the Sages of the Mishnah and the Gemara (חז”ל) had a very deep knowledge of the sciences, such as medicine, physics, biology, etc.

5. The fifth chapter deals with the Hebrew calendar. Knowledge of the calendar demands a very deep expertise on astronomy, physics, mathematics, etc. Because it is the only calendar that combines the lunar year —354 days— with the solar year —365 days— and for this combination to be calculated accurately, it is necessary to know very precisely the exact duration of the moon’s cycle and the exact duration of earth orbit. Rabbi Nieto mentions that the Christian calendar, which is only based on the orbit of the earth around the sun, had to be modified by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582: that year the calendar jumped from October 4 to 15 in 24 hours, and all this was because gentile scientists did not have the exact information of the solar cycle. The Elders of Israel knew the lunar cicle with an accuracy of 5 decimal places, something that was recently confirmed by NASA (see Video below). This is perhaps the most technical chapter in the book, and one that can be difficult for the beginner, but it is a must-read for those who want to know more about the details of our Hebrew calendar, and understand the role that rabbinic tradition plays in it and in many other cases.

WHAT AUDIENCE IS THIS BOOK ADDRESSED TO?
Rabbi Nieto wrote this book for the bene anusim of his time, that is, for the descendants of those Jews who, due to the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal, lived as Christians for generations, and now returned to Judaism and wanted to know more about it. Many Bene Anusim were university students, professionals, doctors, and knew the Bible very well —because of their Christian background— but they were completely ignorant of the Jewish Oral Tora and its principles. Matteh Dan was also written with religious dissidents in mind, such as the disciples of Spinoza and Uriel de Acosta, who criticized Rabbinic Judaism.
Matteh Dan should be required reading for anyone beginning to study the Mishnah and Gemara, or for anyone wishing to understand the most basic principles of normative Rabbinic Judaism.