WINE AT PASSOVER AND EASTER
יד מַצְמִיחַ חָצִיר, לַבְּהֵמָה, וְעֵשֶׂב, לַעֲבֹדַת הָאָדָם;
לְהוֹצִיא לֶחֶם, מִן-הָאָרֶץ.
טו וְיַיִן, יְשַׂמַּח לְבַב-אֱנוֹשׁ-- לְהַצְהִיל פָּנִים מִשָּׁמֶן;
God causes grass to grow for the cattle,
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth,
and wine to gladden the heart of man. — Psalm 104
Photo by James Coleman on unsplash.com
Who’s “he”? God? Man?
Many theologies would place God in the running, the He who does all. But the psalm seems also to suggest that God is not so selfish that he does not allow the human a small part in his creation, in this case in the making of food from plants or of wine from grapes. We of course do not create things like a god does, out of nothing. We create things after we first are given something to re-create.
I find it inspiring, especially at each time of year that celebrates both Passover and Easter, that when they bring forth bread and wine, Jews and Christians then offer these things back to God in their focal religious rituals.
Christian theologians call this sort of ritual a sacrament, that through which the divine breaks into the finite and, in turn, the human responds to the divine via the finite. When Jews and Christians take grapes and wheat and recreate them as their share in divinity, they touch the transcendent in the everyday; they make tangible what is intangible.
So much for the simple definition of wine as merely “fermented grape juice.”
In a manner approaching the religious, I would submit, when we gather at table to partake of wine and food, we likewise reach for the transcendent in the everyday. There are many such gatherings during Passover and Eastertide for both those who practice the Jewish and Christian traditions, as well as for those who but believe in the Easter Bunny.
Why does God give us the fruit of the vine so that we may make wine to gladden our hearts? The answer is very simple.
Wine makes us giddy.
It is not only a symbol of joy or a sign of gladness—it is joy, it is gladness. But, I think, God makes us giddy with wine for a much more important reason.
Wine is a prelude, a presage, a foretaste of the end of days and what Christians call “the eschatological banquet”—where mere human giddiness will be supplanted with an eternal gladness and a never-ending joy.
On Easter Sunday for the Christians of the West and for Jews during their Passover seder meals, cups of wine mark each occasion.
During Passover, the Haggadah (the Seder story) says that in diverse ways, with different words and actions, God promises freedom for every person and all peoples. At each Seder, a Jew raises and drinks four glasses of wine when recalling these promises.
At Christian Masses and other services on Easter Sunday, priests and ministers raise a cup of wine to remember the presence in history, the sacrifice and death—and the resurrection—of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians will drink from these same cups as a sign of their faith in this, their foundational story.
In sum, the story of wine is an ancient one in both Hebrew and Christian cultures.
To the people of early Palestine, wine—and much else made by humans, such as bread or art or children—was something fashioned, not by them alone, but by the help of and in partnership with God.
The religions of the West tell us that we gather with the greatest meaning over the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine. When we take grapes and wheat and re-create them as our share in divinity, we touch the transcendent in the everyday, we make tangible what is intangible.