The Maharal on Wine

The Maharal on Wine

By Eliakim Willner

Eliakim Willner is author of “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaTorah: An Appreciation of Torah Study”, a translation with commentary of a work by the Maharal of Prague, published by Artscroll/Mesorah. This article is adapted from his forthcoming continuation of the Nesivos Olam series, “Nesivos Olam – Nesiv HaAvodah: The Philosophy and Practice of Prayer”.

Wine – A Ubiquitous Beverage

Wine makes an appearance in many different contexts in Judaism. Aside from the ad’lo yada role in plays on Purim it figures prominently in Kiddush, Havdalah and Birchas HaMazon and is even used in situations that have nothing directly to do with eating, such as Siddur Kiddushin. For many of these applications wine is either the required or the preferred beverage. Clearly, for us Jews, wine is not just another drink.

What is special about wine? Why is it singled out in Jewish tradition? We will examine this question from the perspective of the Maharal and thereby gain an appreciation of the ruchnius’dike, spiritual aspect of wine and the underlying reason it is so important in so many aspects of our avodas Hashem.

Wine – the Bright Side

The Maharal in Chidushei Aggados on Sanhedrin 70a explains the significance of wine in detail. Wine is a powerful potion, the Maharal writes, because it has strong spiritual as well as physical characteristics. It “gladdens both Hashem and men”. This is evident in the process by which wine is derived. It originates from the hidden interior of the grape and is thus more associated with the hidden (spiritual) world than with the open and exposed physical world. In fact, as the Maharal points out in Drush al HaMitzvos, the Gematria value of wine in Hebrew, yayin, is 70, the same value as the word for “secret”, sod. Indeed the reward reserved for the righteous in the world-to-come is metaphorically compared to “wine secreted in grapes” to highlight its hidden nature.

Because of its spiritual properties wine should by rights be reserved for spiritual things – the Gemara gives as an example, comforting mourners. It is also utilized as an instrument by which to reward the wicked while they are yet in this world for their paltry good deeds, so as to avoid the need for rewarding them in the world-to-come. The reward for good deeds is spiritual, so wine, with its spiritual properties, is ideal for this purpose.

Wine – the Power of Blessing

The Gemara (Brachos 51a, b) enumerates ten requirements for the kos shel bracha, the wine-filled “blessing cup” that is used when reciting birchas HaMazon with a mezuman quorum. (The Shulchan Aruch in Orach Chaim 271:10 and 296:1 states that these same requirements apply to the cup used for Kiddush and Havdalah .)

The Maharal, in Nesivos Olam, Nesiv HaAvodah Chapter 18 says that, since the Gemara takes pains to point out that there are exactly ten things, and does simply enumerate them and leave it to us to count them, there is no doubt that the number ten is not just incidental; it carries significance. In fact, the Maharal says, these ten items correspond to the ten v’yiten l’cha blessings that Yitzchok bestowed on Yaakov (see Beraishis 27:28).

The Maharal is saying that we observe these ten practices in order to invoke the ten blessings of Yitzchok, for prosperity and ascendancy over our enemies, onto ourselves and by extension, onto all of Yisroel. His source is likely a Gemara which appears in Horios 12a and Krisos 5b: “Our Rabbis taught that kings may only be anointed next to a well-spring so that their rulership should endure. [Just as the well-spring flows continually, so should the new king’s rule endure continually.]… Abaye said, now that it has been said that symbolism is significant [and can affect actual events], people should make a regular habit of eating pumpkin, fenugreek, leek, beet and dates [because the Aramaic names of these foods are evocative of various different blessings].” It is indeed common custom to eat these foods on Rosh Hashanah to invoke the power of their blessing.

It is apparent from these Gemaros that evocative actions can and do invoke blessing. The Maharal is saying that the ten blessing cup practices are evocative of the blessings of Yitzchok and therefore they have the power to bring those blessings to those who observe the practices and by extension, onto all of Yisroel.

Wine – the Deleterious Side

But there is a dark side to wine as well. Because wine is spiritual in nature but resides in a physical context it is susceptible to misuse, with generally catastrophic results, up to and including death. This is why the Gemara in Sanhedrin 70b says that wine brings lamentation to the world and the Medrash in Vayikra Rabbah 10:4, teaches that, “Wine leads both men and women to adultery”. Wine has a beneficial effect on people who are generally spiritual – it attenuates wisdom in those who are wise – but it has a negative effect on people who tend toward the physical, as can be seen in the typical effects of drunkenness on such people.

What is the origin of this negative effect? In Drush al HaMitzvos, the Maharal explains that wine is by nature associated with hiddenness but when it is extracted from its hidden state in the grape, bottled and imbibed, it is no longer covert, it is exposed, and in the process it become a powerful “exposure agent” that acts upon those who drink it. That is why the Gemara in Eiruvin 65a says, “When wine enters, secrets emerge”. The Torah (Beraishis 9, beginning at verse 20) relates the unfortunate consequences suffered by Noach when he planted a vineyard after exiting the ark, over-imbibed and allowed his nakedness to be exposed. This too is an instance of the “exposure agent” at work, to disastrous effect.

The Gemara says that the Torah portion relating the effects of Noach’s encounter with wine has thirteen instances of the letter vov (vowelized with the patach sound, the Maharal explains) which in combination sounds like a cry of dismay: vay! The course of human history was changed detrimentally as a result of those events, justifying cries of dismay. The significance of the number thirteen is that complete good is described by the thirteen attributes of Hashem’s mercy listed in Shmos 34:6-7. The thirteen instances of the letter vov show that the effects of the misuse of wine are completely bad – diametrically opposite the complete good described by Hashem’s thirteen attributes.

(Parenthetically, the expression, gam zu l’tova, “this too shall be for the good”, which is commonly said when hearing apparently bad news as a statement of faith in Hashem’s ability to turn what appears at first glance to be bad into a blessing, uses the word zu, instead of the more common zeh, because the numeric value of zu, spelled zayin-vov, is thirteen. This signifies that even something that appears totally bad, with no redeeming value, can be, and with faith, will be, transformed by Hashem into good. See Nesiv HaBitachon Chapter 1 for more on this topic.)

Wine – the Somber Side

In Gevuros Hashem Chapter 60 the Maharal explains that wine symbolizes a heavenly decree. As an example (from Chapter 10 of Gevuros Hashem), when Yosef revealed himself to his brothers and urged them to go to Israel and  return to Egypt with his father Yaakov, Yaakov’s extended family and all their possessions (Beraishis 45), Yosef sent back with them several items for his father that carried a hidden significance. One of them, says Rashi on verse 23 (based on a Gemara in Megillah 16b), was yayin yoshon, aged wine, since “the minds of old people takes delight in aged wine”.

The Maharal explains that this wine was an allusion to the heavenly decree communicated to Avrohom at the bris bain ha’besarim: that his descendants would find refuge in Egypt but would be enslaved there shortly thereafter. In sending the aged wine to his father Yaakov, Yosef was hinting to Yaakov that he should not fear descending to Egypt, because doing so would be a fulfillment of that decree, and, as difficult as it would turn out to be, it was part of the divine plan that would ultimately lead to Yisroel’s redemption. The Gematria value of yayin yoshon is 430, the precise number of years that were decreed for the Egyptian exile, signaling that the exile has a defined end and would be followed by the positive aspects of the communication to Avrohom at the bris bain ha’besarim. Yosef intended that Yaakov, once assured of this, would “take delight” through the message of the “aged wine”.

Wine – the Harbinger of Exile

Wine has a particular affinity to a heavenly decree of exile. In Gur Aryeh, Beraishis 9:21 the Maharal explains the statement of our Sages (Beraishis Rabbah 36:4) that the ten tribes of Yisroel were exiled because of wine. The Maharal writes that wine weaken the intellect, and since it is the intellect that attaches us to the G-dly, weakening the intellect weakens that attachment. Our attachment to Hashem is key to remaining implanted in Israel, where we belong; it is key to warding off exile. When that attachment is weakened, exile is the result. As we noted earlier, when the juice of the grape, which is hidden, becomes exposed in the form of wine, it tends to have an exposing effect.

Noach’s unfortunate episode with the vineyard and with wine resulted in his becoming exposed – ויתגל, vayisgal.  That word shares the same root as גלות, galus, exile. When we are in our native environment we are protected. Outside of it, we are exposed and vulnerable. Wine leaves us exposed to the dangers of exile, just as it left Noach exposed.

It is no wonder that the Maharal (Gur Aryeh, Shmos 45:23) refers to the process of becoming exiled as, “drinking from the wine-cup of exile”; indeed the verse (Yeshayahu 51:17) declares, “Awaken, awaken, arise, Yerushalayim, for you have drunk from the hand of Hashem the cup of His wrath…” – and the Radak on that verse explains that “cup” refers to the wine-cup of exile.

Conclusion

Wine is thus a primarily spiritual substance but it must be handled with care because it can be a two-edged sword, beneficial to some, in the right contexts, but extremely harmful to others, who misuse it.

Rav Boruch Sorotzkin z”tl points out a critical difference between the feast that our forefather Yaakov prepared for his father Yitzchok prior to obtaining the blessings (Beraishis 27) and the feast that his earthly brother Esav prepared. In verse 25 the Torah reports that Yaakov brought wine to accompany the feast and Yitzchok partook of it. But there is no indication that Esav did the same. The reason is simple. To Yaakov, wine is a spiritual “elevator” and enhances the power of blessing, as explained earlier. It was only natural to bring wine to a feast that was a precursor to blessing. But Esav’s wine experience was completely different. To him wine was an exposer of his base and corrupt inner self. It was the last beverage he would think to bring to a feast that would end, he hoped, in his receiving blessing.

As Purim nears, it behooves us to remember that as Jews we are primarily spiritual beings but in our weakened galus state – especially in the context of the decadent world we live in – it is easy to succumb to physicality. We need to be realistically self-aware and not delude ourselves into imagining that, with our wine-drinking, we are climbing the heights of ruchnius while in reality we are over-indulging ourselves into the depths of an animalistic, Esav-like gashmiusdike state.