Ritual takes our emotions, feelings, and thoughts and gives them tangible shapes. The Passover Seder is a ritual filled with so many rituals. Hiding and then finding the afikoman, the Four Questions, dipping a green in salt water, to mention a few. Most of the rituals were not a part of the original Seder in Egypt but have developed over millennia. One is when we take 10 drops from our wine glass as we recite the Ten Plagues.
The first reference to this ritual is by Rabbi Eleazar of Worms (d. 1236). In its original structure, the 10 drops of wine were part of 16 that were removed from our cup – blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke/dam va’esh v’timrot ashan (Joel 3:3), the Ten Plagues, and the mnemonic about the Ten Plagues of Rabbi Yehudah, D’tzah Adash B’ahav. Rabbi Eleazar of Worms states that this ritual originated with Rabbi Eleazar Hagadol (ca. 990-1060) and other members of Rabbi Hagadol’s family. In my family, we use our pinkie finger to remove the drops of wine, while Rabbi Eleazar of Worms uses his etzba (index finger).
What is the meaning of this ritual? Its initial message, according to Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin, was a way of saying the plagues “should not harm us” and “that we should be saved from these plagues and they should befall our enemies.” Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Kraków, d. 1572) added that this ritual symbolizes God’s revenge on our enemies. Rabbi Golinkin also mentions that the Jews of Yemen and Baghdad have a custom, “while the leader of the Seder is spilling out the wine during the recitation of the Ten Plagues, all the participants mention after every plague the name of those who hate the Jews.” In other words, this ritual is a reminder of the ability of God to save us and punish our enemies.
And yet, as Judaism is an evolving religious civilization, this ritual has developed based on sacred Jewish values. Judaism also teaches that we should “not rejoice at the downfall of your enemy” (Proverbs 24:17). And one midrash reminds us that when the angels started to rejoice at the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, God reprimanded them, saying: “The work of My hands, the Egyptians, are drowning at sea, and you want to say songs?” (Megillah 10b). Out of that sentiment grew an insight that we decrease our cup by those drops of wine to diminish our joy. We do that, in the words of Elie Wiesel, “to signify our compassion for the Egyptians... to manifest our sadness... as our tradition prohibits us from celebrating the defeat of the enemy.”
'Jewish people are filled with mercy'
The earliest account of this explanation is from Rabbi Yirmiyahu Löw (1812-1874/Hungary), who wrote, “Since the Jewish people are filled with mercy, and through our being saved from Egypt, God’s creatures were lost and drowned. Although it is a great joy for us that God took us out of Egypt and redeemed us, it is still painful for us that through this others were destroyed, ‘for punishment to the righteous is not good’ (Proverbs 17:26). If God had saved us without causing loss and death to others, it would have been a greater happiness for us.”
Last year before Passover, I received this insightful and moving perush (interpretation) from an alum of the Arava Institute on why we reduce the sweet wine from our cups:
"Dear friends,
Each year, during the Passover Seder, you dip a finger into your cup of wine and remove 10 drops – one for each plague. Though the wine symbolizes joy, this ritual lessens it. It’s a quiet, radical act of empathy: a recognition that freedom came with suffering. That even oppressors are human.
As a Palestinian, this tradition humbles me. It reminds me that true values are often lived not in what we celebrate, but in what we choose not to.
I was born into a story of loss. For years, I believed in vengeance – not out of hate, but because I thought it was justice.
Then, one evening during one of the many usual power cuts, bored and restless, I asked my father for a book he hadn’t read. He gave me Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I didn’t expect much. But in those pages, I met a man who endured unimaginable pain – and still chose to see meaning, to stay human.
I couldn’t let go of the pain. But I began to reflect on it.
Not to erase it – but to carry it differently.
That’s why the wine ritual moves me so deeply. It’s not just symbolic – it’s spiritual resistance. A reminder that empathy isn’t weakness, it’s discipline. To mourn even the pain of those who harmed you – that’s moral courage. It calls us to break the cycle, not by forgetting but by feeling fully and still refusing to pass the pain on.
Today, this land is heavy with sorrow. Grief echoes on every side. Homes are gone. Futures feel uncertain. I know this is not the peace many of you hoped for. It’s not what your ancestors dreamed of when they fled persecution in search of safety.
So I ask you to reflect with me.
Let us not pass our trauma to our children like a sword.
Let us mirror something else – something brave and tender.
Let us be the people who choose differently.
To my Jewish friends – some of you are mentors, collaborators, brothers and sisters in spirit – I wish you and your families a Passover of safety, meaning, and deep renewal.
And I invite you, this year, not only to remember liberation – but to reflect on how we carry it forward.
In solidarity and reflection, Chag Pesach Samech,
Ghassan"
I read his words at my Seder last year and will do the same this year. I invite you to do the same.
The writer is a Reconstructionist rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center, Vermont. He teaches at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura.