Tonight, it is Jewish tradition to drink 4 cups of wine. The question is (and you will see, Jews love questioning things) why 4 cups? Why not 5, 6 or 20? There are a lot of different reasons around why we drink 4 cups of wine at the Passover Seder, one prominent reason is that when promising to deliver the Jews from 210 years of Egyptian slavery, God used four terms to describe the redemption:

"I shall take you out..."
"I shall rescue you..."
"I shall redeem you..."
"I shall bring you..."

Why is the order of these 4 steps to redemption so important?

We could not be brought to receive the Torah until we had been Redeemed, because to be redeemed is is spiritual salvation from spiritual bondage. We could not be redeemed - spiritually free to serve our god - until we were rescued out of Egypt. And we could not be rescued from Egypt until we were taken out of the evil system that was slavery. So as we drink the 4 cups of wine tonight, we celebrate freedom. For this reason, we drink leaning left and have our neighbors pour our drinks for us, just as a king would, because similar to kings, we are free.


haggadah Section: Kadesh