In Exodus, God instructs Moses: “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am Adonai, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am Adonai.’ ” (Exodus 6:6-8)

"We each drink four cups of wine at the Passover seder. Each cup of wine represents one of the four promises God made to our ancestors: [1] I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. [2] I will rescue you. [3] I will redeem you. [4] I will take you to be My people."  – Rabbi Rheins and Rabbi Rheins,  Celebrating Freedom: The New Haggadah.

However, there is a fifth promiise: the land of Israel itself. Because this last promise is not delivered in the same sentence as the first four, ancient rabbis disagreed over whether it, too, should be represented by a cup of wine in the Seder.

“The Talmud uses the Aramaic word teku to indicate that the rabbis could not reach a decision on a matter under discussion. And so the decision as to the number of cups was left teku, but the Passover haggadah prescribes four cups for us to drink - possibly as a parallel to the four questions and the four [children]. But just in case there really should be five, the writers of the haggadah called for an additional symbolic cup." – Rabbi Simeon J. Maslin

This fifth cup is left untouched until the home is visited by the prophet Elijah, who according to the Talmud will come disguised as a stranger to announce the arrival of the Messiah and the start of a new era of peace.

“Nobody is certain of the derivation of teku (which, by the way, is also used in Israel today when a soccer match ends in a tie). It may derive from tekum, meaning "it will stand," i.e., "it will remain a question." A folk etymology, though, has it that teku is an acronym for "Tishbi yetaretz kushiot v-abayot - the Tishbite [i.e., Elijah] will answer all unresolved questions." According to this folk belief, the first thing Elijah will do after he returns to the Jewish people to proclaim the advent of the messianic age is to resolve all those questions of Jewish law that confounded the rabbis.” – Rabbi Simeon J. Maslin

If Elijah has to talk to all the frustrated rabbis of the world as soon as he returns, he certainly deserves a cup of wine first!


haggadah Section: Kadesh