passover
Will Elijah Be at Your Seder?
Daniel Matt
M Ezume Images / AdobeStock
ost Jews are not familiar with the biblical Elijah
nor with his Talmudic portrayal. They know of him
because of childhood memories of the seder —
when the Cup of Elijah adorned the table, or when the door
was opened in the expectation that he would appear.

Neither custom has a precise beginning or a clear expla-
nation. Rather, they evolved over centuries; only later, did
rabbis attempt to explain them.

Both customs are associated with the belief that Elijah will
herald the Messiah, and that Israel’s fi nal redemption will
take place on the anniversary of the original redemption
from Egyptian slavery on the fi rst night of Passover. That
anniversary is instituted in the Torah: It is a night of watch for
YHVH, for bringing them out of the land of Egypt; this night
is YHVH’s, a watch for all the Israelites through their gener-
ations (Exodus 12:42). Commenting on this verse, a midrash
predicts: “On that night they were redeemed, and on that
night they are destined to be redeemed.”
The verse in Exodus mentions shimmurim, “watch (or
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passover
vigil)” twice, both times in the plural. Various rabbis wondered
about all this watching. One of them, Rabbi Eli’ezer, suggested that
it implied “a night under constant protection.”
Based on this guarantee of protection, it became customary to
leave the door of one’s home open or unlocked during the first
night of Passover. In some places, opening the door was associ-
ated with the declaration near the beginning of the Haggadah:
“Let all who are hungry come and eat; let all who are needy come
and celebrate Passover.”
But the 11th-century North African scholar Nissim Gaon associ-
ates the open door with Elijah: “I saw that … my father would not
close the doors of our house. … And until now this is our custom,
and [on the night of Passover] the doors of the house are open.

When Elijah comes, we will go out to greet him quickly without
any delay.”
If Elijah is expected to appear on the first night of Passover to
announce the Messiah, won’t he need a cup of wine? So reasoned
Zelikman Binga, a 15th-century Ashkenazic rabbi, the earliest
known author to mention the Cup of Elijah.

I have seen some people on the night of Passover who pour a
special cup and place it on the table, saying that this is the cup
for Elijah the prophet — and I don’t know the reason. But it seems
that the reason derives from this: If Elijah the prophet comes on
the night of Passover, as we hope and expect, he, too, will need a
cup, for even a poor person among Israel must drink no less than
four cups. And if the cup is not ready, we would have to prepare it
for him, which might delay the seder.

Some linked Elijah’s cup with the declaration near the beginning
of the seder (mentioned above): “Let all who are hungry come and
eat; let all who are needy come and celebrate Passover.” As one
author noted, “Since one calls for ‘all who are needy’ to ‘come and
eat,’ he should prepare a cup for a guest who may come; and they
call that cup ‘the Cup of Elijah the prophet,’ because we hope for
this guest.”
A more utilitarian explanation was offered in the 17th century by
the Sephardic authority Hayyim Benveniste, who reports:
This is the custom I saw among a few Ashkenazim: to leave on
the table one empty cup … in which to pour all the wine left over
in the cups of all those reclining there [after they have drunk the
required minimum]. This cup is called the Cup of Elijah the prophet
(gratefully remembered).

Among the various attempts to explain the Cup of Elijah, one
relates to how many cups of wine a person is required to drink at
the seder. The standard practice is to quaff four cups. But accord-
ing to early manuscripts of the Talmud, Rabbi Tarfon mentions
a “fifth cup.” Elsewhere in the Talmud, we are told that one day
Elijah will come and resolve all halakhic disputes. Presumably, he
will then determine the status of this additional cup, so the cup is
appropriately named for him!
His explanation was attributed to another famous Elijah — Elijah
ben Solomon, the Gaon of Vilna: We have the custom of pouring
a fifth cup and calling it the Cup of Elijah the prophet. The reason
is that there is a dispute in the Gemara over whether one needs
a fifth cup, and the halakhah is not determined. When Elijah
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