Q&A From the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

Deserted Wine

Dayan Yehoshua Grunwald

October 14, 2021

 

Q We are making a shalosh seudos sheva brachos that will go until the time for Ma’ariv. Who, if anyone, should drink the kosos of sheva brachos?

A One may not eat or drink anything but water at the end of Shabbos before havdalah. When a Shabbos sheva brachos concludes well past sunset, this prohibition conflicts with the imperative, or at least the inyan, to drink the kosos of sheva brachos. What to do?

 

Numerous suggestions are given by the poskim. R’ Moshe (Igros Moshe O.C. 4:69) writes that because bentching at a sheva brachos requires a kos, at least melo lugmav must be drunk by someone. And there is a well-established minhag of several hundred years’ duration that the chassan and kallah drink from the kos eirusin venisu’in, which R’ Moshe says was actually the minhag for all seven days of sheva brachos. Because it isn’t necessary that the entire shiur be drunk by a single person, the chassan and kallah should each drink half a melo lugmav. Many follow R’ Moshe’s psak.

 

Preferably, the mezamein shouldn’t drink any of the wine of bentching, but if he wishes, he may have a drop. A better solution would be for the chassan to be the mezamein, so as not to require an additional person to drink. (The remaining brachos, however, should be made by others.) Drinking the other kos is less obligatory, so in this scenario it should not be done.