L'Chaim

I always thought of l'chaim as the classic Jewish toast and assumed that it meant to life, but it turns out it means that and more.  I toasted my family l'chaim last Saturday night over the Havdallah cup, before we went out for New Year's and then again over champagne later on in the evening as 2012 approached.  And tonight we will share a l'chaim as we always do at our 8:00 minyan when we raise our glasses and welcome the Sabbath.

It turns out the Ashkenazi Jews got the custom to say savrei maranan to which the response is l'chaim from the Sephardic Jews of the Middle East.  They in turn got it from the Jews of Spain in the Middle Ages.  In his 14th century Spanish prayer book Rabbi David ben Josef Abudarham sought to explain the province of the custom. He said that it was because Jews waiting to be executed would be given a glass of wine before their capital punishment  and we do not want to become condemned prisoners ourselves, and so we say, "to life."  Alternatively, Rabbi Abudarham hypothesized that in the Garden of Eden the forbidden fruit that Adam ate was a grape, and not an apple. After Adam ate the fruit of the vine, he was punished with mortality.  So we say "to life" before we drink as a counter measure to the Angel of Death.
While I appreciate these rather fanciful explanations, Rabbi Tigay writes in The Forward that the original source of the custom lay in ancient Babylonia, where the Jews spoke Aramaic and they said l'chayei instead of l'chaim. One Jew would raise a glass and in preparation to saying the blessing borai perie h'gofen, he would turn to his friends and say savrei maranan, "Gentleman, what do think? Is everyone ready for the blessing?" And they would answer with the archaic Talmudic expression, l'chayei. "Yes, alright fine." 

So as we prepare for this first Shabbat of 2012, let's lift our Kiddush cups and say savrei maranan... l'chaim. TO LIFE!