Shabbat HaGadol (Shabbat before Passover)

This Shabbat, the Shabbat before Pesach, is called Shabat HaGodol, the “Big Shabbat”.  Four days before the Seder, the 10th of Nisan, the Torah commands that one must choose a lamb for the Passover offering and tie it up in preparation for the Seder.  The commentaries explain that the year the Jewish people left Egypt the 10th day of Nisan was this Shabbat and since a great miracle happened that day, it is called Shabbat Hagodol, the Great Shabbat.   But what was this miracle exactly?  And if the occurrence of a miracle credits the day with having the descriptive “great”, then shouldn't the day of each of the plagues, which were miraculous, be named a “great” day?  Why is the miracle of the Jewish people taking the lamb so much greater than any of the other miracles which took place in the process of the Exodus?

Rebbe Naftali Tzvi Horowitz of Ropshitz (d. 1827) writes (Zera Kodesh 25) that that shabbat when the Jews took the lamb was called Shabbat Hagodol because it revealed holiness for the Jewish people, and put them in touch with the Divine.  But we can ask the same question on this commentary also  -didn’t a lot happen in the process of the 10 plagues and the Exodus which revealed God to the Jewish people - perhaps more so than the moment they took the lamb?

Though the first commandment the Jewish people receive as a nation is that the month of Nisan should be the first month of the calendar, the first act they do as Jews is to take the lamb. The act of taking the lamb, a god of the Egyptians and the zodiac sign for the month of Nisan (Aeries), is a radical act.  The Jewish people are born in rebellion at precisely this moment of taking the lamb on this Shabbat.  It is the moment at which they first take action.   Until now they have been slaves and the acts of redemption have been God’s.   God brought the plagues and the things that happen happen to the Jewish people.   The first time something happens by the Jewish people is now, on Shabbat Hagadol.   Thus, this is the day God was more revealed, more miraculous, than all of the powerful acts by God in the process of the Exodus.  To be a free people enables the Jews to take action, miraculous actions which have the power to reveal the Divine more than those performed by God.  

In some ways this past year we have felt our hands tied.   Things are less in our control, less sure, and less ideal than they were two Pesach’s ago.  But let us draw from this Shabbat and Passover a renewed ability to act, to feel we can change things for the better, and that we, not God, have the power to reveal the holiness in the world and to fix that which is broken.   Chag Sameach!