Congregation Jewish Community North - Spring, Texas - The Great Sabbath (Sermon 3/26/10)

The Sabbath that comes immediately before Passover is known in the tradition as Shabbat HaGadol, "The Great Shabbat." No one knows why it is called "Great," but through the ages many commentators have ventured guesses.

In Midrash Rabbah, we read a story about how the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt. It says that, on this Shabbat, each family among the Children of Israel set aside a lamb for the Passover sacrifice. Now, the firstborn among the Egyptians saw what the Israelites were doing and they questioned them, "Why do you dedicate a single lamb on this day?" The Israelites answered honestly, saying, "This is a Passover offering to God who is preparing to kill all the firstborn among the Egyptians." Naturally, this came as quite a shock to the firstborn Egyptians and they went to their fathers and they gathered together to approach the Pharaoh. They demanded that the Israelites immediately be freed. But the Pharaoh refused their request and their fathers shrugged their shoulders and said, "If the Pharaoh does not permit the slaves to go free, who are we to question the Pharaoh?" The Midrash says that the firstborn then waged a war against Pharaoh and against their fathers and many Egyptians were slain in this uprising. The Midrash says that this rebellion is recalled in a verse from the Psalms where it is written: "[God is the One who] struck Egypt through its firstborn; for God's kindness is eternal" (Psalms 136:10).

Later, in a legal commentary called the Arba'ah Turim, "The Four Pillars," Yaakov ben Asher of Cologne ventured a different guess. He thought that the lamb was an Egyptian deity and that many Israelites, having lived for 210 years among the Egyptians, had fallen so low as to adopt the lamb animal as their personal god. When the One God commanded that a lamb be set aside and tied for four days in anticipation of sacrifice, the Israelites abandoned their idolatrous ways and courageously fulfilled this mitzvah in the eyes of the Egyptian people. In this way, the Children of Israel demonstrated their complete trust and faith in the One God. Few things would have been more contemptible in the eyes of the Egyptians than to see a god they worshipped being prepared for slaughter. It was only by a miracle that the Egyptians found themselves unable to utter a word or lift a hand to prevent what the Israelites were bound to do. They watched helplessly as their god was debased. Since this was a great miracle, a nes gadol, we call this Sabbath Shabbat HaGadol, the Sabbath of the great miracle. This is a nice explanation, but, unfortunately, we have no real evidence that lambs were ever worshipped as gods by the Egyptians.

Another commentator tries to explain the reason for the name of this Sabbath by saying that on this day the Israelites were commanded to fulfill their first mitzvah -- to set aside a lamb as a sacrifice. What made this a significant achievement was that the Israelites actually did what they were told to do. This is such a rare occurrence in Jewish history that it is remembered as a time that is Gadol, a "great" time. Actually, by fulfilling their first mitzvah in this way, the Israelites became like a child maturing into adulthood -- they celebrated a collective Bar Mitzvah. You might say that the name Shabbat HaGadol could be translated to mean that this was the Sabbath on which the Children of Israel became gadol, became mature adults.

A nineteenth-century commentary, the Chatam Sofer ventures a different guess: On this day, the commentary says, the Israelites fully "returned," they did Teshuvah, by executing the commandment, by showing their commitment and faith in God as they set aside a lamb for sacrifice. Since our tradition calls God Gadol or "Great," the Israelites who embraced and subjugated themselves to God earned for themselves the title Gadol.

Another commentary tells us that for many years it was the custom for rabbis to make a lengthy speech on the occasion of Shabbat HaGadol, a sort of State of the Union address in preparation for Passover. The lengthy speech always made this Sabbath feel long and drawn out, and so gadol or "great."

One more reasonable reason was provided in the fourteenth century by Rabbi David ben Joseph Abudarham of Seville, Spain. He noticed that in the special haftarah for this Sabbath, taken from the book of Malachi, it is written: Henei, Anochi shole'ach la-chem et Eliyahu Hanavi lifnei bo Yom HaGadol v'HaNorah. "Behold, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the great, fearful day of Adonai" (3:23). Rabbi Abudarham guesses that it is this connection with the Great Day of Adonai that caused us to call this Sabbath, Shabbat HaGadol, just as we find other special Sabbaths like Shabbat Nachamu and Shabbat Shuvah named after verses from their special haftarah portions.

None of these reasons is entirely convincing, and I kind of wonder why no one noticed that the name "the Great Sabbath" may have something to do with this Sabbath's ominous nature. As this Sabbath marks the beginning of the week in which the Passover Seder takes place, almost every Jew can look forward to dusting off Haggadahs, deciding how much to read and recite, sprucing up the house to receive company, setting the table, baking and cooking the food, and making ready the seder plate. All this is a great encumbrance to our everyday lives and all of it has to be done even while life goes on as usual -- even as bills continue to come in and people continue to have to work and children need to be ferried from place to place and from lesson to lesson. Getting ready for Passover is a great commitment and it is a lot like changing the tires on a car while the car is driving down a highway at sixty miles an hour. No wonder we call this the Great Sabbath, it is not only a reminder of the great amount of work that must be done in the next few days, but it is our last great breath of rest before all that Passover work becomes absolutely necessary.

Nevertheless, we look forward to a holy festival of great reunions and great happiness and great eating and great leftovers. And we wish you and yours a happy and healthy and a great Passover feast. And let us say a "great" Amen.