Taking the First Step: Shabbat HaGadol 5786

This piece was first published in Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 26 March. You can also read it in Hebrew here, thanks to ChatGPT.

The Shulchan Aruch tells us that the Shabbat before Pesach is called “the great Shabbat” (Shabbat HaGadol) because of the miracle that occurred on it, yet surprisingly offers no further elaboration. An entire siman is devoted simply to the fact that this Shabbat has a name, without any clear practical consequence. It leaves us wondering: what exactly is so significant about this “greatness,” and why does it matter?

The familiar explanation, recorded by the Tur, relates to what occurred just days before the Exodus. On the tenth of Nissan—Shabbat in that year—Bnei Yisrael were commanded to take a lamb and set it aside for the Korban Pesach, tying it to their bedposts in full view of the Egyptians, who worshipped the sheep as a deity. When challenged, they did not hide their intentions; they stated openly that they were preparing it for slaughter. The miracle was that the Egyptians saw and heard, yet did nothing.

The Bach, however, offers a striking shift in perspective. The real drama of that Shabbat, he suggests, was not the reaction of the Egyptians, but the transformation of Bnei Yisrael themselves. After generations in Egypt, they had not emerged untouched; Chazal describe a spiritual state in which they were not so easily distinguishable from their surroundings. Redemption could not begin until something changed from within.

Seen in that light, the act of taking the lamb was not merely a provocation of Egyptian idolatry, but a rejection of their own. It was a quiet but decisive break with the past—an indication that they were ready, at least in some initial sense, to move in a different direction. The miracle of Shabbat HaGadol was therefore not only that the Egyptians remained passive, but that a nation of slaves found the courage to take its first step toward freedom.

This reframes the entire process of ge’ulah. It is not only something that happens to a people, but something that begins with us. Before the dramatic miracles of the Exodus and the splitting of the sea, there was a moment no less significant: a willingness to step forward, to begin even before everything was fully in place.

That idea feels particularly resonant in our current moment. Jewish history rarely unfolds under ideal conditions, and the instinct can be to wait—for clarity, for stability, for a sense that the path ahead is fully secure. Yet Shabbat HaGadol reminds us that this is rarely how change actually begins. More often, it starts with a step taken within an incomplete reality, even while the wider picture is still unfolding.

As we approach the Seder, with all its focus on freedom and redemption, Shabbat HaGadol quietly sets the tone. It reminds us that freedom is not only something we commemorate, but something we prepare for. It begins with an inner shift—with a willingness to let go of what holds us back and to take a step, however small, toward something greater.

Shabbat Shalom!