By Yochanan Gordon

There is a famous tradition that the Shabbos before Pesach is referred to as Shabbos HaGadol, “the Great Shabbos.” There are other Shabbosos throughout the year that various communities referred to as “the Great Shabbos, but it seems that this one is more universal in scope.

There are many reasons explaining the greatness of this Shabbos, and within this space I wanted to suggest my own. The basic story cited in halachah is that the Jews in Egypt were commanded to tie the paschal sheep to their bedposts four days before the yom tov of Pesach, which fell out on Shabbos that year. The sheep was the deity of the Egyptians, and when the Jews tied the Egyptian god to their bedposts on the 10th day of Nissan, there was an uprising that led to many casualties, as the verse states: “To the One Who smote Egypt through their firstborn.”

The first Seder night was observed by the Jews while they were still enslaved in Egypt. It wasn’t until the following day that they went out. So while we sit in observance of Pesach on the Seder night, drinking the four cups of freedom and reciting the Haggadah in aristocratic recline, our ancestors were still enslaved in Egypt that night.

Furthermore, when Avraham invited the angels into his tent, Chazal tell us that it was Pesach and the ugos that Avraham asked Sarah to bake were matzos. Pesach was a reality our forefathers marked long before the Jewish people were enslaved at the hands of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

It begs the question: what is it that we are observing? This requires that we analyze how the reality of servitude and freedom manifests within our lives. The holidays we observe are not mere commemorations of events that took place thousands of years ago. The Arizal famously asserts: “And these days we remember and reenact with the passing of every year that the arrival of the holidays generates a light upon the world which shone upon the Jews at the time that they experienced their liberation.”

So what does it mean to be enslaved and in what form are we celebrating freedom on Seder night?

We begin Shacharis every morning by reciting the beraisa of Rebbi Yishmael which enumerates 13 forms of exegesis employed in learning Torah. The 13th and final system of exegesis is: “And so two verses which contradict each other until the third verse comes along and adjudicates between the two.” I mentioned this previously, around the time of our son’s bar mitzvah, that it is brought down that each of the systems of exegesis correspond to a year in a child’s development from birth until his entrance into adulthood. Therefore, to enter into adulthood means to be able to absorb and withstand conflict and contradiction without letting it shake the foundation of our faith.

Avraham Avinu was tested by ten challenges before G-d was sure that he would be the father of the Jewish people. In conveying the severity of the tenth challenge, Chazal say that had Avraham Avinu not stood up to the challenge, it would have discounted the courage and heroism that he had displayed in enduring the nine preceding nisyonos.

We all understand the difficult aspect of Avraham’s final test as being asked to slaughter the child that G-d had promised would be his progeny. On the one hand, G-d had told him: “For in Yitzchak your progeny will be called forth,” and then he is being asked to slaughter Yitzchak, which would dash his hopes of ever fathering a nation.

Another crisis of faith that Avraham had to endure during the Akeidah was that once he mounted Yitzchak onto the altar and was then told to remove him, he was legally proscribed from removing him from the altar (which is precisely what he was being asked to do). Therefore, it wasn’t the notion of slaughtering Yitzchak that was troublesome to Avraham; rather, it was his need to be able to withstand explicit and open contradiction, which signaled his entrance into greatness.

Avraham was big enough to see the challenges that he was issued from a distance rather than focusing on them from up close. In doing so, he was able to see the big picture rather than reacting to what seemed to be a contradiction.

Erev Shabbos and erev yom tov are known for being stressful days. It’s ironic that in preparation for the holiest days we encounter the greatest distractions. Have you ever wondered why that is? The litmus test in measuring our true freedom is particularly seen in the manner in which we hold ourselves together in periods of smallness and constriction. We specifically observe the Seder on the night that we were enslaved in Egypt in order to prove ourselves free people in an enslaved environment.

One of the mitzvos Hashem gave us to merit our redemption was the blood of circumcision. Pesach is the holiday of the birth of our nation which was extricated from Egypt like a fetus from its mother’s womb.

At the bris of a baby boy, the mohel declares: “Zeh ha’katan gadol yihiyeh…” Which means, “This young child will be great; just as he has entered into the covenant so, too, he shall enter into Torah, chuppah, and ma’asim tovim.” We refer to the child as a katan and term his ultimate entrance into maturity as entering a state of gadlus. In addition to katan and gadol being a reference to age, perhaps we can understand it as states of consciousness.

It is on Shabbos HaGadol, within the eye of the Pesach preparation storm and all the constriction and smallness that surrounds us traditionally at this time of year, when we have to be reminded to look at the big picture and with an expanded consciousness. In the kavanot of the Arizal in davening on the night of Pesach and again during the Seder, we run through periods of constricted consciousness followed by expanded consciousness. In the language of the Arizal, it is level one of smallness followed by level one of expansiveness and then level two of smallness followed by level two of expansiveness.

These periods of smallness and expansiveness can be viewed like gestation and birth wherein we need to return, existentially, in utero in order to emerge once more in expanded form. These stages are represented by the matzah, which is both the bread of faith and the bread of healing. It is the faith that is smallness and the healing that is synonymous with expanded consciousness.

Let us persevere through the periods of smallness with the knowledge that it will lead us to greatness, and achieve liberation individually and communally once and for all.

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.

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