Holidays: "Pull and Take" the Passover Lamb

by Rav Yosef Naveh, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

When the Israelites were preparing for the Exodus, Moshe Rabbeinu told their elders: "Pull and take for yourselves sheep for your families, and slaughter the Pesach sacrifice" (Sh'mot 12,21). The fulfillment of this charge involved no small miracle, in that sheep were the Egyptians' god, yet they were powerless to stop the Jews from using and slaughtering them.

Shabbat HaGadol – the Great Sabbath, the last one before Pesach – was set as the day on which we remember this miracle and Israel's dedication to fulfilling G-d's word. As the Tur explains in Orach Chaim: "The Sabbath before Pesach is called Shabbat HaGadol, because of the great miracle of that day." He explains that we were commanded to take the sheep on the 10^th day of Nissan, which came out that year on the Sabbath, as the Exodus took place five days later, on Thursday.

But this raises the following question: It's true that the miracle happened on a Sabbath, but why shouldn't we commemorate the miracle on the 10^th day of Nissan every year, no matter what day of the week it falls out on?

The Chidushei HaRim writes that the 10^th day of Nissan is like the 10^th day of Tishrei – Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for all our sins. (This explains the custom of reciting the Pesach Haggadah, up to the words "to atone for all our sins," on Shabbat HaGadol.) That is to say, this Sabbath is a time to do teshuvah (repentance), a time to shore up our powers of improving ourselves and our deeds.

To do teshuvah, one must strive and work steadily – and what type of work? That of thinking and meditation. The word gadol (as in Shabbat HaGadol) is of the same letters as dilug, skipping; this Shabbat empowers us to do the skipping type of teshuvah, that is, teshuvah in which we skip the difficult stages between "Pull" and "Take" and go directly from one to the other. When a Jew fulfills "pull," pulling himself away and detaching himself from his bad deeds, he can immediately reach the stage of "take," in which he is taken to become the essence of that which is acquired to the Creator, for His purposes.

Of course, however, there is no guarantee. When one's service of G-d is done in the mode of "skipping," there are liable to be some falls and tumbles, because what he acquired quickly in terms of spirituality can sometimes be lost quickly as well, as it takes time for it to be well-grounded in one's soul. But via the special qualities of the Sabbath, which is kvia v'kayma [permanently fixed, precisely every seven days, week in and week out – as opposed to the Festivals, which are dependent on the rabbinic court's determination based on the sighting of the moon and other factors], these new spiritual qualities are rendered more permanent.

This is why our Sages chose to mark the taking of the lamb on the Sabbath every year, and not on the 10^th of Nissan – which generally falls out on a weekday – for weekdays do not have the power of stability and permanence.

This Shabbat grants us the ability to "pull" all at once, to withdraw our hands from any contact with foreign items, to purify our morals and actions. "Pulling" in its simple meaning is a legal form of acquisition; in our context, it means that we become "acquired" to G-d as His servants by pulling ourselves away from all unacceptable behavior and anything that is the opposite of the holiness of Israel.

Another reason can be given as well to explain why the Sages chose the Sabbath as the commemoration of the great miracle. We ask in our Sabbath prayers that G-d grant us a day of "love and desire." The Divine desires that we can arouse on the Sabbath cannot be activated on weekdays, and without the Sabbath, Israel would not be able to arouse within itself a strong and internal will to truly be G-d's servants. It is therefore specifically the Sabbath, with its boost of upper-level desire, that was chosen as the Shabbat HaGadol.

And on this Sabbath, we begin to draw to ourselves and accept the lights of the holiday of Pesach. The Talmud states (B'rachot 17a): "Our will is to do Your will, but the 'yeast in the dough' – i.e., our evil inclination – and our subjugation to foreign kingdoms prevent us." On the night of Passover, there is no 'yeast in our dough.' On this night, we are totally free to reveal our inner spirituality, our true inner will to perform G-d's desire.

We read in Psalms: "to do Your will, my G-d, I have desired, and Your Torah is within me" (40,9). The author of Lev Simcha explains the last words as alluding to the non-fermented matzah that enters our bodies, thus naturally helping us fulfill the first part of the verse – doing G-d's will. For on the night of Pesach, we burn out the bad, and come to have a true desire to wholeheartedly do G-d's will.