Understanding the name ‘Shabbat Hagadol’

Like many other meforshim (Torah commentators), the second Bobover Rebbe, HaRav Ben-Zion Halberstam zatzal, analyzed the term Shabbat Hagadol. He began his quest for understanding with Tosafot’s famous statement that appears in Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 87b s.v. v’oto:

“The reason why we call the Shabbat before Passover, Shabbat Hagadol, is because of the great miracle (nes gadol) that took place on that day in accordance with the words of the Midrash: When the Jewish people took their paschal lambs on that very Shabbat, all of the first born sons of the nations of the world gathered together before the Jewish people and asked them: ‘Why are you doing this?’ The Jewish people responded: ‘This is a Passover offering to Hashem Who will go forth and kill the first born of the Egyptians.’ They [the first born of the Egyptians] went before their fathers and Pharaoh to ask them to send forth the Jewish people and they refused. As a result, the first born of the Egyptians started a war and killed many of them. Thus the text states: ‘To Him Who smote the Egyptians with [at the hands of] their firstborn’.” (Tehillim 136:10, this and all Bible and Rashi translations from The Judaica Press Complete Tanach, brackets my own)

At this juncture, Rav Halberstam presented a classic question that was asked by many commentators on Tosafot’s above-stated explanation: “If this is the case [that we are commemorating a great miracle], this Shabbat should have been called Shabbat HaNes (Shabbat of the Miracle) and, therefore, what is the relevance of the name Shabbat Hagadol? (the Great Shabbat). (Kedushat Tzion, Pesach, Shabbat Hagadol, new edition, page 57)

Rav Halberstam answered this question by pointing his readers to the Mechilta d’Rabbi Yishmael, the halachic Midrash on Sefer Shemot: “And I will be glorified through Pharaoh…” (Sefer Shemot 14:4)

“The text is telling us that when the Omnipresent One punishes the [evil] nations of the world, His name becomes greater (shemo mitgadel) throughout the world.