“Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth day of this month that every man shall take a lamb, in accordance with the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house.” (Vayikra 12:3)

The source of Shabbos Hagadol is the time when the Bnei Yisroel officially started preparing for the Korbon Pesach. But what deeper message is being conveyed by the Torah specifying the date itself? This year, in particular, stands out, as Shabbos Hagadol falls out exactly as it did in the year they left Egypt – the tenth of Nissan fell on Shabbos, and they left Egypt on a Thursday. The Zohar tells us that the tenth day of Nissan corresponds to the tenth day of Tishrei, indicating an intrinsic connection between Shabbos Hagadol and Yom Kippur. The number ten has a certain power to it as represented by the 10 different levels in kabbalah (From Kesser through Malchus), which all come together at the tenth. All those levels coming together make Yom Kippur a special day for repentance.

The Seforim hakadoshim also tell us that each day of the week has within it certain powers, and on Shabbos, all those powers converge. For example, all week we are commanded not to indulge in physical pleasures, yet on Shabbos we have a neshama yeseira which empowers us to be able to absorb and relate to physical pleasure (see Rashi Beitza 16 “Neshama yiseira”) in the proper way. When Shabbos and the tenth day come together, the result is an unparalleled shleimus, which enhances our capacity to serve Hashem.

In previous years, I have discussed why it is that Shabbos Hagadol is not pinned to a specific date, but rather to the Shabbos before Pesach. Now we can understand why both the day of the week and the date in the month are important. As a result, when the date of the month aligns with the day of the week as it was during the original Exodus, it recreates those same conditions, enabling an incredible amount of blessing from Hashem.

This year, with Shabbos Hagadol falling exactly as it did that first year, we have the ability to bring about the ultimate redemption. What brought the redemption then — and what can bring it now — is our great mesiras nefesh. Then, the Bnei Yisrael were not concerned with the Egyptian reaction to their openly tying the Egyptian god, the lamb, to their beds. So too today, if we remove whatever interferes with our service of Hashem, we too can bring about the ultimate redemption.