Shabbat Hagadol

There is a Talmudic principle that a truly righteous person must see to it that he is not the cause of a wicked person’s being punished…Furthermore, in the cases where the Tzaddik had in fact been the cause of a wicked person being punished, the Tzaddik is deprived of the Divine presence…Neither do the rabbis differentiate in this regard between wicked Jews and wicked non-Jews; in neither case should the righteous be the cause for punishment. How then could the Jews, who clearly were the cause of the Egyptians’ being smitten, have enjoyed basking in the Divine Radiance?

Abraham Isaac Kook (20^th Century)

One of the recurrent motifs of the biblical narrative in the Book of Exodus is God’s desire to gain human recognition through amazing acts of power…The Lord negotiates through power, the power to humble the mighty Pharaoh of Egypt and to destroy his army at the Red Sea…For Jews throughout history, the exodus from Egypt expressed and reinforced their belief that God would eventually act to liberate Israel from their suffering…(However), if Divine power defines the covenant, then does the destruction of the Temple and Israel’s suffering indicate that God has broken the covenant, and replaced the covenantal people with another?...The Rabbis in the Talmud recognized the need for an alternative to a power based theology…They set radical theological and religious turns in motion by interpreting God’s power as God’s loving patience…The rabbis also gave new meaning to the notions of reward and punishment. The reward of the positive commandments is the desire to do more commandments. The punishment for violating commandments is the deterioration of the human being to commit further violations.

David Hartman (Contemporary)

We begin to see the function of many of the commandments, even most of the commandments, which is to fulfill human needs. If that is so, then we can see the meaning of many of the commandments being God’s response to human needs. If these needs are sufficiently understood, then, can they not be seen as our rights, which is expressed in our desire for God to direct us in paths that lead us to our own true ends?...Could we not say that revelation, at least in part, consists of Moses presenting before God what he thought were the legitimate needs of the people to be claimed from God? And God’s answer would seem to be either yes, no, or otherwise…Moses presents the case (for the second Passover)…In other words, God validated their right, through Moses, to the celebration of Passover as the defining national event…

David Novak (Contemporary)

Once God saw that the universe could not function successfully on this basis of the attribute of justice, He chose Jacob and his descendents, i.e. Tzadikim. Because of the latter’s good deeds, God was prepared to flood the world with mercy, personal intervention. He set aside the beginning of the month of Nisan for commencement of this method of guiding history towards his objectives. (This is the meaning of the verse) The great (Hagadol) day of the Lord.

Akedat Yitzchak (15^th Century)