ספר ויקרא

Leviticus 23,15. “you shall count for yourselves from ‎the day following the festival, (Passover) etc.;” we need to ‎understand first of all why the festival of Passover is referred to as ‎‎Hashabbat in our verse. This has been explained by our ‎sages, (Tanna de bey Eliyahu 14) where the author interprets ‎the word ‎בראשית‎ as meaning ‎בשביל ישראל‎, “for the sake of Israel.” ‎Granted that this is true, it did however, not come to the ‎attention of the world until G’d redeemed Israel from Egypt when ‎His love for His people manifested itself. As a result, Passover ‎became similar to the Sabbath. The Sabbath is unique as on the ‎Sabbath G’d abstained from His creative activity, whereas, ‎according to the Zohar, on Passover He abstained from ‎entertaining thoughts. When G’d “rested” on the original Sabbath ‎His work during the preceding six days was revealed for the first ‎time. Similarly, His love for the Jewish people was revealed for the ‎first time on the occasion of the redemption from Egypt, i.e. the ‎day of the Exodus. On the first day of Passover it finally became ‎clear why G’d had bothered to create the universe altogether. In ‎other words, Passover may be looked upon as the logical ‎conclusion of what had been set in motion the moment G’d had ‎first thought of the people of Israel as a project for the future. ‎This is also the meaning of a statement of the sages in Shabbat ‎‎118 that if the Israelites were to observe two Sabbath days, i.e. ‎the terrestrial Sabbath as well as the celestial Sabbath, they would ‎be redeemed immediately. The scholar to whom this statement is ‎attributed quoted Isaiah 56,4 in support, where G’d promises ‎redemption to the eunuchs who keep His Sabbaths, following up ‎in verse 7 with: “and I will bring them to the Mountain of My ‎holiness etc,. etc.” The “two” Sabbaths of which the Talmud ‎speaks are not to be understood quantitatively, i.e. 2 separate ‎Sabbath days, but refer to the ‎שבת תחתון‎ and the ‎שבט עליון‎, ‎observance of the Sabbath with our body, i.e. ‎תחתון‎, and at the ‎same time observing it with our hearts and minds, i.e. ‎שבת עליון‎, ‎the Sabbath in our upper regions, our heads. The more the ‎Israelites engage in serving the Lord, the clearer it will become ‎that G’d only created the universe on account of the Israelites. ‎There is an allusion to this in the letters of the words ‎מן פסח‎ ‎when we reverse the order of the aleph bet, i.e. that the ‎letter ‎א=ת, ב-ש, ג=ר‎ etc. [Magen Avraham on the laws ‎of the New Moon chapter 428, subsection 3 deals with this in ‎greater detail, i.e. that certain festivals must occur on the ‎weekdays corresponding to other festivals preceding them during ‎the same year. Ed.] ...