Torah reading: Leviticus Chapters 14 to 15.
Haftarah reading: Malachi 3: 4-24 (with verse 23 repeated at end).
The Shabbat before Passover is known as Shabbat HaGadol, which means the great Shabbat, or the big Shabbat. The Hebrew word gadol is similar to its English equivalents; it can mean great as in important, or big as in size. Oddly, it's not really clear why this Shabbat is called "Shabbat HaGadol." There is no special Torah reading for this "Big Shabbat", but there is a special Haftarah reading - Malachi 3: 4-24. For an explanation of how the Shabbat before Passover got its name, see my 2014 D'var Torah diary for Shabbat HaGadol.
The rabbis chose a special reading for this Shabbat, the final 21 sentences of the 55 sentence Book of Malachi. Little is known of who Malachi was, but he may have been the last of the Hebrew Prophets, preaching to the Jews who had returned to Israel after the Persian conquest, at the invitation of Cyrus the Great in 538 BCE.
In the Haftarah for Shabbat Hagadol, Malachi denounces his fellow Jews - in the Name of God:
But I will step forward to contend against you, and I will act as a relentless accuser against those who have no fear of Me; who practice sorcery, who commit adultery, who swear falsely, who cheat laborers of their wages, and who subvert the cause of the widow, the orphan and the stranger - thus says the Lord of Hosts.
Malachi 3:5. And the prophet concludes (continuing to speak in God's Name):
Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the great [hagadol] and fearful day of the Lord. He shall reconcile parents with their children, and children with their parents, so that, when I come, I do not strike the whole land with utter destruction.
Malachi 3:23-24. But the rabbis decreed we do not end a reading on an unpleasant note, so we repeat the penultimate sentence:
Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the great [hagadol] and fearful day of the Lord.
According to the rabbis, this "great [hagadol] and fearful day" will occur in the Hebrew month of Nissan, which began last Saturday. Nissan is the month in which Passover is celebrated; Passover begins the 15th of Nissan. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua are both quoted (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 10b to 11a) as saying that just as the Jewish people were redeemed from slavery in Egypt to freedom during the month of Nissan, so will we be redeemed in the time to come.
And what can we do to speed up this redemption?
We can start by asking ourselves: What would Malachi say if he were to rise from the dead and visit the United States today? As Malachi makes clear in 3:5 quoted above - he would demand a nation where workers are paid a living wage, a society where the rights of the widow and orphan and the stranger are respected. And I would surmise, based on the only 55 sentences we have that he penned, that he would demand a society in which all people have access to health care, and a society which feeds its hungry, clothes its naked, and houses its homeless.
The Talmud, Ta'anit 20b, states that whenever Rabbi Huna was about to sit down to eat a meal, he would first open his door and call to the outside, "All who are hungry, let them come and eat!"
At our Passover sedars next Friday night, we will repeat the words that Rabbi Huna uttered every day before every meal. This year, why don't we do more than utter these words, why don't we invite a person in need to join us at our sedars? (And our guest need not be Jewish!) I am sure Rabbi Huna, and Malachi, would have approved.
Shabbat Shalom.