לזכות משתתפי השיעור השבועי במושב שדה משה

מוקדש ע”י הרה”ח יעקב יוסף ודבורה לאה וב”ב חיה אסתרמנחם מענדל, שולם דובערמשה זאבשניאור זלמן ולוי אפרים שיחיו קורץ

להצלחה בעבודת שליחות מתוך הרחבה בגשמיות וברוחניות

Emor – Pesach Sheni: A Bug in the Divine System?

April 28, 2023

Sometimes it seems like there's a bug in G-d's system. He commands us to do something, but makes it impossible to fulfill... Did anyone ever ask G-d this question?

A. Background of Pesach Sheni

This week’s Torah reading repeats the mitzvah of Pesach a second time (Source 1). In the second year after the Jewish people left Egypt, a group approached Moses with a grievance: “We are ritually impure; why must we lose out on the Passover offering?” (Source 2)

Who were these ritually impure people for whom G-d made “Pesach Sheni,” a second Passover, and in what merit? The Talmud presents three opinions: (a) They were Joseph’s pallbearers, (b) Mishael and Eltzafan, who brought their cousins out of the Tabernacle after they died bringing a “foreign fire” to G-d, or (c) people who had become defiled by contact with a regular corpse.

B. An Extraordinary Complaint

The Rebbe explains that their complaint was that G-d created an impossibility: He commanded that on the 14th of Nissan every Jew must personally bring a Passover offering — an action that requires one to be in a ritually pure state. At the same time, G-d designed His world such that at any given time there will certainly be at least several people in an impure state. 

G-d acknowledged the validity of their complaint and gave them a Second Passover.

C. The Lesson

This “bug” in the system seems to still be an issue today. G-d demands that we be a holy nation, keep Shabbat, eat kosher, and observe all the mitzvot, but at the same time, He places us in a materialistic world where this seems impossible.

G-d’s response gives us the answer: Even if it seems like living in this world and keeping Torah and mitzvot is very difficult, if a Jew really wants to, and complains to G-d “why must we lose out,” G-d give him the ability to observe all of the mitzvot.

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Book of Vayikra , Emor , Holidays , Pesach Sheni

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