בַּחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִ֜י בְּאַרְבָּעָ֨ה עָשָׂ֥ר י֛וֹם בֵּ֥ין הָעַרְבַּ֖יִם יַעֲשׂ֣וּ אֹת֑וֹ עַל־מַצּ֥וֹת וּמְרֹרִ֖ים יֹאכְלֻֽהוּ׃ לֹֽא־יַשְׁאִ֤ירוּ מִמֶּ֙נּוּ֙ עַד־בֹּ֔קֶר וְעֶ֖צֶם לֹ֣א יִשְׁבְּרוּ־ב֑וֹ כְּכׇל־חֻקַּ֥ת הַפֶּ֖סַח יַעֲשׂ֥וּ אֹתֽוֹ׃
They shall offer [Pesakh Sheni] in the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and they shall not leave any of it over until morning. They shall not break a bone of it. They shall offer it in strict accord with the law of the passover sacrifice. Number 9.11-12
This week in parashat Emor we read of the special rules regarding the priests; among them, the prohibition against coming near any dead body except for close family. It was recognized in rabbinic Judaism that a dead body does not transmit ritual impurity, yet those who acted as connector between the Israelite people and HaShem were nevertheless required to distance themselves – from what?
Death is linked in the human psyche with the end: the end of life, of relationships, and of hope. In Ezekiel’s famous vision of the valley of dry bones, this metaphor for hopelessness is a stark depiction of the state of our ancestors after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE:
בֶּן־אָדָ֕ם הָעֲצָמ֣וֹת הָאֵ֔לֶּה כׇּל־בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל הֵ֑מָּה הִנֵּ֣ה אֹמְרִ֗ים יָבְשׁ֧וּ עַצְמוֹתֵ֛ינוּ וְאָבְדָ֥ה תִקְוָתֵ֖נוּ נִגְזַ֥רְנוּ לָֽנוּ׃
“O mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone; we are doomed.’ (Ezekiel 37.11(
It’s fascinating to see that this parashah intersects with the date of Pesakh Sheni, the “second Pesakh” legislated to accomodate anyone who, despite their best efforts, was unable to properly celebrate the Pesakh Seder on the prescribed date. In Numbers 9 Moshe is asked by just such a group what they might do in order to fulfill the mitzvah, and Moshe does what he always does when asked a very good halakhic question: he goes to One who knows more than he. HaShem then ordains Pesakh sheni, a “second Pesakh” to be observed by those who need a make-up date, exactly one month after the Pesakh Seder, on the 14th of the second month.
Perhaps our parashah is not warning us, through our religious representatives, to stay away from the presence of (only) physical death, but, more significantly, to stay far from the spiritual death that takes place when we lose hope. On this May Day, as we each struggle with the debilitating fear of so much social destruction, we are sent this message from the Universe: with hope, through hope, because of hope, we take another step today.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks ז״ל wrote a Haggadah. Even if you do not need to observe Pesakh Sheni, I invite you to join me in contemplating this part of his retelling of what it takes to go from oppression to freedom. May it inspire us all to distance ourselves from the death of hope, and to make room for the second chances – and third, and fourth – that we all need.
I am awestruck at the courage of successive generations of Jews, survivors of the Crusades, blood libels, inquisitions, expulsions, ghettos, and pogroms, who wrestled with God in prayer and lamentation, who did not accept their fate passively or silently, giving way either to blind submission (“such is the will of God”) or to a bleak, Greek view of fate, but who continued – in the fine phrase of Nadezhda Mandelstam – to “hope against hope.” Jews are not blind to the existence of evil. We feel it, taste it, each year afresh, in the bread of oppression and the bitter herbs of slavery. But we refuse with every fiber of our being to be resigned to it. To understand the Jewish people, one must listen to the way it tells its story. A people whose narrative “begins with shame and ends with praise” is one that, knowing in its bones the reality of evil, did not cease wrestling with the angel of death until it discovered the path from suffering to hope. (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Haggadah, Maggid)
ken yehi ratzon, so may it be for us.
Shabbat Shalom
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 