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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

It's never too late

The fourteenth day of the month of Iyar is Pesach Sheini, the "Second Passover." When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, this day served as a "second chance" for those who were unable to bring the Passover offering on the eve of the "first" Passover one month earlier, the 14th of Nissan.
Today, we mark and commemorate the date by eating matzah (in the same way that we eat the afikoman-matzah at the Passover seder in remembrence of the Passover offering).
In the 9th chapter of Numbers, the Torah relates the circumstances that led to the institution of the Second Passover. On the 1st of Nissan in the year 2449 from creation (1312 bce), two weeks before the first anniversary of the Exodus,
G-d spoke to Moses in the Sinai desert ... saying: "The children of Israel should prepare the Passover [offering] at its appointed time. On the fourteenth of this month, in the afternoon ... in accordance with all its decrees and laws...."
There were, however, certain persons who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body and therefore could not prepare the Passover offering on that day. They approached Moses and Aaron ... and they said: "...Why should we be deprived, and not be able to present G-ds offering in its time, amongst the children of Israel?"
And Moses said to them: "Wait here, and I will hear what G-d will command concerning you."
And G-d spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Any person who is contaminated by death, or is on a distant road, whether among you now or in future generations, shall prepare a Passover offering to G-d. They shall prepare it on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the second month, and shall eat it with matzahs and bitter herbs...." (Numbers 9:1-12)

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