For more about the month of Iyar and the Counting
of the Omer see: Every
Day Counts
How was your Pesach Seder? Did you fully participate or
were your thoughts far away from what was being said and done? Did you
feel spiritually uplifted, or did you crash from tiredness and
depression? Did you leave your personal Egypt by the end of the evening,
or did you just leave behind a few matza crumbs on the table?
If your Seder was not as spiritually inspiring as you
had hoped, and you didn't accomplish all that you wanted to, don't
despair. On Pesach Sheni (Second Passover), which is observed on the 14th
of Iyar, you have a second chance.
What is Pesach Sheni? We read about it in the Torah in
Numbers 9:1-14. A year had already passed since the Children of
Israel left Egypt. As the people began to prepare their Korban Pesach
(Passover sacrifice), a group of men who had been in contact with a dead
body and were, therefore, in a state of ritual impurity approached Moses
and Aaron with a question/demand:
"We are unclean …, but why should we be held back
from bringing the offering of the Lord in its proper time, among the
Children of Israel?"
Moses inquired of God as to what he should answer these
men, and the reply was:
"If any man of you or of your generations be unclean
because of a dead body, or be on a journey far away, he shall yet keep
the Passover of the Lord, in the second month on the fourteenth day …
But the man that is clean, and is not on a journey, and does not keep
the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people."
What is interesting about God's reply is the addition of
another class of people who will be permitted to bring a Korban
Pesach on Pesach Sheni: people who are on journey far away.
Literally, this means people who found themselves in a
distant land on Pesach and therefore were unable to bring the Korban
Pesach. Chassidut, however, understands this to mean a person who is
distant in a spiritual sense.
According to Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the
previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, "Pesach Sheni teaches us that 'Nothing is
ever lost: it's never too late!' Our conduct can always be rectified.
Even someone who was impure, who was far away and even desired to be so,
can still correct himself" (HaYom Yom, page 53).
And during the month of Iyar, we learn how to accomplish
this rectification.
One Day at a Time
During the month of Nissan, all of the Jewish people -
whether they were worthy or not - received a spectacular spiritual
revelation from Above. They experienced God's awesome power on the night
of the Exodus when some 3 million of them were taken out of Egypt "in
the blink of an eye." Seven days later at the time of the splitting of
the Reed Sea, every Jew - from the greatest leaders of that generation
to the lowliest maidservant - witnessed even more incredible miracles.
All of the people were on such a spiritual high that
they just had to sing God's praises, which can be found in the "Song of
the Sea" (Exodus 15:1-18). They believed in God and His promises.
They believed in Moses and his mission. They believed that they were on
top of the world.
And then they crashed.
They had been traveling in the barren wilderness of
Sinai for several weeks and they were beginning to have some serious
worries about their food supply - and the whole Exodus "business". The
words of song and praise now turned into a bitter lament against Moses.
"Would that we had died by the Hand of God in the
Land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, when we ate bread to the
full; for you have brought us into this wilderness, to kill this entire
assembly with hunger" (Exodus 16:3).
God heard their complaint in the wilderness, just as He
had heard their complaint in Egypt, and He once again responded with a
miracle - this time in the form of the Manna that rained down from
Heaven. But instead of wowing the Children of Israel with a spectacular
amount of Manna that dropped down from the Heavens in the blink of an
eye, God gave them just a small supply that would last only one day.
The Manna continued to fall from Heaven for the entire
time that they were in the wilderness, but every morning the people had
to go outside and collect their daily ration (except for Friday
mornings, when they received a portion for that day and Shabbat). And
thus they learned how to have a different relationship with God - not
one that was solely based upon experiencing mind-blowing, awe-inspiring
special effects, but a relationship that was also built by taking small
steps forward one day at a time.
Taking small, daily spiritual steps in an effort to come
to close to God is what the month of Iyar is all about. In Iyar, we
count the Omer every day in commemoration of the daily barley offering
that was brought to the Temple from the second day of Pesach until
Shavuot. Each day that we count represents a rectification of one
particular spiritual attribute, and this is slow, painstaking work that
we have to do ourselves. It is not a gift that is given to us from
Above, whether we are worthy or not. It is an awakening from Below -
from us - and we become worthy of receiving the gift of closeness to God
by virtue of the effort that we put into perfecting ourselves.
Pesach Sheni is also a reflection of this awakening from
Below. The commandment to offer the Korban Pesach came from God -
from Above. The word korban - sacrifice - comes from the same
root (k-r-v) of the word karov, which means to be "close". A
korban is, therefore, a way for us to come close to God. God told
the Children of Israel to offer a Korban Pesach because He knew,
so to speak, that this offering would be the fuel that would enable us
to become catapulted into true freedom - the freedom that comes from
serving Him and only Him. When the Israelite men who were in a state of
ritual impurity realized that they would be barred from taking part in
this experience, they cried out in protest - and they were answered with
the new mitzva of Pesach Sheni.
Today we are all barred from offering the Korban
Pesach, and so now, especially, there is a need to cry out. Trapped
in our own spiritual wilderness, we are hungry for real sustenance. Yet
even though we want to come close to God, we don't know how. Which is
why we have the mitzva of counting the Omer, which shows us how to leave
the wilderness and activate this awakening from Below.
One Step at a Time
As mentioned above, each day of the period known as
Sefirat HaOmer (Counting of the Omer), we work on rectifying a
different spiritual attribute. On Pesach Sheni we work on rectifying the
quality of Chessed of Hod, or Lovingkindness in Humility.
Humility is a misunderstood word in today's world. In
Jewish thought, humility has absolutely nothing to do with feelings of
low self-esteem or weakness. Instead, humility is associated with
modesty - a modesty that comes from knowing that all of a person's
talents and gifts come from God and that they have therefore been given
to a person for a purpose. So rather than make a person feel small and
insignificant, true humility makes a person become filled with awe at
the greatness of the task that has been entrusted to him or her.
Lovingkindness is the basis of all human relationships.
Through giving and receiving (it can sometimes be a great kindness to
receive from someone who needs to give), we are able to go beyond the
limits of self and reach higher spiritual levels than we can achieve on
our own.
On Pesach Sheni, when we rectify the attribute of
Lovingkindness in Humility, we rectify our relationship with both God
and with others. We recognize that we do not - that we can not - exist
alone. We recognize that we need to have a relationship with God, and
that this relationship has to come from within a place that is "among
the Children of Israel" - a place where we will be able to grow through
giving to and receiving from others.
To prepare for Pesach Sheni, we don't have to turn our
houses upside down in a search for chametz (leavened products),
because we are allowed to eat chametz on this day. It is
customary to eat matza on Pesach Sheni, but even this is not the
principal way we observe the day now that the Temple is no longer
standing.
Instead, the way we observe Pesach Sheni is to do
teshuva. Teshuva (repentance) is a cleansing process that removes
spiritual impurities from the soul. The desire to do teshuva
comes about when we realize that we have misused the gifts that God gave
us and, in the process, created a barrier between ourselves and God and
ourselves and other people.
Breaking down the barriers that keep us separate from
God and the Jewish people - and finding ways to give to others with
lovingkindness and use God's gifts with humility - is the work of Iyar.
By doing this work in its "proper time," each one of us will be able to
stand "among the Children of Israel" when it is time to receive the
Torah on Shavuot.
And what happens if, God forbid, we ignore both the
Pesach of Nissan and the spiritual work of Iyar? The discussion of
Pesach Sheni in the Torah ends with the following pronouncement of God:
"But the man that is clean, and is not on a journey,
and does not keep the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his
people."
God wants us to come close to Him. Sometimes He does it
all for us: He moves mountains for us in an instant so that we can
experience that closeness with an intense fire. And sometimes He shows
us a narrow path that we have to climb one painstaking step at a time.
Yet even if we should lose our footing - slow down or even fall
backwards - as long as we stay on the path and continue to try to reach
Him, God is willing to give us a second chance.
However, for the person who "is not on a journey" - the
one who thinks that his talents and gifts come from his own efforts and
so he doesn't need to "waste" precious time on attempts to come close to
God - there is no Pesach Sheni. Because he thinks he can get through
life on his own, his "reward" is that he is, indeed, cut off from his
people and from God.
May we therefore use this month of Iyar to progress, one
day at a time, along the path that will bring us closer to God and to
others. And may we continue to be inspired by the message of Pesach
Sheni, which tells us that no effort in the spiritual realm is ever lost
and that we always have a second chance to start anew.
