B'haalot'cha

Before getting to my weekly d'var, I want to express some thoughts about the tragedy this week in Washington, resulting in the death of Stephen T. Johns, a security officer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

America is experiencing an increase in fringe/hate/terrorism actions. A doctor is murdered (in his church!) because he performs abortions; a soldier is slain outside a recruiting office by an American convert to Islam who believes we are committing war crimes in Iraq; Jewish institutions are targeted for violence in the Bronx; and now Officer Johns is killed by an anti-Semite quite well known in Holocaust-denier circles. The Department of Homeland Security issued a report in January cautioning about an uptick in these kinds of attacks because of the economic climate (a bad economy is always a breeding ground for anti-Semitism) and because we now have an African American President. The report seems to have been unfortunately prescient.

I participated in a brief memorial service yesterday for Officer Johns at the Holocaust Museum, an interfaith convocation organized by our local Jewish Community Relations Council. As Jews and as Jewish professionals, we need to continue to stand up and speak out against terror, anti-Semitism, and extremism. As R. Tarphon said (Pirke Avot 2:21), "The work is not yours to finish; but you are not free to desist from it."



B’haalot’cha
Numbers 8:1 - 12:16

Précis: The parasha begins with a description of the making of the Menorah, a central Jewish symbol. Next, the Levites are given added directions in their roles. The parasha returns to narrative with a recounting of a "second Passover" celebration. Next comes a discussion of the making of silver trumpets. The cloud of God’s Presence lifts, and the march of the People through the wilderness from Sinai begins. Details are offered about how they proceeded through the desert, led by the Ark. The people begin to murmur again about the lack of meat. God provides the people with meat – after which they are struck with a severe plague. This time, even Miriam and Aaron seem to have complaints about Moses, cast in terms of their critique about his “Cushite woman.” Moses is, as usual, vindicated at the end.


Numbers 9:6-13 “And it happened that there were men who were defiled by human corpses and could not do the Passover offering on that day, and they drew near before Moses and before Aaron on that day. And these men said to them, ‘We are defiled by human corpses. Why should we be withheld from offering the Lord’s sacrifice at its fixed time in the midst of the Israelites?’ …And the Lord spoke to Moses saying… ‘Any man who may be defiled by corpse or on a distant journey…and would do the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, in the second month on the fourteenth day, they shall do it…’”

In recent years, it’s become a statement of conventional wisdom that America is the "Land of Second Chances:" politicians, sports figures, and celebrities of all kinds are offered a second, third (or even a fourth) chance.

The verses we study here contain an often overlooked curiosity: Pesach Sheini, or the second Passover. The text tells us that when the first Passover was celebrated by the Israelites in the desert, certain members of the People were ritually impure (because of contact with a dead body) and were thus not allowed to observe the Passover at its appointed time (in the first month). Given that membership in the community was importantly expressed by observing the Passover, these "impure" ones ask Moses for an accommodation. Moses turns to God, who creates a second chance opportunity.

While the observance of Pesach Sheini seems to have ended with the destruction of the Second Temple, this passage remains of interest, because of its unusual nature. After all, there is no exception made for any other holiday. But unlike other holidays, Passover was central to the creation of the Jewish People, and to the inclusion of individuals within the polity.
On another level, we can learn from this brief narrative that Judaism believes that human beings are to be allowed a second chance. Things are never too late, and there never comes a time when we are permitted to stop trying.