|
If you had unlimited money, what would you do? Would you travel to exotic destinations, eating only gourmet meals and staying at first-class hotels? Would you drive expensive cars, like Ferraris and Lamborghinis? If you ask many Jewish women – and perhaps some men as well – they’ll tell you, go away for Pesach to avoid the holiday cleaning. The Catskills hotels were the most common destination decades ago.
Believe it or not, there was actually an ancient way to get rid of this task. It was called Pesach Sheni, or the Second Passover. In this week’s Torah portion, Behaalotecha, the people are commanded to observe Passover on its correct date, the fourteenth day of Nisan (Numbers 9:5). Yet some people went to Moses, remarking that they were unable to participate in the Passover rituals because they were ritually impure from burial of a corpse. They therefore requested a sort of “make-up” Passover, which G-d told Moses to grant exactly one month later, on the fourteenth of Iyar. Moreover, anyone on a long journey was also entitled to utilize this loophole, thus expanding the pool of individuals eligible for “second Passover” exemption. (Numbers 9:9-12).
But how, exactly, was this second Passover to be observed? The Torah specifies certain restrictions, like not breaking a bone of the lamb or leaving any over until the morning. It also mentions the requirement to consume the Passover offering with matzah and maror.
The Talmud, however, indicates that certain observances did not carry over to the second Passover. In the tractate Pesachim (95a), we read:
-
The Sages taught: The verse states: “According to the entire statute of the Paschal lamb they shall offer it” (Numbers 9:12). One might have thought that just as at the time of the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb on the first Pesaḥ it is prohibited to own leaven due to the prohibitions of: It shall not be seen, and: It shall not be found, so too, at the time of the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb on the second Pesaḥ it is prohibited to own leaven due to the prohibitions of: It shall not be seen, and: It shall not be found. Therefore, the Torah states: “They shall eat it with matzot and bitter herbs” (Numbers 9:11), which indicates that the other mitzvot pertaining to the first Pesaḥ do not apply on the second.
In other words, observers of the second Passover had a much easier preparation than their brethren observing the first Passover. In the pre-Catskills days, it wasn’t a bad deal at all.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
| 
