Second Pessah, Second Chance
Apr. 14, 2004
Barbara Sofer
Next Year in Jerusalem! How passionate is the cry that ends the Pessah Seder. We celebrate the pleasure and satisfaction of completing the spiritual and historical reenactment of our people's exodus from slavery, and simultaneously hear the echo of hope and triumph of our ancestors. No matter how oppressed and insecure they were, the imagined future was glorious and inextricably linked to Jerusalem. Their longing for Jerusalem was equal to belief in the coming of the Messiah.
Next Year in Jerusalem. Jews abroad said it twice, at the end of each Seder, this year, too. Although we are privileged to live at a time when Jerusalem is easily reached, few Jews are planning to come this year or next. Most read the Haggadic account of the rabbis' Seder in Bnei Brak, but you won't find them driving through Mesubim Junction, named for the last of the Four Questions. They may harmonize over the Song of the Sea, but they're not paragliding over the Bay of Eilat. And while we rejoice over victories past, our current enemies chortle over the dark hotel windows in Haifa and the deserted art studios of Safed. The destruction of Israeli tourism, particularly Jewish tourism, is one of their markers of the success of the intifada and terror.
Never are our homes cleaner; never is more attention paid to the fine points of dietary laws than on Pessah. For weeks before the holiday, conversations dwell on cleaning strategies and competing stringencies of kosher supervision. But I'm wondering � no matter how many kosher certificates are on the matza box � if a Seder can be well and truly complete if the words "Next Year in Jerusalem" are said insincerely.
On a night when teaching children is crucial, what example do parents set who won't come themselves or allow their children to attend programs in the Jewish state?
Next week we mark Holocaust and Martyrs Memorial Day. We take stock of the silence of the world, and we wonder if our own community might have done more to save our fellow Jews. We're reminded that those were days before most Jews felt secure enough to demonstrate. Ironically, much of our newfound confidence has come from our pride in the very Jewish state few visit these days. Nowadays, when solidarity means booking a vacation in Israel, the world's best tour guides sit idle.
Mass tourism could renew spirits and revive the economy. Buying at Israel fairs and passing pro-Israeli e-mails is praiseworthy, but it's a poor substitute for buying matza pizza on Ben-Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. Excuses have run out.
We can't afford to wait "until it's over and life returns to normal." Who can predict when that time may come? And � if a little courage is demanded � let us remember that we herald our ancestors for celebrating that first Pessah while they were still slaves in Egypt.
That many Israelis travel abroad on the holiday is no excuse. Israelis have set the standard for the world on how to bear up to terror. If residents of Jerusalem and Netanya, Hadera and Emmanuel want to make use of vacation time for sightseeing abroad, who can fault them?
Fortunately, if such talk makes you feel guilty, there's an out. Some may not be familiar with the concept of Second Pessah. No, this is not a joke on an exhausted homemaker. You'll find it in Numbers IX, 6, read on the sixth day of Pessah. Those who were prevented by uncleanness or being far from Jerusalem from participating in the Paschal sacrifice in the month of Nissan got a second chance. If you were physically absent because of a long journey or illness, or if you were emotionally or psychologically unavailable, you got a second chance. So important a motif is the reaffirmation of our freedom that provisions are made for a second Pessah. This year, Pessah Sheni falls on May 5. That leaves sufficient time for those who didn't sincerely vow to be in Jerusalem to make reservations.
The concept of Second Pessah has raised its own fascinating discussion in our multifaceted sources. What if you converted to Judaism between Pessah and Second Pessah? Are you obligated to observe the second Pessah?
My favorite � from the Ometz Yosef � asks what happens if the Messianic age begins and there's a revival of the dead between the first and second Pessah. Are the returned souls obligated to celebrate on the Second Pessah? When this question came up at a class I was attending on Pessah, I had to smile.
What ponderous questions occupy the minds of our people, confronted in each generation with challenges of physical and spiritual existence and continuity. I had a flashback to ancestors in the ghettos of Europe and North Africa arguing different sides of this question in the style that developed their intellectual sharpness and spiritual certainty. I couldn't help thinking how fortunate I was to be discussing it in Hebrew on Pessah in the State of Israel � believing that my simple presence here might bring us an inch closer to our future redemption.
