Dvar Torah on Parshat Behaalotecha

In this week's parsha, B'ha'alotcha, we are told that, once out of Egypt and in the desert, the Israelites kept the Passover holiday, offering the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, as commanded, on the anniversary of the Exodus, the afternoon of the 14th day of the month of Nissan, the first month of the Jewish ritual year. Then this happened:

"But there were certain men, who were unclean by the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day. And those men said unto him: 'We are unclean by the dead body of a man; why should we be disadvantaged, and not bring the offering of the Lord in its appointed season among the children of Israel?' And Moses said unto them: 'Stay ye, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.' And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: 'Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If any man of you or of your generations shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be on a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto the Lord; in the second month on the fourteenth day at dusk they shall keep it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; they shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break a bone thereof; according to all the statute of the Passover they shall keep it."

Those Israelites who had been made ritually impure by having come into contact with a dead body are unwilling to accept the halachic principal that only those who are ritually pure may offer the Passover sacrifice. Although legally exempted from this practice, forbidden, in fact, from entering the Tabernacle area, they petition Moshe and demand their right to serve God along with the rest of the people.

Moshe, apparently not having been told beforehand what to do in this situation, turns to God, who responds by giving them a second chance, exactly one month later, to make the offering. God makes this a permanent law, and also takes this opportunity to add that someone who missed his chance to offer the sacrifice on Passover because he was "on a journey far off" can also take advantage of what is today called "Pessach Sheni", the second Passover, one month after the first one, and offer it then.

The commentator Rashi is bothered by a fairly obvious question: why didn't Moshe know what to do in this case? Why, in fact, wasn't the law pertaining to those who, for whatever reason, missed the Passover sacrifice, originally taught to Moshe by God, along with the rest of the laws of Passover? What kind of dynamic is this, in which the Torah, as taught by Moshe, seems to not have taken this fairly common eventuality into account, leaving it to the aggrieved parties, those effected by the lacuna, to right this wrong?

Rashi explains that Moshe should have and would have been the one to teach the law of the second Passover as an original part of the Torah, but he was prevented from doing so in order to give these worthy people (the ritually impure Israelites) the chance to add this worthwhile piece of legal information to the Torah. God purposely kept this law from Moshe, so that these "worthy people" could be the ones to introduce it.

It would seem that the impure Israelites, having more of a stake in this law, therefore gain the right to be the ones to introduce it, rather than Moshe, who only has a theoretical, objective, 'professional' interest in it. This would seem to tell us something about the relationship of those who seem to be disadvantaged by the laws of the Torah to the Torah itself: those whom the laws of the Torah discriminate against, are, in fact, challenged to rise to the occasion, to show their "worthiness" - their desire to take part in the life which the Torah mandates - and force the Torah to accommodate them. It's like having legal standing in a court of law: those who have some sort of real grievance have a right to make a claim on the law, to demand justice from it.

This points to an openness, a dynamism, a permeability, in the Torah's legal system. Like any legal system, the Torah begins and ends somewhere - it can not be an infinite list of all possible cases and situations. Like any legal system, the Torah also often says "no" to people: you may not, you are forbidden to, you are disqualified from. This story tells us that God purposely kept the law of the second Passover from Moshe in order to set a precedent. Those disenfranchised by the law - in this case, the ritually impure - have an intrinsic right to challenge the law. Those whom the Torah excludes have the right, and the ability, to step up and demand to be included. The fact that God not only accommodates them by introducing the second Passover, but also adds those on a far away journey to the list of those who can take advantage of this second chance, indicates the dynamic nature of the law's inclusiveness: once the doors are opened, more and more people will come in.

The impure but worthy Israelites showed us that although the Torah, as a legal system, often excludes, those who are excluded, if they are worthy (i.e., want to be included) can demand that a way be found for the parameters of the Torah's law be expanded, so that they, and others like them, may be a part of the life it calls upon us to live. God's positive response shows us that a way can be found to open that seemingly locked legal door, davka through the efforts of those who seem to be locked out.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix