Herman Wouk’s This Is My G-d
Back to the Future: Do I Really Have a Second Chance?
- May 17, 2019
- |
- 12 Iyyar 5779
Rabbi YY Jacobson
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Herman Wouk’s This Is My G-d
Back to the Future: Do I Really Have a Second Chance?
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- May 17, 2019
Summary:
There is something strange about the story of Pesach Sheni, which we will celebrate this week.
When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later? Why did this mitzvah come only through human petition, unlike all other mitzvos?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover. The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises. Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house." Why the difference?
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers. This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach. Why?
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.
Herman Wouk, the legendary religious Jewish novelist, passed away on Friday, at the age of 103. But when they wanted to translate This Is My G-d to Russian, the Rebbe suggested a name change.
The Second Pesach
The fourteenth day of the month of Iyar (this year, it is on this coming Sunday) is Pesach Sheini, the "Second Passover."
When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, this day served as a "second chance" for those who were unable to bring the Passover offering on the eve of the "first" Passover one month earlier, the 14th of Nissan. Today, we mark and commemorate the date by eating matzah (in the same way that we eat the afikoman-matzah at the Passover seder in remembrance of the Passover offering. We also do not recite Tachanun, the daily confessions.)
How did this unique “second chance” holiday come about? Indeed, it has no parallel to any other Jewish holiday? With every other holiday, you missed it, you missed it. What made Passover unique, to actually receive this gift of a second Passover, a Pesach Sheni?
The answer is related in the portion of Behaaloscha, in the 9th chapter of Numbers. The Torah relates the circumstances that led to the institution of the Second Passover. On the 1st of Nissan in the year 2449 from creation (1312 bce), two weeks before the first anniversary of the Exodus,
G-d spoke to Moses in the Sinai desert ... saying: "The children of Israel should prepare the Passover [offering] at its appointed time. On the fourteenth of this month, in the afternoon ... in accordance with all its decrees and laws...."
There were, however, certain persons who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body, and therefore could not prepare the Passover offering on that day. They approached Moses and Aaron ... and they said: "We have become impure by contact with a corpse. Why should we be deprived, and not be able to present G-ds offering in its time, amongst the children of Israel?"
And Moses said to them: "Wait here, and I will hear what G-d will command concerning you."
And G-d spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Any person who is contaminated by death, or is on a distant road, whether among you now or in future generations, shall prepare a Passover offering to G-d. They shall prepare it on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the second month, and shall eat it with matzahs and bitter herbs...." (Numbers 9:1-12)
Why Wait for the Question?
There is something strange about this story.
Virtually all of the mitzvot of the Torah were unilaterally commanded by G-d to Moses. The law of the Second Passover, instituted in response to the outcry of those who protested, "Why shall we be deprived?" is one of the few cases in which a mitzvah was elicited from G-d by a petition from mortal men.
Why wasn't the provision for a Second Passover included in the Torah's initial legislation of the laws of Passover? When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later?
G-d certainly knew that some Jews are not in a position to bring the offering. So why didn’t He include this detail in the original law?
Why Embrace Chametz?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover.
The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises.
Already when we offer the first Passover offering, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nissan, we are forbidden to own chametz.
Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house."
Why the difference?
Out of Order
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers
This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach (On the first day of the second month, G-d tells Moses to take a census of the Jews).
Why, ask the commentators?
Their answer falls back on a common principle: “There is no before or after in the Torah.” That is: not all of Torah was written chronologically. In fact, this very principle about Torah is derived from this textual location of Pesach Sheni in the biblical text.[1]
The obvious question, though, is why the Torah chooses to place specifically this story out of order. There has to be some reason why you would want it out of order? The story could have easily been transcribed
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.[2]
Never Too Late?
The significance of the Second Passover is one message: “it is never too late.”[3] I can always rectify, in some way, a past failing. Even if a person has failed to fulfill a certain aspect of his or her mission in life because he or she has been, as it was that story, "contaminated by death" (representing, on a spiritual level, someone in a state of disconnection from the divine source of life) or "on a distant road," symbolizing someone who fell distant from his people and G-d, there is always a “Second Passover” in which we can find healing and repair.
But how? Can I always fix my past? What if I made big mistakes? What I neglected some serous duties? What I did some really stupid things in my youth? What if I was ignorant, dysfunctional and overwhelmed, and I behaved in a clueless fashion? What if I burnt so many bridges? What if I spent 15 years as an addict? Is it really “never too late?”
Of course, I can apologize, and I must apologize, I ought to express remorse, make good on what I can, make mends, face up to my mistakes, ask forgiveness, and resolve not to do it again.
With good inner work and serious therapy, I may find recovery, and reinvent myself, not allowing my past traumas and sins to become my eternal destiny.
But can we really believe, that “it is never too late?” I can take accountability for the future, changing what will be. But the past seems lost forever! It is what it is, as the slang goes.
Yet this is the revolutionary idea of the Second Passover—even if you have failed, you still can reclaim your Passover. The past is not lost. But how so?
Says the Talmud:
יומא פו, ב: אמר ריש לקיש גדולה תשובה שזדונות נעשות לו כשגגות... גדולה תשובה שזדונות נעשות לו כזכיות... לא קשיא כאן מאהבה כאן מיראה.
Reish Lakish said, that Teshuvah (repentance, or return) is great, for as a result ones deliberate and intentional sins are transformed into merits!
Yet, this seems strange. How can it be?
This seems so unfair. How can a sin, a mistake, a betrayal, become a merit? How can my transgression become a positive experience? It is almost as if the sinner is benefitting from the sins of his past life! Why should the sinner profit?[4]
I could entertain the idea that when a person repents, we dismiss his or her previous errors and sins. When someone hurts me and then says I’m sorry, I can forgive him and dismiss the wrongdoing considering it an unfortunate mistake. But how does it suddenly become a mitzvah? Yesterday I ate pork; today I repent with love and the eating of the pork becomes suddenly a mitzvah?! Yesterday I lied, and today I repent with love, and the lying becomes a merit? What is the mechanism for this? What is the justification for this?
The tzaddik, the good Jews who never sinned, can at most observe 613 mitzvos. He can by no stretch of the imagination observe even one more mitzvah than 613. Yet the sinning Jew, he or she—if they repent in love—can amass hundreds of thousands of mitzvos, because every sin they have ever done can be transformed into a mitzvah! Is this sensible?
Jealous
A story:
Once Rabbi Levi of Berdichev met an infamous sinner in the street. The Berdichever was known to always find and accentuate the positive in every person and every experience. So this sinner, trying to mock at the good innocent rabbi, says to him: So Rebbe, you have any nice and kind words to say to a sinner like me?
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak told him: "You know something? I am jealous of you! After all, the Talmud says that after you do Teshuva, after you return to G-d with love, your deliberate sins will become merits! Imagine how many merits you will have!"
The man replied: "Really? Come back to me next year, and you will have much more to be jealous of!"
But in the end, Rabbi Levi Yitzchk’s words touched the person. He truly repented, and lived up to the Berdichever's hope for him.
The Catalyst
The explanation for this takes us to heart of recovery and the idea has first been articulated in the Tanya.[5]
When I repent out of love, not just out of fear, then what happens is that my very negative experience becomes part of my new relationship with G-d, with truth, with my soul. The very sin I have committed now becomes part of my love; it allows me to experience a far more mature, sober, deep love and appreciation for the truth.
Take an addict who undergoes real recovery and truly surrender to the Higher Power. What happens in the process is that the very addiction, the very negative experience, confer upon the recovering addict a depth and a sensitivity that another person who has not endured the pain of deception and the pain of denial and the pain of addiction cannot experience. The addiction, the betrayal, and the depression itself becomes the starting point and springboard for a whole new depth and passion in living.
A Moral Lesson
The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.
Kathy said, "My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the pickup when we hit a bump in the road and all the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess." "And what's the moral of the story?" asked the teacher. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!" "Very good," said the teacher.
Next little Lucy raised and hand and said, "Our family are farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks and the moral to this story is, don't count your chickens until they're hatched." "That was a fine story, Lucy."
Nicholas, do you have a story to share?" "Yes, ma'am, my daddy told me this story about my Aunt Barbara.
Aunt Barbara was a flight engineer in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break, and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets, then she killed twenty more with the machete till the blade broke and then she killed the last ten with her bare hands."
"Good heavens," said the horrified teacher, "what kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?"
"Stay the hell away from Aunt Barbara when she's been drinking.”
This is true in each of our lives. We make mistakes, we fail, we sometimes make the wrong choices. Yet, Judaism teaches, that we can turn around and redefine the very sins and mistakes we made into unforgettable teachers that continue to inspire our new discovered commitments and changes. Our very downfalls then become springboards which prove to be sources of elevation for us.
Two Stories
There's a story told about the legendary head of IBM, Thomas Watson. On one occasion a senior manager made a serious business mistake that cost the company ten million dollars. Watson summoned him to his office. "I guess you want my resignation," the manager said. "Are you crazy?" Watson replied. "We've just spend ten million dollars educating you."
A story:
A young chemist had been working for some time at developing a new bonding agent, a glue. After years of hardship, the work was complete. He tried it out. It did not stick. What is the use of glue that does not stick? Most people would have called this a failure, . Aa disappointment. Time wasted. Effort spent in vain. The young chemist thought otherwise.
Instead of deciding that his work was a failure, he asked, “What if it is a success? What if I have discovered a solution? The only thing left to do is to find the problem.”
He refused to give up. He kept asking himself, “What is the use of an underachieving adhesive?” Eventually he found it. It became a huge commercial success. They're little and they stick — but not too hard. That is how the “Post-It” Notes were invented!
This is true concerning every negative experience in life. A missed flight cannot be unmissed; a harsh word uttered to a loved one cannot be unspoken. But the MEANING of these events can be changed. We can literally travel back in time to redefine the significance of what occurred.
Rewriting the Past
You oversleep, miss that flight, and never show up for that important meeting. The initial significance of that event: Your boss is furious, your career suffers a serious setback, your self-esteem plummets. You look in the mirror and say: I am a loser. But you may also go back to the event and allow it to trigger some profound questions. You ask yourself: What does it mean? What does it tell me about myself? It might teach you profound truths about your own fears and struggles; or you may even realize that you don't really care for your job, that your true calling lies elsewhere. Or you may discover some uncomfortable truths about yourself, which give you new awareness, and a new vision for life. You resolve to make a fresh start. You have reached back in time to transform that slumbered hour into a wake-up call for a new way of living.
Or you have an argument, lose your cool, and speak those unforgivable words. The next morning you're friends again, agreeing to "forget what happened." But you don't forget. You're horrified by the degree of your insensitivity; you agonize over the distance that your words have placed between the two of you. You speak about it with your partner, you explore what happened. Your horror and agony make you realize how sensitive you truly are to each other, how much you desire the closeness of the one you love. Your subsequent conversation allow both of you to discover deep fears and traumas you are living with. You have reached back in time to transform a source of distance and disharmony into a catalyst for greater intimacy and love.
This is the meaning of the words of the Talmud: Sin, when followed by true and genuine repentance, is redefined by the experience of teshuvah. Because it is the sin that creates a thirst, a sensitivity, and an awareness of meaning that man was not aware of before. The very sins are now redefined into mitzvos, because the very negative act how now, retroactively, become a complete catalyst for a powerful and extraordinary relationship between this person and G-d.
Never a Slave
We are never slaves of our past.
You know the text message I received from a heavy smoker acquaintance: “I just read an article on the dangers of heavy smoking. It scared the daylights out of me. So that’s it: after today . . . no more reading!”
We are capable of a better future. But much more than that: We can go back in time and redefine the past! That is what real Teshuvah means. In fact, the word for “repentance” in Judaism is teshuvah, which means “return.” It allows me to return to that space of pain and redefine it retroactively. It is ability to defy the properties of time by editing or rewriting a “wasted,” or worse, “destructive,” piece of our life, thought to be beyond our control and reform.
Beyond Time
Still, how can a person really do this? It seems to defy the structures of time-space upon which our world is built?
The Rebbe presents the awesome answer. Teshuva means I align my life with G-d. G-d is beyond time, space and matter. The past, the present and future are one. (That is the very meaning of G-d’s name, Havaya). When I see myself as an aspect of the Divine, a ray of infinity, I can reach back in the past and rewrite, recode it, as though it a thing of the present or the future![6]
Albert Einstein taught us that time is relative. Where gravity is all powerful, space and time are redefined. All the laws of physics break down in Black Holes.
But when we return to the source of all gravity—to the cosmic womb, to the Creaor—here time not only slows down, and “1000 years is like a day,” but its limits disappear completely.
Herman Wouk
Which reminds me of a story:
Professor Herman Branover is a Russian-Israeli physicist and Jewish educator, known in the scientific community as the leading pioneer in the field of magnetohydrodynamics.
Over the years, Branover undertook to translate some of the fundamental works of Judaism into Russian.
At one point in his extensive publishing career he decided to translate a classic introduction to Judaism by the famed novelist Herman Wouk, titled “This Is My G‑d.”
Herman Wouk passed away this Friday, at the age of 103. He was a remarkable man. Considered one of the greatest writers of the past generation, he brought Judaism into mainstream America. He was a deeply religious and Torah observant Jew, and his book “This Is My G-d,” a popular explanation of Judaism, written for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, left a major impact on Americans and the world.
Herman Wouk’s literary career spanned nearly seven decades. When he appeared on the cover of Time in 1955, the magazine described Wouk’s blend of worldly success and Jewish religious observance as paradoxical. “He is a devout Orthodox Jew who had achieved worldly success in worldly-wise Manhattan while adhering to dietary prohibitions and traditional rituals which many of his fellow Jews find embarrassing,” the article said.
At the time, Wouk’s fame seemed like an incredible feat for an Orthodox Jew. Unlike other Jewish novelists, who had focused on Jewish immigrant culture and tended to portray religious Judaism as foreign and exotic, Wouk made Jewish religious observance appear mainstream in his books. Scenes of a Passover seder and a bar mitzvah service became scenes of middle-class American life in “Marjorie Morningstar.”
Fellow Jewish novelists like Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer viewed Wouk as conforming to middle-class American values that prioritized marriage, family, religion and service to country. Not only did he stay married to the same woman for more than six decades, but Wouk expressed pride in his military service, for which he received a U.S. Navy Lone Sailor Award. Wouk in turn saw the others as bowing to fashionable literary trends of rebellion and shocking readers.
Wouk used his fame to draw attention to his little-understood religion. Serialized in the Los Angeles Times, “This Is My God” introduced readers to such the laws of kashrut and family purity and the holidays of Sukkot and Shavuot. The book showed, through anecdotes from Wouk’s glamorous Manhattan life, that it was possible to be both a modern American and a Torah Jew. It was an incredible contribution.
At a time when Jews still encountered quotas at universities and discrimination in hiring and housing, Wouk’s example provided inspiration. “This Is My God” became a popular bar mitzvah and confirmation gift for young Jews of all movements.
So Herman Branover wanted to translate it into Russian.
Before doing so, he had occasion to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe for a private audience. One of the things he brought up was his plan to have the book translated into Russian. He presented the Rebbe with an English copy of the book, whose cover read in big words:
This is My God
Herman Wouk
It looked like this:
The Rebbe chuckled and asked: “This is my G‑d, Herman Wouk?” He then continued seriously: “With Mr. Wouk’s permission, I would encourage you to change the title. There is a possibility, however remote, that a Russian Jew ignorant of his or her religion might mistake the author for the subject of the book.”
The Russian Jew, ignorant of all religion—credit to the Communists—might think you are trying to say that Herman Wouk is your god…
With Mr. Wouk’s permission, and based on his suggestion, the book’s title was changed to: “Remember Your Grandfather.”[7]
Yet, on a deeper level, real Teshuvah affords us the opportunity to align our lives with G-d, and hence, reach out into the past, as though it was a thing of the present or the future.[8]
No Before
Ah! Now we can understand why it is this mitzva which is the source of the principle that “there is no before or after in the Torah.”
For there is no more appropriate place than this story of teshuvah to record events non-chronologically. For is not the unique capacity of teshuvah its ability to transcend the boundaries of time? to help me reach a space where the past is not really the past?
“There is no before or after in the Torah” contains a life-changing existential messsage. When you align your life with the Divine Torah, there is no “before” and “after” in life. You must never say, “Oy, this is a lost situation.” This is something I did in the past and it is beyond repair. No! Through the Torah, we are given the ability to go back and rewrite all of time.
Pesach Sheni was written in the “wrong order.” For that is its entire message: There is never a completely wrong order.
Beyond Torah
This explains the unique circumstances under which the institution of the Second Passover became part of Torah, not through an original law, but through the human outcry. For this mitzvah cannot be revealed through the ordinary channels of Torah law.
Torah is the articulation of the divine will via a body of 613 commandments and prohibitions. In other words, the very definition of Torah is that there are certain things that G-d desires that we do, and certain things which He desires that we not do. So if Torah defines a certain deed or situation as contrary to the divine will, it cannot subsequently regard it as positive and desirable.
G-d can provide a formula for repentance; but it can see no way of escaping the fact that the person has transgressed the divine will. At most, it can forgive the deed and reconnect the person to his source of life. But it cannot change the negativity of sin.
Teshuvah, in its ultimate sense of return to redefine and transform the negativity of a past deed or state, can only come from G-d Himself -- from a place in Him which supersedes His articulation of His will via the commandments of the Torah. It can only come from the source of Torah; from a place beyond the confines of law, where the negative can be redefined as positive!
So the Second Passover, with its premise that nothing is beyond rectification, could not have entered our lives through the conventional chain of command of Torah. It took a small group of Jews, contaminated by death and languishing on a distant road, to elicit the gift of teshuvah from the Almighty.
Their cry of "Why shall we be deprived?", expressing a depth of yearning for attachment to G-d that only their currently distant state could have evoked, prompted G-d to supersede the formulation of His will as articulated in the Torah and grant them a mandate to redefine the past with a second Passover.
Conquering Inflation
That is why the Second Passover can tolerate chametz in the home.
Leaven, dough that has risen and inflated, represents the tendency of the human ego to rise and swell. Leaven must be completely eradicated from our premises, since a risen ego is the source of vanity, selfishness and stupidity. The Talmud goes so far as to say that G-d says of the egotistical person, "He and I cannot dwell in the same world."
The baal teshuvah, however, is one who, having already wandered off into the forbidden realm, now exploits these negative elements and experiences to fuel his quest for divine life. In his home, leaven and matzah both reside; what is beyond the ken of the tzaddik and his first Passover forms an integral part of the baal teshuvah's service of G-d.
On the Second Passover, there is no need to banish leaven from our homes. All parts of our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly, can be liberated and aligned with the oneness of G-d.[9]
[1] Pesachim 6b
[2] See Likkutei Sichos vol. 23 and vol. 18 Behaaloscha; vol. 32 Pesach Sheni. My thanks to Rabbi Yanki Tauber and Rabbi Mendel Klamanson for their rendition of the talks on Chabad.org. I copied parts of their essays.
[3] Hayom Yom, 14 Iyar.
[4] This is the questions of the Maharsha to Yuma 86b. Cf. Likkutei Sichos vol. 17 Parshas Acharei.
[5] Tanya ch. 7
[6] That is why our Sages say that "In the place of the Baal Teshuva, the recovered addict, the transformed sinner, even the greatest Tzadik, the perfect saint, cannot stand.” (Talmud Berachos 34)
[7] In this video, 10 Shevat, 5735, meeting with Wouk, the Rebbe praises the book: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/2843983/jewish/Theres-a-Great-Thirst.htm
[8] Likkutei Sichos vol. 6 Parshas Vaeira.
[9] One of the primary differences between the two Passovers is that the first is followed by a seven-day festival, while the Second Passover is but a single day. The number 7 signifies a process, a routine, a natural course of action. G-d created the world in seven days and thereby stamped a seven-day work/rest cycle into the very fabric of the natural reality. The heart of man possesses seven major attributes. The seven-day Passover represents the step-by-step accomplishments of the tzaddik.
Not so the baal teshuvah, the one who strays from the natural course of his soul and then rebounds with a thirst for life that only those who have wandered in a deathly wasteland can experience. The Talmud (Avoda Zarah 17a) tells the story of Elazar ben Durdaya, a man who transgressed virtually every sin in the book. One day, a harlot said to him, "Elazar ben Durdaya could never repent." The recognition of how far he had gone shook him to the very core of his soul; "he placed his head between his knees, and wailed and sobbed until his soul departed from his body." Upon hearing the story of this man, Rabbi Judah HaNassi wept and said: "There are those who acquire their world through many years toil, and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment.”
The essence of teshuvah is a single wrench of self, a single flash of regret and resolve. There are those who acquire their world in many years, said the greatest tzaddik of his day, building it brick by brick with the conventional tools of achievement; and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment -- in a single instant that molds their future and redefines their past.
Teshuvah is about returning to the singular source of all reality—where there is only ONENESS. And hence, even the sin, becomes transformed into the mitzvah. All is seen from the Divine perspective.- Comment
Class Summary:
There is something strange about the story of Pesach Sheni, which we will celebrate this week.
When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later? Why did this mitzvah come only through human petition, unlike all other mitzvos?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover. The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises. Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house." Why the difference?
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers. This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach. Why?
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.
Herman Wouk, the legendary religious Jewish novelist, passed away on Friday, at the age of 103. But when they wanted to translate This Is My G-d to Russian, the Rebbe suggested a name change.
Summary:
There is something strange about the story of Pesach Sheni, which we will celebrate this week.
When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later? Why did this mitzvah come only through human petition, unlike all other mitzvos?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover. The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises. Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house." Why the difference?
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers. This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach. Why?
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.
Herman Wouk, the legendary religious Jewish novelist, passed away on Friday, at the age of 103. But when they wanted to translate This Is My G-d to Russian, the Rebbe suggested a name change.
The Second Pesach
The fourteenth day of the month of Iyar (this year, it is on this coming Sunday) is Pesach Sheini, the "Second Passover."
When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, this day served as a "second chance" for those who were unable to bring the Passover offering on the eve of the "first" Passover one month earlier, the 14th of Nissan. Today, we mark and commemorate the date by eating matzah (in the same way that we eat the afikoman-matzah at the Passover seder in remembrance of the Passover offering. We also do not recite Tachanun, the daily confessions.)
How did this unique “second chance” holiday come about? Indeed, it has no parallel to any other Jewish holiday? With every other holiday, you missed it, you missed it. What made Passover unique, to actually receive this gift of a second Passover, a Pesach Sheni?
The answer is related in the portion of Behaaloscha, in the 9th chapter of Numbers. The Torah relates the circumstances that led to the institution of the Second Passover. On the 1st of Nissan in the year 2449 from creation (1312 bce), two weeks before the first anniversary of the Exodus,
G-d spoke to Moses in the Sinai desert ... saying: "The children of Israel should prepare the Passover [offering] at its appointed time. On the fourteenth of this month, in the afternoon ... in accordance with all its decrees and laws...."
There were, however, certain persons who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body, and therefore could not prepare the Passover offering on that day. They approached Moses and Aaron ... and they said: "We have become impure by contact with a corpse. Why should we be deprived, and not be able to present G-ds offering in its time, amongst the children of Israel?"
And Moses said to them: "Wait here, and I will hear what G-d will command concerning you."
And G-d spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Any person who is contaminated by death, or is on a distant road, whether among you now or in future generations, shall prepare a Passover offering to G-d. They shall prepare it on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the second month, and shall eat it with matzahs and bitter herbs...." (Numbers 9:1-12)
Why Wait for the Question?
There is something strange about this story.
Virtually all of the mitzvot of the Torah were unilaterally commanded by G-d to Moses. The law of the Second Passover, instituted in response to the outcry of those who protested, "Why shall we be deprived?" is one of the few cases in which a mitzvah was elicited from G-d by a petition from mortal men.
Why wasn't the provision for a Second Passover included in the Torah's initial legislation of the laws of Passover? When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later?
G-d certainly knew that some Jews are not in a position to bring the offering. So why didn’t He include this detail in the original law?
Why Embrace Chametz?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover.
The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises.
Already when we offer the first Passover offering, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nissan, we are forbidden to own chametz.
Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house."
Why the difference?
Out of Order
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers
This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach (On the first day of the second month, G-d tells Moses to take a census of the Jews).
Why, ask the commentators?
Their answer falls back on a common principle: “There is no before or after in the Torah.” That is: not all of Torah was written chronologically. In fact, this very principle about Torah is derived from this textual location of Pesach Sheni in the biblical text.[1]
The obvious question, though, is why the Torah chooses to place specifically this story out of order. There has to be some reason why you would want it out of order? The story could have easily been transcribed
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.[2]
Never Too Late?
The significance of the Second Passover is one message: “it is never too late.”[3] I can always rectify, in some way, a past failing. Even if a person has failed to fulfill a certain aspect of his or her mission in life because he or she has been, as it was that story, "contaminated by death" (representing, on a spiritual level, someone in a state of disconnection from the divine source of life) or "on a distant road," symbolizing someone who fell distant from his people and G-d, there is always a “Second Passover” in which we can find healing and repair.
But how? Can I always fix my past? What if I made big mistakes? What I neglected some serous duties? What I did some really stupid things in my youth? What if I was ignorant, dysfunctional and overwhelmed, and I behaved in a clueless fashion? What if I burnt so many bridges? What if I spent 15 years as an addict? Is it really “never too late?”
Of course, I can apologize, and I must apologize, I ought to express remorse, make good on what I can, make mends, face up to my mistakes, ask forgiveness, and resolve not to do it again.
With good inner work and serious therapy, I may find recovery, and reinvent myself, not allowing my past traumas and sins to become my eternal destiny.
But can we really believe, that “it is never too late?” I can take accountability for the future, changing what will be. But the past seems lost forever! It is what it is, as the slang goes.
Yet this is the revolutionary idea of the Second Passover—even if you have failed, you still can reclaim your Passover. The past is not lost. But how so?
Says the Talmud:
יומא פו, ב: אמר ריש לקיש גדולה תשובה שזדונות נעשות לו כשגגות... גדולה תשובה שזדונות נעשות לו כזכיות... לא קשיא כאן מאהבה כאן מיראה.
Reish Lakish said, that Teshuvah (repentance, or return) is great, for as a result ones deliberate and intentional sins are transformed into merits!
Yet, this seems strange. How can it be?
This seems so unfair. How can a sin, a mistake, a betrayal, become a merit? How can my transgression become a positive experience? It is almost as if the sinner is benefitting from the sins of his past life! Why should the sinner profit?[4]
I could entertain the idea that when a person repents, we dismiss his or her previous errors and sins. When someone hurts me and then says I’m sorry, I can forgive him and dismiss the wrongdoing considering it an unfortunate mistake. But how does it suddenly become a mitzvah? Yesterday I ate pork; today I repent with love and the eating of the pork becomes suddenly a mitzvah?! Yesterday I lied, and today I repent with love, and the lying becomes a merit? What is the mechanism for this? What is the justification for this?
The tzaddik, the good Jews who never sinned, can at most observe 613 mitzvos. He can by no stretch of the imagination observe even one more mitzvah than 613. Yet the sinning Jew, he or she—if they repent in love—can amass hundreds of thousands of mitzvos, because every sin they have ever done can be transformed into a mitzvah! Is this sensible?
Jealous
A story:
Once Rabbi Levi of Berdichev met an infamous sinner in the street. The Berdichever was known to always find and accentuate the positive in every person and every experience. So this sinner, trying to mock at the good innocent rabbi, says to him: So Rebbe, you have any nice and kind words to say to a sinner like me?
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak told him: "You know something? I am jealous of you! After all, the Talmud says that after you do Teshuva, after you return to G-d with love, your deliberate sins will become merits! Imagine how many merits you will have!"
The man replied: "Really? Come back to me next year, and you will have much more to be jealous of!"
But in the end, Rabbi Levi Yitzchk’s words touched the person. He truly repented, and lived up to the Berdichever's hope for him.
The Catalyst
The explanation for this takes us to heart of recovery and the idea has first been articulated in the Tanya.[5]
When I repent out of love, not just out of fear, then what happens is that my very negative experience becomes part of my new relationship with G-d, with truth, with my soul. The very sin I have committed now becomes part of my love; it allows me to experience a far more mature, sober, deep love and appreciation for the truth.
Take an addict who undergoes real recovery and truly surrender to the Higher Power. What happens in the process is that the very addiction, the very negative experience, confer upon the recovering addict a depth and a sensitivity that another person who has not endured the pain of deception and the pain of denial and the pain of addiction cannot experience. The addiction, the betrayal, and the depression itself becomes the starting point and springboard for a whole new depth and passion in living.
A Moral Lesson
The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.
Kathy said, "My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the pickup when we hit a bump in the road and all the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess." "And what's the moral of the story?" asked the teacher. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!" "Very good," said the teacher.
Next little Lucy raised and hand and said, "Our family are farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks and the moral to this story is, don't count your chickens until they're hatched." "That was a fine story, Lucy."
Nicholas, do you have a story to share?" "Yes, ma'am, my daddy told me this story about my Aunt Barbara.
Aunt Barbara was a flight engineer in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break, and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets, then she killed twenty more with the machete till the blade broke and then she killed the last ten with her bare hands."
"Good heavens," said the horrified teacher, "what kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?"
"Stay the hell away from Aunt Barbara when she's been drinking.”
This is true in each of our lives. We make mistakes, we fail, we sometimes make the wrong choices. Yet, Judaism teaches, that we can turn around and redefine the very sins and mistakes we made into unforgettable teachers that continue to inspire our new discovered commitments and changes. Our very downfalls then become springboards which prove to be sources of elevation for us.
Two Stories
There's a story told about the legendary head of IBM, Thomas Watson. On one occasion a senior manager made a serious business mistake that cost the company ten million dollars. Watson summoned him to his office. "I guess you want my resignation," the manager said. "Are you crazy?" Watson replied. "We've just spend ten million dollars educating you."
A story:
A young chemist had been working for some time at developing a new bonding agent, a glue. After years of hardship, the work was complete. He tried it out. It did not stick. What is the use of glue that does not stick? Most people would have called this a failure, . Aa disappointment. Time wasted. Effort spent in vain. The young chemist thought otherwise.
Instead of deciding that his work was a failure, he asked, “What if it is a success? What if I have discovered a solution? The only thing left to do is to find the problem.”
He refused to give up. He kept asking himself, “What is the use of an underachieving adhesive?” Eventually he found it. It became a huge commercial success. They're little and they stick — but not too hard. That is how the “Post-It” Notes were invented!
This is true concerning every negative experience in life. A missed flight cannot be unmissed; a harsh word uttered to a loved one cannot be unspoken. But the MEANING of these events can be changed. We can literally travel back in time to redefine the significance of what occurred.
Rewriting the Past
You oversleep, miss that flight, and never show up for that important meeting. The initial significance of that event: Your boss is furious, your career suffers a serious setback, your self-esteem plummets. You look in the mirror and say: I am a loser. But you may also go back to the event and allow it to trigger some profound questions. You ask yourself: What does it mean? What does it tell me about myself? It might teach you profound truths about your own fears and struggles; or you may even realize that you don't really care for your job, that your true calling lies elsewhere. Or you may discover some uncomfortable truths about yourself, which give you new awareness, and a new vision for life. You resolve to make a fresh start. You have reached back in time to transform that slumbered hour into a wake-up call for a new way of living.
Or you have an argument, lose your cool, and speak those unforgivable words. The next morning you're friends again, agreeing to "forget what happened." But you don't forget. You're horrified by the degree of your insensitivity; you agonize over the distance that your words have placed between the two of you. You speak about it with your partner, you explore what happened. Your horror and agony make you realize how sensitive you truly are to each other, how much you desire the closeness of the one you love. Your subsequent conversation allow both of you to discover deep fears and traumas you are living with. You have reached back in time to transform a source of distance and disharmony into a catalyst for greater intimacy and love.
This is the meaning of the words of the Talmud: Sin, when followed by true and genuine repentance, is redefined by the experience of teshuvah. Because it is the sin that creates a thirst, a sensitivity, and an awareness of meaning that man was not aware of before. The very sins are now redefined into mitzvos, because the very negative act how now, retroactively, become a complete catalyst for a powerful and extraordinary relationship between this person and G-d.
Never a Slave
We are never slaves of our past.
You know the text message I received from a heavy smoker acquaintance: “I just read an article on the dangers of heavy smoking. It scared the daylights out of me. So that’s it: after today . . . no more reading!”
We are capable of a better future. But much more than that: We can go back in time and redefine the past! That is what real Teshuvah means. In fact, the word for “repentance” in Judaism is teshuvah, which means “return.” It allows me to return to that space of pain and redefine it retroactively. It is ability to defy the properties of time by editing or rewriting a “wasted,” or worse, “destructive,” piece of our life, thought to be beyond our control and reform.
Beyond Time
Still, how can a person really do this? It seems to defy the structures of time-space upon which our world is built?
The Rebbe presents the awesome answer. Teshuva means I align my life with G-d. G-d is beyond time, space and matter. The past, the present and future are one. (That is the very meaning of G-d’s name, Havaya). When I see myself as an aspect of the Divine, a ray of infinity, I can reach back in the past and rewrite, recode it, as though it a thing of the present or the future![6]
Albert Einstein taught us that time is relative. Where gravity is all powerful, space and time are redefined. All the laws of physics break down in Black Holes.
But when we return to the source of all gravity—to the cosmic womb, to the Creaor—here time not only slows down, and “1000 years is like a day,” but its limits disappear completely.
Herman Wouk
Which reminds me of a story:
Professor Herman Branover is a Russian-Israeli physicist and Jewish educator, known in the scientific community as the leading pioneer in the field of magnetohydrodynamics.
Over the years, Branover undertook to translate some of the fundamental works of Judaism into Russian.
At one point in his extensive publishing career he decided to translate a classic introduction to Judaism by the famed novelist Herman Wouk, titled “This Is My G‑d.”
Herman Wouk passed away this Friday, at the age of 103. He was a remarkable man. Considered one of the greatest writers of the past generation, he brought Judaism into mainstream America. He was a deeply religious and Torah observant Jew, and his book “This Is My G-d,” a popular explanation of Judaism, written for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, left a major impact on Americans and the world.
Herman Wouk’s literary career spanned nearly seven decades. When he appeared on the cover of Time in 1955, the magazine described Wouk’s blend of worldly success and Jewish religious observance as paradoxical. “He is a devout Orthodox Jew who had achieved worldly success in worldly-wise Manhattan while adhering to dietary prohibitions and traditional rituals which many of his fellow Jews find embarrassing,” the article said.
At the time, Wouk’s fame seemed like an incredible feat for an Orthodox Jew. Unlike other Jewish novelists, who had focused on Jewish immigrant culture and tended to portray religious Judaism as foreign and exotic, Wouk made Jewish religious observance appear mainstream in his books. Scenes of a Passover seder and a bar mitzvah service became scenes of middle-class American life in “Marjorie Morningstar.”
Fellow Jewish novelists like Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer viewed Wouk as conforming to middle-class American values that prioritized marriage, family, religion and service to country. Not only did he stay married to the same woman for more than six decades, but Wouk expressed pride in his military service, for which he received a U.S. Navy Lone Sailor Award. Wouk in turn saw the others as bowing to fashionable literary trends of rebellion and shocking readers.
Wouk used his fame to draw attention to his little-understood religion. Serialized in the Los Angeles Times, “This Is My God” introduced readers to such the laws of kashrut and family purity and the holidays of Sukkot and Shavuot. The book showed, through anecdotes from Wouk’s glamorous Manhattan life, that it was possible to be both a modern American and a Torah Jew. It was an incredible contribution.
At a time when Jews still encountered quotas at universities and discrimination in hiring and housing, Wouk’s example provided inspiration. “This Is My God” became a popular bar mitzvah and confirmation gift for young Jews of all movements.
So Herman Branover wanted to translate it into Russian.
Before doing so, he had occasion to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe for a private audience. One of the things he brought up was his plan to have the book translated into Russian. He presented the Rebbe with an English copy of the book, whose cover read in big words:
This is My God
Herman Wouk
It looked like this:
The Rebbe chuckled and asked: “This is my G‑d, Herman Wouk?” He then continued seriously: “With Mr. Wouk’s permission, I would encourage you to change the title. There is a possibility, however remote, that a Russian Jew ignorant of his or her religion might mistake the author for the subject of the book.”
The Russian Jew, ignorant of all religion—credit to the Communists—might think you are trying to say that Herman Wouk is your god…
With Mr. Wouk’s permission, and based on his suggestion, the book’s title was changed to: “Remember Your Grandfather.”[7]
Yet, on a deeper level, real Teshuvah affords us the opportunity to align our lives with G-d, and hence, reach out into the past, as though it was a thing of the present or the future.[8]
No Before
Ah! Now we can understand why it is this mitzva which is the source of the principle that “there is no before or after in the Torah.”
For there is no more appropriate place than this story of teshuvah to record events non-chronologically. For is not the unique capacity of teshuvah its ability to transcend the boundaries of time? to help me reach a space where the past is not really the past?
“There is no before or after in the Torah” contains a life-changing existential messsage. When you align your life with the Divine Torah, there is no “before” and “after” in life. You must never say, “Oy, this is a lost situation.” This is something I did in the past and it is beyond repair. No! Through the Torah, we are given the ability to go back and rewrite all of time.
Pesach Sheni was written in the “wrong order.” For that is its entire message: There is never a completely wrong order.
Beyond Torah
This explains the unique circumstances under which the institution of the Second Passover became part of Torah, not through an original law, but through the human outcry. For this mitzvah cannot be revealed through the ordinary channels of Torah law.
Torah is the articulation of the divine will via a body of 613 commandments and prohibitions. In other words, the very definition of Torah is that there are certain things that G-d desires that we do, and certain things which He desires that we not do. So if Torah defines a certain deed or situation as contrary to the divine will, it cannot subsequently regard it as positive and desirable.
G-d can provide a formula for repentance; but it can see no way of escaping the fact that the person has transgressed the divine will. At most, it can forgive the deed and reconnect the person to his source of life. But it cannot change the negativity of sin.
Teshuvah, in its ultimate sense of return to redefine and transform the negativity of a past deed or state, can only come from G-d Himself -- from a place in Him which supersedes His articulation of His will via the commandments of the Torah. It can only come from the source of Torah; from a place beyond the confines of law, where the negative can be redefined as positive!
So the Second Passover, with its premise that nothing is beyond rectification, could not have entered our lives through the conventional chain of command of Torah. It took a small group of Jews, contaminated by death and languishing on a distant road, to elicit the gift of teshuvah from the Almighty.
Their cry of "Why shall we be deprived?", expressing a depth of yearning for attachment to G-d that only their currently distant state could have evoked, prompted G-d to supersede the formulation of His will as articulated in the Torah and grant them a mandate to redefine the past with a second Passover.
Conquering Inflation
That is why the Second Passover can tolerate chametz in the home.
Leaven, dough that has risen and inflated, represents the tendency of the human ego to rise and swell. Leaven must be completely eradicated from our premises, since a risen ego is the source of vanity, selfishness and stupidity. The Talmud goes so far as to say that G-d says of the egotistical person, "He and I cannot dwell in the same world."
The baal teshuvah, however, is one who, having already wandered off into the forbidden realm, now exploits these negative elements and experiences to fuel his quest for divine life. In his home, leaven and matzah both reside; what is beyond the ken of the tzaddik and his first Passover forms an integral part of the baal teshuvah's service of G-d.
On the Second Passover, there is no need to banish leaven from our homes. All parts of our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly, can be liberated and aligned with the oneness of G-d.[9]
[1] Pesachim 6b
[2] See Likkutei Sichos vol. 23 and vol. 18 Behaaloscha; vol. 32 Pesach Sheni. My thanks to Rabbi Yanki Tauber and Rabbi Mendel Klamanson for their rendition of the talks on Chabad.org. I copied parts of their essays.
[3] Hayom Yom, 14 Iyar.
[4] This is the questions of the Maharsha to Yuma 86b. Cf. Likkutei Sichos vol. 17 Parshas Acharei.
[5] Tanya ch. 7
[6] That is why our Sages say that "In the place of the Baal Teshuva, the recovered addict, the transformed sinner, even the greatest Tzadik, the perfect saint, cannot stand.” (Talmud Berachos 34)
[7] In this video, 10 Shevat, 5735, meeting with Wouk, the Rebbe praises the book: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/2843983/jewish/Theres-a-Great-Thirst.htm
[8] Likkutei Sichos vol. 6 Parshas Vaeira.
[9] One of the primary differences between the two Passovers is that the first is followed by a seven-day festival, while the Second Passover is but a single day. The number 7 signifies a process, a routine, a natural course of action. G-d created the world in seven days and thereby stamped a seven-day work/rest cycle into the very fabric of the natural reality. The heart of man possesses seven major attributes. The seven-day Passover represents the step-by-step accomplishments of the tzaddik.
Not so the baal teshuvah, the one who strays from the natural course of his soul and then rebounds with a thirst for life that only those who have wandered in a deathly wasteland can experience. The Talmud (Avoda Zarah 17a) tells the story of Elazar ben Durdaya, a man who transgressed virtually every sin in the book. One day, a harlot said to him, "Elazar ben Durdaya could never repent." The recognition of how far he had gone shook him to the very core of his soul; "he placed his head between his knees, and wailed and sobbed until his soul departed from his body." Upon hearing the story of this man, Rabbi Judah HaNassi wept and said: "There are those who acquire their world through many years toil, and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment.”
The essence of teshuvah is a single wrench of self, a single flash of regret and resolve. There are those who acquire their world in many years, said the greatest tzaddik of his day, building it brick by brick with the conventional tools of achievement; and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment -- in a single instant that molds their future and redefines their past.
Teshuvah is about returning to the singular source of all reality—where there is only ONENESS. And hence, even the sin, becomes transformed into the mitzvah. All is seen from the Divine perspective.
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Pesach 5779
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- May 17, 2019
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- 12 Iyyar 5779
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Herman Wouk’s This Is My G-d
Back to the Future: Do I Really Have a Second Chance?
Rabbi YY Jacobson
- May 17, 2019
Summary:
There is something strange about the story of Pesach Sheni, which we will celebrate this week.
When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later? Why did this mitzvah come only through human petition, unlike all other mitzvos?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover. The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises. Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house." Why the difference?
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers. This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach. Why?
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.
Herman Wouk, the legendary religious Jewish novelist, passed away on Friday, at the age of 103. But when they wanted to translate This Is My G-d to Russian, the Rebbe suggested a name change.
The Second Pesach
The fourteenth day of the month of Iyar (this year, it is on this coming Sunday) is Pesach Sheini, the "Second Passover."
When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, this day served as a "second chance" for those who were unable to bring the Passover offering on the eve of the "first" Passover one month earlier, the 14th of Nissan. Today, we mark and commemorate the date by eating matzah (in the same way that we eat the afikoman-matzah at the Passover seder in remembrance of the Passover offering. We also do not recite Tachanun, the daily confessions.)
How did this unique “second chance” holiday come about? Indeed, it has no parallel to any other Jewish holiday? With every other holiday, you missed it, you missed it. What made Passover unique, to actually receive this gift of a second Passover, a Pesach Sheni?
The answer is related in the portion of Behaaloscha, in the 9th chapter of Numbers. The Torah relates the circumstances that led to the institution of the Second Passover. On the 1st of Nissan in the year 2449 from creation (1312 bce), two weeks before the first anniversary of the Exodus,
G-d spoke to Moses in the Sinai desert ... saying: "The children of Israel should prepare the Passover [offering] at its appointed time. On the fourteenth of this month, in the afternoon ... in accordance with all its decrees and laws...."
There were, however, certain persons who had become ritually impure through contact with a dead body, and therefore could not prepare the Passover offering on that day. They approached Moses and Aaron ... and they said: "We have become impure by contact with a corpse. Why should we be deprived, and not be able to present G-ds offering in its time, amongst the children of Israel?"
And Moses said to them: "Wait here, and I will hear what G-d will command concerning you."
And G-d spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Any person who is contaminated by death, or is on a distant road, whether among you now or in future generations, shall prepare a Passover offering to G-d. They shall prepare it on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the second month, and shall eat it with matzahs and bitter herbs...." (Numbers 9:1-12)
Why Wait for the Question?
There is something strange about this story.
Virtually all of the mitzvot of the Torah were unilaterally commanded by G-d to Moses. The law of the Second Passover, instituted in response to the outcry of those who protested, "Why shall we be deprived?" is one of the few cases in which a mitzvah was elicited from G-d by a petition from mortal men.
Why wasn't the provision for a Second Passover included in the Torah's initial legislation of the laws of Passover? When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later?
G-d certainly knew that some Jews are not in a position to bring the offering. So why didn’t He include this detail in the original law?
Why Embrace Chametz?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover.
The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises.
Already when we offer the first Passover offering, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nissan, we are forbidden to own chametz.
Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house."
Why the difference?
Out of Order
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers
This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach (On the first day of the second month, G-d tells Moses to take a census of the Jews).
Why, ask the commentators?
Their answer falls back on a common principle: “There is no before or after in the Torah.” That is: not all of Torah was written chronologically. In fact, this very principle about Torah is derived from this textual location of Pesach Sheni in the biblical text.[1]
The obvious question, though, is why the Torah chooses to place specifically this story out of order. There has to be some reason why you would want it out of order? The story could have easily been transcribed
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.[2]
Never Too Late?
The significance of the Second Passover is one message: “it is never too late.”[3] I can always rectify, in some way, a past failing. Even if a person has failed to fulfill a certain aspect of his or her mission in life because he or she has been, as it was that story, "contaminated by death" (representing, on a spiritual level, someone in a state of disconnection from the divine source of life) or "on a distant road," symbolizing someone who fell distant from his people and G-d, there is always a “Second Passover” in which we can find healing and repair.
But how? Can I always fix my past? What if I made big mistakes? What I neglected some serous duties? What I did some really stupid things in my youth? What if I was ignorant, dysfunctional and overwhelmed, and I behaved in a clueless fashion? What if I burnt so many bridges? What if I spent 15 years as an addict? Is it really “never too late?”
Of course, I can apologize, and I must apologize, I ought to express remorse, make good on what I can, make mends, face up to my mistakes, ask forgiveness, and resolve not to do it again.
With good inner work and serious therapy, I may find recovery, and reinvent myself, not allowing my past traumas and sins to become my eternal destiny.
But can we really believe, that “it is never too late?” I can take accountability for the future, changing what will be. But the past seems lost forever! It is what it is, as the slang goes.
Yet this is the revolutionary idea of the Second Passover—even if you have failed, you still can reclaim your Passover. The past is not lost. But how so?
Says the Talmud:
יומא פו, ב: אמר ריש לקיש גדולה תשובה שזדונות נעשות לו כשגגות... גדולה תשובה שזדונות נעשות לו כזכיות... לא קשיא כאן מאהבה כאן מיראה.
Reish Lakish said, that Teshuvah (repentance, or return) is great, for as a result ones deliberate and intentional sins are transformed into merits!
Yet, this seems strange. How can it be?
This seems so unfair. How can a sin, a mistake, a betrayal, become a merit? How can my transgression become a positive experience? It is almost as if the sinner is benefitting from the sins of his past life! Why should the sinner profit?[4]
I could entertain the idea that when a person repents, we dismiss his or her previous errors and sins. When someone hurts me and then says I’m sorry, I can forgive him and dismiss the wrongdoing considering it an unfortunate mistake. But how does it suddenly become a mitzvah? Yesterday I ate pork; today I repent with love and the eating of the pork becomes suddenly a mitzvah?! Yesterday I lied, and today I repent with love, and the lying becomes a merit? What is the mechanism for this? What is the justification for this?
The tzaddik, the good Jews who never sinned, can at most observe 613 mitzvos. He can by no stretch of the imagination observe even one more mitzvah than 613. Yet the sinning Jew, he or she—if they repent in love—can amass hundreds of thousands of mitzvos, because every sin they have ever done can be transformed into a mitzvah! Is this sensible?
Jealous
A story:
Once Rabbi Levi of Berdichev met an infamous sinner in the street. The Berdichever was known to always find and accentuate the positive in every person and every experience. So this sinner, trying to mock at the good innocent rabbi, says to him: So Rebbe, you have any nice and kind words to say to a sinner like me?
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak told him: "You know something? I am jealous of you! After all, the Talmud says that after you do Teshuva, after you return to G-d with love, your deliberate sins will become merits! Imagine how many merits you will have!"
The man replied: "Really? Come back to me next year, and you will have much more to be jealous of!"
But in the end, Rabbi Levi Yitzchk’s words touched the person. He truly repented, and lived up to the Berdichever's hope for him.
The Catalyst
The explanation for this takes us to heart of recovery and the idea has first been articulated in the Tanya.[5]
When I repent out of love, not just out of fear, then what happens is that my very negative experience becomes part of my new relationship with G-d, with truth, with my soul. The very sin I have committed now becomes part of my love; it allows me to experience a far more mature, sober, deep love and appreciation for the truth.
Take an addict who undergoes real recovery and truly surrender to the Higher Power. What happens in the process is that the very addiction, the very negative experience, confer upon the recovering addict a depth and a sensitivity that another person who has not endured the pain of deception and the pain of denial and the pain of addiction cannot experience. The addiction, the betrayal, and the depression itself becomes the starting point and springboard for a whole new depth and passion in living.
A Moral Lesson
The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.
Kathy said, "My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the pickup when we hit a bump in the road and all the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess." "And what's the moral of the story?" asked the teacher. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!" "Very good," said the teacher.
Next little Lucy raised and hand and said, "Our family are farmers too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. We had a dozen eggs one time, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks and the moral to this story is, don't count your chickens until they're hatched." "That was a fine story, Lucy."
Nicholas, do you have a story to share?" "Yes, ma'am, my daddy told me this story about my Aunt Barbara.
Aunt Barbara was a flight engineer in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whiskey, a machine gun and a machete. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break, and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops. She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets, then she killed twenty more with the machete till the blade broke and then she killed the last ten with her bare hands."
"Good heavens," said the horrified teacher, "what kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?"
"Stay the hell away from Aunt Barbara when she's been drinking.”
This is true in each of our lives. We make mistakes, we fail, we sometimes make the wrong choices. Yet, Judaism teaches, that we can turn around and redefine the very sins and mistakes we made into unforgettable teachers that continue to inspire our new discovered commitments and changes. Our very downfalls then become springboards which prove to be sources of elevation for us.
Two Stories
There's a story told about the legendary head of IBM, Thomas Watson. On one occasion a senior manager made a serious business mistake that cost the company ten million dollars. Watson summoned him to his office. "I guess you want my resignation," the manager said. "Are you crazy?" Watson replied. "We've just spend ten million dollars educating you."
A story:
A young chemist had been working for some time at developing a new bonding agent, a glue. After years of hardship, the work was complete. He tried it out. It did not stick. What is the use of glue that does not stick? Most people would have called this a failure, . Aa disappointment. Time wasted. Effort spent in vain. The young chemist thought otherwise.
Instead of deciding that his work was a failure, he asked, “What if it is a success? What if I have discovered a solution? The only thing left to do is to find the problem.”
He refused to give up. He kept asking himself, “What is the use of an underachieving adhesive?” Eventually he found it. It became a huge commercial success. They're little and they stick — but not too hard. That is how the “Post-It” Notes were invented!
This is true concerning every negative experience in life. A missed flight cannot be unmissed; a harsh word uttered to a loved one cannot be unspoken. But the MEANING of these events can be changed. We can literally travel back in time to redefine the significance of what occurred.
Rewriting the Past
You oversleep, miss that flight, and never show up for that important meeting. The initial significance of that event: Your boss is furious, your career suffers a serious setback, your self-esteem plummets. You look in the mirror and say: I am a loser. But you may also go back to the event and allow it to trigger some profound questions. You ask yourself: What does it mean? What does it tell me about myself? It might teach you profound truths about your own fears and struggles; or you may even realize that you don't really care for your job, that your true calling lies elsewhere. Or you may discover some uncomfortable truths about yourself, which give you new awareness, and a new vision for life. You resolve to make a fresh start. You have reached back in time to transform that slumbered hour into a wake-up call for a new way of living.
Or you have an argument, lose your cool, and speak those unforgivable words. The next morning you're friends again, agreeing to "forget what happened." But you don't forget. You're horrified by the degree of your insensitivity; you agonize over the distance that your words have placed between the two of you. You speak about it with your partner, you explore what happened. Your horror and agony make you realize how sensitive you truly are to each other, how much you desire the closeness of the one you love. Your subsequent conversation allow both of you to discover deep fears and traumas you are living with. You have reached back in time to transform a source of distance and disharmony into a catalyst for greater intimacy and love.
This is the meaning of the words of the Talmud: Sin, when followed by true and genuine repentance, is redefined by the experience of teshuvah. Because it is the sin that creates a thirst, a sensitivity, and an awareness of meaning that man was not aware of before. The very sins are now redefined into mitzvos, because the very negative act how now, retroactively, become a complete catalyst for a powerful and extraordinary relationship between this person and G-d.
Never a Slave
We are never slaves of our past.
You know the text message I received from a heavy smoker acquaintance: “I just read an article on the dangers of heavy smoking. It scared the daylights out of me. So that’s it: after today . . . no more reading!”
We are capable of a better future. But much more than that: We can go back in time and redefine the past! That is what real Teshuvah means. In fact, the word for “repentance” in Judaism is teshuvah, which means “return.” It allows me to return to that space of pain and redefine it retroactively. It is ability to defy the properties of time by editing or rewriting a “wasted,” or worse, “destructive,” piece of our life, thought to be beyond our control and reform.
Beyond Time
Still, how can a person really do this? It seems to defy the structures of time-space upon which our world is built?
The Rebbe presents the awesome answer. Teshuva means I align my life with G-d. G-d is beyond time, space and matter. The past, the present and future are one. (That is the very meaning of G-d’s name, Havaya). When I see myself as an aspect of the Divine, a ray of infinity, I can reach back in the past and rewrite, recode it, as though it a thing of the present or the future![6]
Albert Einstein taught us that time is relative. Where gravity is all powerful, space and time are redefined. All the laws of physics break down in Black Holes.
But when we return to the source of all gravity—to the cosmic womb, to the Creaor—here time not only slows down, and “1000 years is like a day,” but its limits disappear completely.
Herman Wouk
Which reminds me of a story:
Professor Herman Branover is a Russian-Israeli physicist and Jewish educator, known in the scientific community as the leading pioneer in the field of magnetohydrodynamics.
Over the years, Branover undertook to translate some of the fundamental works of Judaism into Russian.
At one point in his extensive publishing career he decided to translate a classic introduction to Judaism by the famed novelist Herman Wouk, titled “This Is My G‑d.”
Herman Wouk passed away this Friday, at the age of 103. He was a remarkable man. Considered one of the greatest writers of the past generation, he brought Judaism into mainstream America. He was a deeply religious and Torah observant Jew, and his book “This Is My G-d,” a popular explanation of Judaism, written for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, left a major impact on Americans and the world.
Herman Wouk’s literary career spanned nearly seven decades. When he appeared on the cover of Time in 1955, the magazine described Wouk’s blend of worldly success and Jewish religious observance as paradoxical. “He is a devout Orthodox Jew who had achieved worldly success in worldly-wise Manhattan while adhering to dietary prohibitions and traditional rituals which many of his fellow Jews find embarrassing,” the article said.
At the time, Wouk’s fame seemed like an incredible feat for an Orthodox Jew. Unlike other Jewish novelists, who had focused on Jewish immigrant culture and tended to portray religious Judaism as foreign and exotic, Wouk made Jewish religious observance appear mainstream in his books. Scenes of a Passover seder and a bar mitzvah service became scenes of middle-class American life in “Marjorie Morningstar.”
Fellow Jewish novelists like Roth, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer viewed Wouk as conforming to middle-class American values that prioritized marriage, family, religion and service to country. Not only did he stay married to the same woman for more than six decades, but Wouk expressed pride in his military service, for which he received a U.S. Navy Lone Sailor Award. Wouk in turn saw the others as bowing to fashionable literary trends of rebellion and shocking readers.
Wouk used his fame to draw attention to his little-understood religion. Serialized in the Los Angeles Times, “This Is My God” introduced readers to such the laws of kashrut and family purity and the holidays of Sukkot and Shavuot. The book showed, through anecdotes from Wouk’s glamorous Manhattan life, that it was possible to be both a modern American and a Torah Jew. It was an incredible contribution.
At a time when Jews still encountered quotas at universities and discrimination in hiring and housing, Wouk’s example provided inspiration. “This Is My God” became a popular bar mitzvah and confirmation gift for young Jews of all movements.
So Herman Branover wanted to translate it into Russian.
Before doing so, he had occasion to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe for a private audience. One of the things he brought up was his plan to have the book translated into Russian. He presented the Rebbe with an English copy of the book, whose cover read in big words:
This is My God
Herman Wouk
It looked like this:
The Rebbe chuckled and asked: “This is my G‑d, Herman Wouk?” He then continued seriously: “With Mr. Wouk’s permission, I would encourage you to change the title. There is a possibility, however remote, that a Russian Jew ignorant of his or her religion might mistake the author for the subject of the book.”
The Russian Jew, ignorant of all religion—credit to the Communists—might think you are trying to say that Herman Wouk is your god…
With Mr. Wouk’s permission, and based on his suggestion, the book’s title was changed to: “Remember Your Grandfather.”[7]
Yet, on a deeper level, real Teshuvah affords us the opportunity to align our lives with G-d, and hence, reach out into the past, as though it was a thing of the present or the future.[8]
No Before
Ah! Now we can understand why it is this mitzva which is the source of the principle that “there is no before or after in the Torah.”
For there is no more appropriate place than this story of teshuvah to record events non-chronologically. For is not the unique capacity of teshuvah its ability to transcend the boundaries of time? to help me reach a space where the past is not really the past?
“There is no before or after in the Torah” contains a life-changing existential messsage. When you align your life with the Divine Torah, there is no “before” and “after” in life. You must never say, “Oy, this is a lost situation.” This is something I did in the past and it is beyond repair. No! Through the Torah, we are given the ability to go back and rewrite all of time.
Pesach Sheni was written in the “wrong order.” For that is its entire message: There is never a completely wrong order.
Beyond Torah
This explains the unique circumstances under which the institution of the Second Passover became part of Torah, not through an original law, but through the human outcry. For this mitzvah cannot be revealed through the ordinary channels of Torah law.
Torah is the articulation of the divine will via a body of 613 commandments and prohibitions. In other words, the very definition of Torah is that there are certain things that G-d desires that we do, and certain things which He desires that we not do. So if Torah defines a certain deed or situation as contrary to the divine will, it cannot subsequently regard it as positive and desirable.
G-d can provide a formula for repentance; but it can see no way of escaping the fact that the person has transgressed the divine will. At most, it can forgive the deed and reconnect the person to his source of life. But it cannot change the negativity of sin.
Teshuvah, in its ultimate sense of return to redefine and transform the negativity of a past deed or state, can only come from G-d Himself -- from a place in Him which supersedes His articulation of His will via the commandments of the Torah. It can only come from the source of Torah; from a place beyond the confines of law, where the negative can be redefined as positive!
So the Second Passover, with its premise that nothing is beyond rectification, could not have entered our lives through the conventional chain of command of Torah. It took a small group of Jews, contaminated by death and languishing on a distant road, to elicit the gift of teshuvah from the Almighty.
Their cry of "Why shall we be deprived?", expressing a depth of yearning for attachment to G-d that only their currently distant state could have evoked, prompted G-d to supersede the formulation of His will as articulated in the Torah and grant them a mandate to redefine the past with a second Passover.
Conquering Inflation
That is why the Second Passover can tolerate chametz in the home.
Leaven, dough that has risen and inflated, represents the tendency of the human ego to rise and swell. Leaven must be completely eradicated from our premises, since a risen ego is the source of vanity, selfishness and stupidity. The Talmud goes so far as to say that G-d says of the egotistical person, "He and I cannot dwell in the same world."
The baal teshuvah, however, is one who, having already wandered off into the forbidden realm, now exploits these negative elements and experiences to fuel his quest for divine life. In his home, leaven and matzah both reside; what is beyond the ken of the tzaddik and his first Passover forms an integral part of the baal teshuvah's service of G-d.
On the Second Passover, there is no need to banish leaven from our homes. All parts of our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly, can be liberated and aligned with the oneness of G-d.[9]
[1] Pesachim 6b
[2] See Likkutei Sichos vol. 23 and vol. 18 Behaaloscha; vol. 32 Pesach Sheni. My thanks to Rabbi Yanki Tauber and Rabbi Mendel Klamanson for their rendition of the talks on Chabad.org. I copied parts of their essays.
[3] Hayom Yom, 14 Iyar.
[4] This is the questions of the Maharsha to Yuma 86b. Cf. Likkutei Sichos vol. 17 Parshas Acharei.
[5] Tanya ch. 7
[6] That is why our Sages say that "In the place of the Baal Teshuva, the recovered addict, the transformed sinner, even the greatest Tzadik, the perfect saint, cannot stand.” (Talmud Berachos 34)
[7] In this video, 10 Shevat, 5735, meeting with Wouk, the Rebbe praises the book: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/2843983/jewish/Theres-a-Great-Thirst.htm
[8] Likkutei Sichos vol. 6 Parshas Vaeira.
[9] One of the primary differences between the two Passovers is that the first is followed by a seven-day festival, while the Second Passover is but a single day. The number 7 signifies a process, a routine, a natural course of action. G-d created the world in seven days and thereby stamped a seven-day work/rest cycle into the very fabric of the natural reality. The heart of man possesses seven major attributes. The seven-day Passover represents the step-by-step accomplishments of the tzaddik.
Not so the baal teshuvah, the one who strays from the natural course of his soul and then rebounds with a thirst for life that only those who have wandered in a deathly wasteland can experience. The Talmud (Avoda Zarah 17a) tells the story of Elazar ben Durdaya, a man who transgressed virtually every sin in the book. One day, a harlot said to him, "Elazar ben Durdaya could never repent." The recognition of how far he had gone shook him to the very core of his soul; "he placed his head between his knees, and wailed and sobbed until his soul departed from his body." Upon hearing the story of this man, Rabbi Judah HaNassi wept and said: "There are those who acquire their world through many years toil, and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment.”
The essence of teshuvah is a single wrench of self, a single flash of regret and resolve. There are those who acquire their world in many years, said the greatest tzaddik of his day, building it brick by brick with the conventional tools of achievement; and there are those who acquire their world in a single moment -- in a single instant that molds their future and redefines their past.
Teshuvah is about returning to the singular source of all reality—where there is only ONENESS. And hence, even the sin, becomes transformed into the mitzvah. All is seen from the Divine perspective.- Comment
Class Summary:
There is something strange about the story of Pesach Sheni, which we will celebrate this week.
When G-d initially told Moses about he Passover offering that year, He could have added, that those who can’t do it on the designated day, will have a second chance a month later? Why did this mitzvah come only through human petition, unlike all other mitzvos?
There is another strange law regarding this second Passover. The first Passover wages an all-out war on all leavened substances: not only is the eating of any form of leaven severely forbidden, but every last speck and crumb must be banished from our premises. Not so on the Second Passover. Although the Passover offering is eaten with the unleavened matzah, there is no need to rid ourselves of leaven; in the words of the Talmud: On the second Passover, "leaven and matzah are with him in the house." Why the difference?
There is also a textual anomaly associated with the biblical story of the Second Passover, recounted in the book of Numbers. This story took place in the first month of the second year from the great exodus from Egypt. What’s puzzling is that the opening passage of the Book of Numbers, which is recorded before this story, takes place in the second month of that year, a full month after the story of the Second Pesach. Why?
It was at a Pesach Sheni gathering, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe presented a most beautiful and inspiring explanation to these anomalies.
Herman Wouk, the legendary religious Jewish novelist, passed away on Friday, at the age of 103. But when they wanted to translate This Is My G-d to Russian, the Rebbe suggested a name change.
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