Pesach Shaynee – A Second Go-Round for Passover

May 10th, the 14th day of Iyar is called Pesach Shaynee – the “Second Pesach”. What is the concept of this “second chance Pesach”? The first Pesach that the Jews were in the desert a group of men did not get to bring the Paschal sacrifice because they were Tamei L’Mes — impure from touching a dead person. (A person who touches a dead body can’t bring a sacrifice – has to go through purification beforehand). So these men came to Moshe and said, “It isn’t fair – why should we lose out on this Mitzva just because we were doing the Mitzva of taking care of the dead.” Moshe tells them, “Okay, let me ask.” And G-d tells Moshe that when this happens, there is a Pesach Sheni – a second point in time, a month after the first Pesach, where all those who couldn’t bring the Paschal Sacrifice during Pesach can do this Mitzva and bring the Paschal Sacrifice a month later.

The question is this: why wasn’t this Mitzva of this “makeup sacrifice” given right away with the Mitzva of the first Pesach? Why wait until these men complained to give this Mitzvah? To teach us how our attitude to Mitzvos should be – -that when we can’t do one, we should feel like we are missing out on something. So because we should learn from their example, this Mitzva was not given until the folks said “we want this mitzvah”.

There is another lesson in the “second chance Pesach” that is very important to us to learn. That is that Hashem gives second chances at spirituality. There is no such thing as never being given a second chance at being close to G-d.

Now that we don’t have a Temple to bring a Paschal offering, in lieu of that, we eat our Matza. So, get yourself a bit of Matza and bite into the concept of second chances.