This is an English translation of my annual dvar Torah for Pesach in memory of my son Niot z”l, whom we lost thirteen years ago during Pesach. The Hebrew original appears in this week’s issue of Shabbat Shalom the weekly Torah sheet published by Oz Veshalom, the religious peace movement. A pdf of the Hebrew version can be downloaded here. I’ll also post this essay on my South Jerusalem website, as soon as it is back in service. At the end of this essay I’m placing links to all the essays from previous years.
At the time of this writing, in January 2024, some 130,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes because of the war in Gaza and the threat in the north. The New York Times estimates that, as a result of the IDF’s bombings and ground invasion, some 1.8 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have had to flee their homes since Hamas’s the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023. This all began, on the Jewish calendar, on Shemini Atzeret, Simhat Torah—the last of the regalim, the pilgrimage holidays, of the month of Tishrei. This dvar Torah is appearing just before the next of the regalim, Pesach.
On the three regalim, we are commanded to uproot ourselves from our homes and go to Jerusalem to make the sacrifices associated with these holidays. But Pesach differs from the others in that a special law that applies to those who are already in Jerusalem. If they travel a distance away from the city, they are exempt from bringing the Pesach sacrifice on its prescribed date; instead, they incur an obligation to bring the sacrifice on Pesach Sheni, a month later: “One who was [ritually] impure or on a distant journey and did not observe [the] first [Pesaḥ] by participating in the offering of the Paschal lamb on the fourteenth of Nisan] should observe the second [Pesaḥ]” (Mishnah, Pesahim 9:1).
But what is a “distant journey”? In the next passage in the Mishnah [9:2], the Tana’im argue:
What is [the definition of] a distant journey? [Anywhere] from [the city of] Modi’im and beyond, and [from anywhere located an equal] distance [from Jerusalem and beyond] in every direction; [this is] the statement of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says: From the threshold of the [Temple] courtyard and beyond [is considered a distant journey]. Rabbi Yosei said to him: Therefore, [the word is] dotted over the [letter] heh [in the word “reḥoka” (distant)] to say [that the meaning of the word should be qualified: It should be understood that] it is not because he is really distant; rather, [it includes anyone located] from the threshold of the [Temple] courtyard and beyond.
The disagreement between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer seems, at first glance, to be a practical matter. Rabbi Akiva’s understanding is that the rule applies to a person who, on 14 Nissan, the day the Pesach sacrifice is brought, has traveled away from Jerusalem far enough that he will be unable to get back before the latest hour at which the sacrifice may be made. Or, in another reading, he finds himself at that distance already before 14 Nissan. Rabbi Eliezer argues that a person who is outside the Temple courtyard at the time that the Pesach sacrifices are made may also miss the appointed time, even if he is in Jerusalem—perhaps because something else, such as other obligations or illness, will delay him. Rabbi Yosei grounds Rabbi Eliezer’s position in the fact that, in the relevant verse from the Torah, the letter heh at the end of the word rehoka has dots over it.
The Mishnah, following the verses from the Torah, cites two circumstances under which a person is exempt from bringing the Pesach sacrifice on 14 Nissan and incurs an obligation to bring it a month later on Pesach Sheni: the person who is distant and the person who is ritually impure. The laws of impurity create a barrier between the impure person and the rest of his community. In some cases, the impure person is required to leave the community. In others he is not required to uproot himself in such an extreme way, but he is banished, both from society and from the observance of many commandments.
This indicates that there may be two reasons why a person may be unable to observe the commandment of bringing the Pesach sacrifice, and this principle may perhaps be applied to other commandments as well. There is a situation in which a person cannot observe the commandment on objective grounds. In the case of the Pesach sacrifice, this is the case in which he simply cannot physically get, at the assigned time, to the place that has been designated for the observance of the commandment. In contrast, there may be a subjective situation in which a person is not able to observe the commandment because he is mentally or emotionally distant from his home and community. He is physically located very near the Temple courtyard, perhaps can even see it with his eyes, but he cannot enter it.
I remember being in both these situations during the time I served as an IDF infantry reservist. During a month of active duty I was physically distant from home. But when my term of duty ended and I returned home, I always experienced (as did my wife and children) a period of several days during which my body had come home but my soul remained at a distance. Reservists who have served in recent months in the Gaza Strip, under conditions much harsher and for much longer periods than those I experienced, need a longer period of adjustment, and sometimes professional help.
The Gemara’s discussion of these Mishnaic texts amplifies the mental dimension as it seeks to define the distance from which a person is exempt from the Pesach sacrifice. It adduces verses from the Torah in support of Rabbi Akiva’s position. The verses come from the story of the escape from Sodom by Lot and his family. According to the first of these (Genesis 19:15), Lot fled Sodom at dawn: “And when dawn broke, the messengers urged Lot, saying ‘Rise, take your wife and your two daughters who are present, lest you be wiped out in the iniquity of the city.’” Subsequently, verse 23 relates that “The sun rose over the land and Lot came to Tzo’ar.” This, maintains the Gemara, indicates that Lot arrived in Tzo’ar at sunrise. R. Hanina says that he measured the distance himself at five mil, which supports R. Akiva’s position.
The choice of verses taken from this story is telling. Lot uproots himself from his home out of fear of the people of Sodom, and because of the warning of the messengers that God intends to destroy the city. He reaches Tzo’ar and then flees again, with his daughters, to the highlands above. In the wake of their ordeal and the death and destruction they witnessed, his daughters come to believe that the entire world has been destroyed and that only they have survived. They lose their moral compass and this leads them to commit incest with their father.
In his novella To This Time (Ad Henna), S. Y. Agnon tells a story based on his experience of living in Berlin as a refugee from Jaffa during World War I. He finds a room to rent in Berlin, but gives it up to set off on another journey, this time to Leipzig. When he returns, he has nowhere to lay his head:
This world is great and wide and there are many lands within it. In each and every land you find big cities and towns, houses and rooms. Sometimes a person lives in many houses, and sometimes many people live in one room. And we will tell of a man who had neither a home nor a room. That the place he had he set aside and the place he found for himself slipped from his hand. And he thus went from place to place and sought his place.
This year, many Israelis will have to celebrate the Seder far from home, physically and mentally. Some of them will still be hostages in Gaza, and some will gather around tables where a chair stands empty, waiting for one who has been abducted or in memory of one who has been killed. Some will still be evacuees from their homes. I pray that this will not come to pass, but it seems likely that each of us will still feel, each in his own home, from the shock of what we experienced on and since Shemini Atzeret, emotional distance from the security and serenity that home is meant to give us. As we take drops of wine from our glasses during the recitation of the Ten Plagues, we will ponder our justified battle to defend us, and the price we pay for uprooting so many people from their dwellings, their homes.
Today we do not have a Temple, or a Pesach offering, or Pesach Sheni. Rabbi Eliezer may have intended to offer a second chance for people who feels distant from the commandment to bring the sacrifice, even if they are in their homes, or with their families in Jerusalem. They could postpone their celebration of Pesach for a month, in the hope that by then their hearts will be in a place more congruent and in line with their physical location. We, in contrast, must observe Pesach on its prescribed date and cope with the difficulty as best we can. Let us hope that next year we can celebrate with hearts and minds that are at least a bit more whole.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Previous thoughts on Pesach in memory of Niot:
The Seder: Act One (2023)
The Hole in the Haggadah (2022)
Henry V’s Distressful Bread (2021)
How Should We Tell the Story? (2020)
The Four Slaves (2019)
The Third Child (2018)
Who Walks In? (2017)
The Missing Center (2016)
The Question of Questions (2015)
The Bitterness of Egypt (2012)