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Six Months Ago, the World Was a Different Place. in Jewish Circles, We Had Just Celebrated Purim and Were Making Our Plans to Celebrate

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Six Months Ago, the World Was a Different Place. in Jewish Circles, We Had Just Celebrated Purim and Were Making Our Plans to Celebrate Six months ago, the world was a different place. In Jewish circles, we had just celebrated Purim and were making our plans to celebrate Pesach: We were arranging Seders, figuring out who was coming to whose house, working on travel plans, making food lists, and thinking about cleaning our houses. At Or Atid, we had great plans for our congregational 2nd Seder. It was going to be a fully in-house Seder, sponsored by, and prepared by, our own members. And then we had to shut everything down. Travel was cancelled, family and communal Seders were scrapped, and cleaning our houses took on a whole new meaning. The Seder is the most celebrated Jewish home-ritual, with the biggest at-home gatherings of any Jewish holiday. Liberal Jews adapted Pesach, creating large family Seders over Zoom. It was obviously not ideal, but we found ways to be connected, even as we were forced to be distanced. Our 2nd night Seder became an interactive Zoom experience from our individual homes. It was wonderful to see those dozen boxes on my computer screen, in which nearly 25 people celebrated our journey from slavery to freedom together. To echo my sentiments from yesterday’s sermon, I imagined previous Seders in the Jewish experience, like the one in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews gathered underground with a piece of bread, the night before they revolted against the Nazis, or during times of persecution in Medieval Europe, where Jews feared an attack by local Christians because of the libelous accusation that Jews used the blood of Christian children to make matzah. Compared to that, sitting at a table full of food in front of a computer screen wasn’t so bad. After the shut downs began, and in the weeks preceding Pesach, before we knew how long we would need to be in isolation, there was a lot of chatter on Jewish social media about whether or not this would be the time to enact Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni occurs on the 14th of Iyar, one month after the day that the Pesach offering was to be sacrificed in the Temple. In the Book of Numbers, chapter 9, we find the Israelites about to celebrate the first anniversary of leaving Egypt, and their second time celebrating Pesach. The Torah tells us that there were some men who were ritually impure and could not participate in the offering. They ask Moses, “why should we be restricted from offering the Pesach sacrifice, when this is the set time that all Israelites are supposed to do it?” The date of Pesach is fixed, recalling an historical event, the day that Israel left Egypt. Because of the importance of this day in Israelite memory, one might think that Moses would have immediately said, “Sorry you’re gonna miss out, guys, but them’s the breaks.” Instead he says, “Good question. Let me check with the Boss and see what He says.” Moses’ response implies that he understands that there can be flexibility in Torah, even within divine law given at Sinai. This sets a revolutionary precedent for amendments to the Sinai covenant. Even more surprising, or maybe not so surprising given what we know about the flexibility of Jewish tradition, God responds positively to the petition, and even adds another circumstance. God enumerates that if anyone is in a state of ritual impurity, or on a distant journey, and cannot be present to offer the Pesach sacrifice, it can be done on the 14th of the following month. This is a remarkable accommodation to a human need on God’s part, when things do not go according to plan. The law of Pesach Sheni does not apply in its truest sense in modern times because we have no Temple and we do not sacrifice the Pesach offering any longer. However, some Jews in modern times specifically eat matzah on the 14th of Iyar as a remembrance of the Pesach offering that could have been offered on this day. When our communal Seders were cancelled from their set date, some suggested that we hold them on Pesach Sheni this year. This did not happen for a number of reasons: we would have to clean our homes again, we would have to place Pesach restrictions on our homes and diets that were not required and would be a great inconvenience, and most importantly, we still couldn’t gather in early May. Even it was impossible to have a Seder on Pesach Sheni, this proposal was consonant with what the Torah presents us: a Pesach Do- Over, another chance to celebrate the holiday when things don’t go according to plan. Similarly, these High Holy Days are not ideal, and as much as we are doing to make them feel as meaningful as possible, we all must acknowledge the painful realization that they are just not what we want them to be. I’m sure all of us has memories of playing ball as children. It would eventually happen that somebody would hit the ball into the trees, to be lost until a great search for it had been dispatched. But you didn’t want to wait for somebody to get the ball, you wanted bring out a new one and get started again. And so, someone would inevitably yell “do- over!” The game would restart as if the event that derailed it never happened. Do-overs are not just in the realm of childhood fantasies or antiquated laws in the Torah that can no longer be practiced. When things don’t go according to plan, do-overs are built into the cycles of the Jewish year, and the themes of the High Holy Day season recur, reminding us that we are frequently given opportunities for renewal, recognizing God’s created world, and repenting and returning to our best selves. In fact, every day has the potential to be a do-over. One of these do-overs is called Yom Kippur Katan, the small Day of Atonement. The observance of Yom Kippur Katan is believed to have originated in the 16th Century in the mystical circles of Rabbi Moses Cordovero. The Book of Numbers tells us that a sin offering was sacrificed on Rosh Ḥodesh, the first day of a month. Some have the practice of observing the day before Rosh Ḥodesh as a Yom Kippur Katan, preparing oneself for the coming of a new month by fasting, confession, and giving tzedakah. Tradition also teaches that one’s wedding day is a Yom Kippur Katan. The Talmud (Yevamot 63b) explains that a wedding couple receives atonement for all previous transgressions. In practice, the couple traditionally fasts from dawn until the festive meal after their wedding ceremony, and recites the same confessional recited on Yom Kippur. Furthermore, the season of repentance can extend beyond Yom Kippur. A few days after the Day of Atonement comes Sukkot, where we dwell in temporary huts, which represent the homes our ancestors lived in after they left Egypt, as well as God’s protective embrace. Just as we have ideally mended the rifts between ourselves and God, and between ourselves and others on Yom Kippur, on Sukkot, we are ready to emerge and complete the process by embracing the physical world, and welcoming back our family and friends into our lives. Sukkot completes what began on Rosh Hashanah. And yet, according to tradition, the High Holy Day season also might end on the final day of Hanukkah. You heard that right. The season of repentance can last four months. Our Torah reading on the eighth day of Hanukkah states “zot ḥannukat hamizbayaḥ.” “This is the dedication of the altar.” (Num. 7:54), or as tradition reads it, “zot Ḥannukah.” “This is Hanukkah.” The sages connect the word zot, “This” to a prophecy from Isaiah, “b’zot yekhupar avon ya’akov…” “With ‘this’ the sins of Jacob are purged.” (27:9), where Jacob is a collective name for the Jewish people. By lighting a full menorah on the last night of Hanukkah, we once again complete the process of repentance, and this last day of our festival of lights is a Yom Kippur do- over. But that is not the only way that Hanukkah is a do-over. As told by the Books of Maccabees, the Maccabees could not celebrate Sukkot at its proper time because they were at war, and the Temple was controlled by the Greeks. After regaining access to the Temple, they purified it and celebrated Sukkot, the holiday of Temple dedication. This 8-day festival began on the 25th of Kislev, and was observed in the standard way of celebrating Sukkot: with the waving of palm branches and the singing of the psalms of Hallel. They then declared that this dedication ceremony was so important that it would be celebrated every year at this time in perpetuity. Hanukkah is a Sukkot do-over. Pesach marks the halfway point in the year between one Rosh Hashanah and the next. In ancient times, this was the first major holiday of the year, as the Torah calls this spring month “the first of months.” Remarkably, the ancient rabbis debate whether the world was created in Nisan in the spring, or in Tishrei in the autumn, and the discussion is left unresolved. Pesach resembles this time of year: the leavening we remove from our homes symbolizes the desire to remove our inner leavening, our arrogance, which has distanced us from God and others. Pesach and Rosh Hashanah are also connected in the way we observe them today.
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