Second Chances (Shabbat B'ha'alotecha)

Wow. Take a look around! Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

After 14 plus months, we finally get to celebrate Shabbat in person again! How we’ve missed weaving our voices together in song; lifting up our prayers with the support of this beloved community.

And how fitting, this Shabbat, that we read about, what our ancestors did when they missed an opportunity to celebrate a holiday. Torah tells us as the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, there were some who, because they were far from the community, or had been close to a dead person, were not able to celebrate the holiday of Passover.

In response, God instructs Moses to give the people a second chance instituting in perpetuity something called pesach sheni, or “second Passover” one month after the date originally set for the holiday:

And God spoke to Moses…When any of you or of your descendants who are [near] a corpse or are on a long journey would offer a passover sacrifice to God, they shall offer it in the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight. (Num 9:9-11)

Over the last 14 months, we have all come to understand the challenge of celebrating when we are touched by loss – in the midst of our grief, our uncertainty, it is simply not possible, at times, to put on a smile and celebrate with our friends. But what about those on a long journey? Why are they granted a second chance when they missed the first? Shouldn’t they have planned better?!

The Hebrew here for “long journey” – b’derekh rechoka, can also mean “far off.” Our sages interpret this to include the person who is spiritually distant from their Source and from their community on the holiday.

In one way or another, we have all been “far off” unable to mark important moments in our lives and those of friends and family – birthdays and shivas, holidays and Shabbat, graduations and weddings – in ways that felt real, with a celebratory hug or comforting touch.

So Torah reminds us today we need not feel permanently exiled, like we missed out on something we can never make up.

Instead, God invites to come back, to try again another time. To those of us who sincerely seek it, God gives us a second chance, another opportunity for spiritual fulfilment. More important than doing things at the right time, is our willingness to try again later, to return to community as we’re ready and able.

Just as God gives us a second chance, on what I’m calling our “Shabbat sheni”, tonight’s make-up Shabbat, may we all give ourselves and each other another chance: I encourage you to reach out to new residents who missed the welcome they would have received were it not for the pandemic, to invite people to join you for dinner after our service is over, and find other ways to make up for lost time.

May you all feel yourselves spiritually renewed, connected to me, to yourselves and to this community, that, tonight, and in the weeks and months ahead, the time we’ve been apart comes to feel like no time at all.

Shabbat sheni shalom!