Passover Offering, The

Why is this passage, which was said “on the first month” (9:1), recorded after Parshas Bamidbar, which was said “on the first day of the second month” (1:1)?

The rabbi asked, “Do you want to learn?” Shmuel replied, “No. But I want to want to learn.”

The leaders of the Jewish people at the time, the Sons of Betayra, could not decide. Hillel, alone amongst the sages, knew the answer to the question.

As strange as it may seem, the Israelites seem to have only observed Passover once during their 40-year sojourn in the desert.

A group of Jews had found themselves in a state which, by divine decree, absolved them from the duty to bring the Passover offering. Yet they refused to reconcile themselves to this.

When a person’s contact with death evokes in him a striving for life he would never have mustered without that experience, then the contact with death is transformed into a more intense involvement with life.