The Light of Second Chances

This year, May 10th is Pesach Sheini, the "Second Passover."  When the Temple stood in Jerusalem, Pesach Sheni was a "second chance" for those who were unable to bring the Passover offering the first time. Why are second chances so important? With self-doubt, insecurity, or ambivalence we often give up trying if we fail. And yet ... Thomas Edison struggled in school. His teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He met failure in his career too and was fired from his first two jobs. As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. Eventually he succeeded and invented the light bulb, the phonograph, the wireless telegraph, and much more. When Michael Jordan was cut from the high school basketball team he went home and cried. Over time he grew a few inches and kept practicing his skills with failure fueling his motivation. Several years later he was the NBA Rookie of the Year. In his career he won numerous championships and retired with the highest score in NBA history. Henry Ford failed five times in business. Despite being broke and a failure, he kept going and eventually founded the Ford Motor Company. His innovations in assembly lines made automobiles affordable for the first time to the average American. Theodore Geisel’s first book was rejected by 27 publishers. If he  hadn’t continued we still wouldn’t be reading children's classics such as “The Cat in the Hat” or “Green Eggs and Ham”. If we understand the importance of second chances then we might ask why wasn’t Pesach Sheni included with the original discussions of the Laws of Passover? Why did we receive this second chance only later? Rashi suggests a beautiful answer. G-d deliberately delayed the transmission of the laws of Pesach Sheini in order to reward the individuals who approached Moses with their concerns that they missed the Passover offering and wanted a second chance.  What a great message! If you want it, sometimes you need to ask. Pesach Sheni reminds us that “Nothing is ever lost: it’s never too late!” The previous Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak said, “The Second Passover means that it’s never a ‘lost case.’”There is always a Second Passover in which we can make good on what we missed the first time. Rabbi Aryeh & Rosie Weinstein