Parashat Emor has an interesting story, which is unusual for Sefer Vayikra in that there aren’t very many stories in this Sefer.
It was the one and only time Korban Pesach was offered in the desert.
There were two men who were contaminated, because they had been taking care of the dead, so they were ineligible to bring the korban.
They went to ask Moshe:
למה נגרע?
“Why should we lose out?”
Why should they be left out of doing this mitzvah?
So Moshe told them:
עמדו ואשמעה מה יצוה ה׳ לכם
Stand there (in prayer) and we’ll see what Hashem says.
Hashem told Moshe that they could make up the Korban Pesach on Pesach Sheni, the following month.
Pesach Sheni- a rain check!
This is the only “make-up date” for a mitzvah in the whole Torah. These two men, because of their yearning to do the mitzvah, brought this new parasha down from shamayim.
The rabbis learn tremendous lessons from this. The Pri Sadik says that we see from this story
אין ליהודי להתייאש משום דבר
A Jew never gives up hope
We see this physically, as the pasuk says,
אפי' חרב חדה מונחת על צוארו של אדם אל ימנע עצמו מן הרחמים
Even if a sharp sword is on your neck don’t give up hope or despair.
This applies spiritually as well. A person can feel that he really messed up spiritually, and might feel hopeless. But don’t despair. Hashem can always pull you out.
The whole foundation of the Jewish people came from what seemed like a position of total despair. Sara Imenu and Abraham Abinu:
The Midrash Tanhuma says Sara thought:
she thought she was too old to have children.
Hashem purposely made it hard for our founding fathers and mothers to have children, and then make miracles, in order to teach us that it’s never too late. It’s never over. There’s no despair. We should all look in the mirror because we are only here based on situations that seemed to start in despair.
This concept is demonstrated with a beautiful story.
During the times of the Chazon Ish there was a man who lost everything: his whole family, his entire community, in the Holocaust. He was broken, and didn’t want to continue living. He had given up hope.
Rabbi Galinsky brought the man to the Chazon Ish, who told him the following story:
There was a man who used to go to a fair annually, to buy goods that he would later sell to live off of for the entire year. One year he was sick and couldn’t travel, so he sent his wife, with instructions and money, to buy all the goods he needed.
In the commotion of the fair, she somehow misplaced the money he had given her. When she realized she lost the money that was to be used for their whole year’s parnasa, she screamed in panic and despair, and fainted, having given up any hope of getting the money back.
A few hours later a poor man found the money and told the local rabbi that he intended to keep it. The rabbi asked how he could do that. The man said he had seen the lady faint, and they all knew she’d made ye’ush/given up, so he was rightfully entitled by law to keep it. He cited Masechet Baba Mesia to make his point.
It was a question, so they went to the great rabbi of the town, Rav Yitzhak Elchanon Spector, who listened to the man’s claim. The rabbi then said the lady may have given up hope, but it wasn’t her money. It was her husband’s. You can’t give up hope on someone else’s money, the rabbi said. And since her husband hadn’t yet known about the loss, he certainly didn’t give up. Therefore the money went back to lady.
The Chazon Ish used this story to show the man that you can’t give up on yourself, because you don’t belong to yourself. You belong to G-d. G-d didn’t give up hope on you. He knows He can pull you out of anything. The man accepted the lesson, picked himself up, and went on with his life.
That’s the great lesson of Pesach Sheni. Don’t despair. Those men wanted it, and
G-d created the impossible. He created a make-up Korban Pesach for them.
We should remember this always, and especially at the time of Pesach Sheni