Echoes of the Past
Second Chances
Pesach Sheini, family memory, and the work that hope asks of us.
· From the Lag BaOmer print edition
A second chance
The Chumash records an encounter that offers a lesson about second chances. In Bamidbar (9:6 et seq.), a group approaches Moses with an unusual request: Disqualified from offering a Paschal lamb (according to some commentators, they were transporting Joseph’s disinterred remains), they ask, “Why should we be left out?” Moses turns to G-d for guidance, and His answer is one of comfort, redemption, and inclusion: Within the month, there will be Pesach Sheini, a second Pesach — a second chance. It is a surprising outcome, as Jewish law usually takes an easier yet no less compassionate view: אונס רחמנא פטריה — where an unavoidable circumstance prevents fulfillment of a mitzvah, the Merciful One exempts the obligation. But here, the Merciful One offers a second chance.
Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) was a Russian-American photographer best known for his photographs of Central and Eastern European Jewish communities on the eve of the Holocaust. Vishniac captured 16,000 images during several trips to communities including Bratislava, Kraków, Warsaw, and Łódź. All but 2,000 of his pictures were confiscated and lost. His photos include indelible images of scholars and tradesmen, schoolboys and young women — all on the brink of unanticipated disaster. They included Nat Gutman, a bank cashier fired for being a Jew; Henryk Schwartz, who lost most of his family but survived; and a community of Carpathian Jews — “woodcutters, log carriers, and raftsmen.” Vishniac remembers, “As I shared a meal with the workers, I listened to one of the men comment on the Merkava, the mystical concept of the celestial chariot . . . Another discussed Jewish Gnosticism . . . Later, an admirer of Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk showed how to move a five-hundred-pound log to the sawmill using wooden sticks.”
I own three volumes of Vishniac’s photographs. One, Children of a Vanished World, features photos of children alongside lyrics of Yiddish folk songs. In my house, these books rest horizontally on a shelf, and I treat them like Bibles: no other book is placed atop them.
When memory becomes present
We rarely eat out on Shabbos or holidays, but we were invited for lunch on October 7, 2023. As we walked past one of the shuls, a friend slid up to me and whispered, “Israel is at war.” I imagined a limited border incursion. I could not have been more wrong. News and images of Hamas’s brutality were not long following: The murderers used GoPros to post their massacres on social media. Killings. Torture. Rape. Mutilation. Burnings. Suddenly Vishniac’s books, particularly his images of children fatally unaware of what awaited them, were no longer records of an unrecurring history.
In the days immediately following, there were great global outpourings of sympathy for Israel — mostly. And I saw multiple social media postings warning “Never Again is Now!” I thought it was hyperbole. Overreaction. Yes, October 7 was shocking. Proportionally, it was worse than 9/11: if the rates of murder and kidnapping were applied proportionally to the United States, it would amount to 40,000 killed and 8,000 kidnapped.
But did I really believe it heralded a new Holocaust? We would be battle-tested, yes, but we would survive.
Pesach Sheini is unique among time-bound mitzvos. A person who for good or lesser reasons misses shofar on Rosh HaShanna is compelled to wait until the following year. Chanukah candles are lit for eight nights, but not nine or more. The Sefer HaChinuch, a 13th-century Spanish exploration of the Torah’s commandments, offers insight that justifies the motivation of the men who confronted Moses and why they were offered a second chance. The author characterizes the Passover sacrifice as a “strong and clear signal” of the miracles G-d wrought at the Exodus: Who split the sea. Who provided manna. Who sustained Israel in the desert for 40 years. The author declares this “a firm pillar of our faith” — הוא העמוד החזק באמונתנו — and that no accident or incident should prevent a person from meriting engagement with it על כן היה מרצונו ברוך הוא לזכות במצוה זו הנכבדה כל איש מישראל, ואל יעכביהו אונס וריחוק מקום מעשותו. And that is what sets Pesach (and Pesach Sheini) apart — it is not simply a ritual of memory but rather a living reflection of our founding moments from which no one should be excluded.
What did others know?
As the child and grandchild of Jews who through G-d’s kindness escaped Nazi Germany, and as the great-grandchild and cousin once removed of fathers and mothers and sons and daughters who perished in Lublin, Riga, Auschwitz, and Terezín, I often scanned U.S. newspaper headlines from the 1930s and 1940s. As a kid discovering microfiche, I would spin reels and ask myself, “Who knew what, and when? What were the signs?” I knew what my parents in Germany had seen: My mother, a kindergartener when the Gestapo harassed her mother daily over the whereabouts of my grandfather, who had managed to escape; my father, who on Kristallnacht watched the neighborhood shul burn while German firemen calmly hosed down adjacent buildings so those structures would not catch an errant spark. I knew what my parents knew. But what did others know, and what did others do?
On October 9, a friend in Israel made an unknowingly prescient observation in an ordinary Facebook conversation. He called October 7, “The great unraveling.” He was right. In the first three months following October 7, antisemitic attacks in England increased more than 600%; in France, nearly 1,000%; in the United States, nearly 360%. Two-and-a-half years later, the trend continues with attacks on synagogues in Canada; torching of Jewish ambulances in England; a mass Chanukah shooting in Australia; and an attack on a Jewish preschool in Michigan. In the aftermath of Michigan, there was unironic relief that armed guards killed the terrorist, because it is matter of fact now that Jewish schools, houses of worship, and community centers require armed security.
The work of hope
Rashi, the 11th century commentator, explains that Pesach Sheini was destined to be given; G-d knew the answer before the question was asked. But G-d waited until the people who asked for it stepped forward — because טובה באה על ידי זכאי, good things come about through the virtuous. The second chance was waiting, only for someone to earn it.
To earn. To work. To be rewarded for that work. The prophet Jeremiah recalls G-d’s response to Rachel’s tears on the road to Bethlehem: “Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for you will be rewarded for your deeds, שכר לפעולתך… ושבו בנים לגבולם, your children will return to their land” (Jeremiah 31:14–16).
R. David Stavsky (d. 2004) cites a midrash that explains G-d withheld mercy until Rachel cried, and asks: What is the שכר לפעולתך to which Jeremiah refers? Rabbi Stavsky explains a Talmudic teaching in Shabbos (31a) that enumerates the questions we will be asked as we pass from this world to the next. Among them is צפית לישועה — “Did you hope for redemption”? That work is as important as the other listed tasks that include honesty in business and setting aside time for Torah study. And the reward for the hope of redemption — ויש תקוה לאחריתך — is “ושבו בנים לגבולם your children will return to their land.” But that hope must be active. The prophet’s use of פעולתך, from פעל — to do, to work, to act — demands it.
To be sure, redemption is included among the 13 Articles of Faith. Like the “second chance” Pesach Sheini, it is a foregone conclusion. But like the first Pesach Sheini, G-d holds it in reserve, waiting for the right people at the right time. As Rashi encourages, טובה באה על ידי זכאי, good things come about through those who merit it. And as Rabbi Stavsky reminds, the שכר לפעולתך requires work.
How that work manifests derives from each actor. And the collective impact of those efforts will be reflected in tomorrow’s headlines that future children will review. And with G-d’s mercy, that work, שכר לפעולתך, will leave today’s headlines as the last of their kind.
טובה באה על ידי זכאי. Our second chance is waiting.
About the author
Josh Seidemann
Josh Seidemann is a telecommunications attorney, writer, and Vice President of Policy and Industry Innovation at NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association. His work focuses on federal regulatory policy and the technologies shaping rural communities. He leads research for Smart Rural Community, exploring how broadband supports agriculture, education, health care, and economic opportunity. He has served on industry bodies administered by the FCC, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, state governments, and universities. His Washington Jewish Journal essays bring Jewish texts into conversation with history, family memory, and contemporary life.
