The Torah provides for a Second Passover (Pesach Sheni), an opportunity to make up the paschal sacrifice prescribed on the 14th day of the month of Nisan: “Speak to the Israelite people, saying: Regarding anyone, whether you or your posterity, who is defiled by a corpse or is on a long journey and would offer a Passover sacrifice to God, they shall offer it in the second month, on the 14th day of the month, at twilight. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs” (Numbers 9:10–11).
Pesach Sheni was not part of the original festival cycle. It was introduced by special request for Israelites who were unable to participate in the paschal sacrifice on the appointed day. It falls exactly one month after the original festival.
Today, we don’t offer paschal sacrifices, so Pesach Sheni has less relevance in our religious lives. But the day is sometimes marked as an optimistic celebration of second chances. For the Zohar however, this story is more complicated, as it runs up against the Zohar’s understanding of sacred time.
Regarding the mitzvah to make a Second Passover for those who were unable (to participate in the first) or who were impure at the time:
If the inner meaning of Passover, the intimacy of trust (raza d’mehemnuta) with which the people of Israel engage, is dominant in Nisan, making that the time for joy and celebration, how is it possible for those who were unable or impure to celebrate it in the second month? The time has already passed.
Zohar 3:152b
The Zohar understands that cycles of sacred time reflect a shifting schedule of divine energies woven into the fabric of reality. At different times of the year, God makes different aspects of divinity available for us to engage with in trusting intimacy, what the Zohar calls raza d’mehemnuta. The timing of Passover, the Zohar contends, provides an opportunity to enter the presence of the divine queen, God’s indwelling presence on Earth, the sefira of Malkhut. That particular aspect of divinity is available for intimate encounters specifically on the full moon of Nisan. But as time flows, the divine energies change. The aspect of God that was ripe for connection (recall that the Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, literally means “connector”) on the 14th of Nisan is not necessarily available a month later. So how can a paschal offering be made at that time? The Zohar offers the following explanation:
Once Knesset Yisrael is adorned with her crown in the month of Nisan, she is not deprived of her crown and her adornments for 30 days. For 30 days following the day the people of Israel ended Passover, the queen sits bedecked in royalty, and her forces all celebrate. Whoever wants to see the queen (during this time) may see the queen.
Zohar 3:152b
Knesset Yisrael, literally the Community of Israel, is one of the symbols the Zohar uses to identify the tenth sefira, a cluster of symbols that also includes Earth, Moon, Night, the divine presence in the world, the divine feminine, the divine bride, the divine kingdom, Shekhinah, the queen and many more. It is this aspect of divinity that is accessible to us and which we celebrate on the 14th of Nisan. The Zohar imagines that during the week of Passover, the queen is adorned in her crown and invites her subjects into her presence, a notion that takes inspiration from Exodus 34:23, which employs regal reception imagery: “Three times a year all your males shall appear in the presence of the master, YHVH, the God of Israel.”
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In his commentary Nitzotzei Zohar, Rabbi Reuben Margolies points out that the Zohar’s image of Passover as the crowning of a queen (and, as we’ll see in a moment, adorning of a bride) draws on earlier rabbinic sources. The Talmud states that a bride can continue wearing her wedding finery for a month following her wedding, even if a period of mourning occurs during that time. Her right to wear this finery for a full month overrides the usual mourning practices (Ketubot 4a). In a post-talmudic responsum attributed to Rav Hai Gaon (Sha’arei Teshuva,336) this teaching is evoked to justify the practice of making a Second Passover. In other words, the Zohar is adapting both the image of Passover as a royal audience with God and the later image of Passover as a wedding day.
For our purposes, the important element the Zohar takes from Rav Hai’s responsum is that the bride’s celebration is not limited to the wedding itself. Passover may be akin to the week-long wedding festivities, but the talmudic source teaches us that the bride’s celebration continues for an entire month. This means that Pesach Sheni is the culmination of that special time, the last chance for the divine bride-queen to receive well-wishers.
A herald announces: “Anyone who was not able to see the queen should come and see her before the gates are locked!” When does the herald make this announcement? On the 14th day of the second month, when the gates are still open for seven days. After that, the gates will be locked. This is the meaning of the Second Passover.
Zohar 3:152b
For the Zohar, holy time is not a sequence of specific days scattered throughout a non-holy year. It is rather an ebb and flow of different opportunities to connect to aspects of the divine, peaking in the times we identify as holidays, but present below the surface both as a buildup to the holiday (discussed elsewhere) and as an afterglow. The heavenly herald calling people to the Second Passover is not announcing a new holiday. She instead reminds us that even 30 days out, we are still within the flow of divine opportunity, even as it fades into something new.
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
