Shucks, it’s Cancelled (wink wink)

How do you feel when something is cancelled, thereby removing an obligation you had?

A typical kid is ecstatic when school is cancelled – he has the whole day to play. Even if he gets sick, he is happy because he has no obligation to sit in school.

I remember an incident about a quarter of a century ago when I was sleeping in my Sukkah at night. Unfortunately, I was all alone – my wife and young son were both sleeping inside. But then I suddenly felt some drops of rain. REAL RAIN. When it is raining, one is exempt from sleeping in the Sukkah, and so I leapt out of bed, took my pillow and sheet with me, and ran back to my “regular” bed in the master bedroom.

Let’s compare my behavior with the behavior of some men in this week’s parsha. They realized that because they were involved with a mitzvah of caring for a human corpse, they were considered “impure” and ineligible to bring the Pascal offering (which is brought on the day before Passover). This was the second time this offering was being brought, and the first time it was being brought in the desert. But these men couldn’t bring it.

They had a perfectly legitimate excuse, and Moses could have told them that they were exempt from bringing the Pascal Offering, and that they would not receive any punishment for failure to bring it (which is normally the case). But instead of accepting this fact, they questioned “Why should we be diminished by not being able to do this mitzvah?!” And because they had such a strong desire to do the mitzvah, Moses spoke directly to G-d and asked, “What should we do now?” to which G-d responded that He would create a “Second Passover” for these men who were contaminated through a human corpse.

Why is a child happy when he doesn’t have to go to school? Because he doesn’t value school. How about “Trip Day”? A child would be besides himself if he was sick on “Trip Day” and would do anything and everything in his power to prove that he was not sick so that he could go on the trip!

So too with mitzvahs. If we are happy because we are exempt from a mitzvah, it shows that we do not value the mitzvah.

But these men in the desert show us how we should treat the mitzvahs: We should value them so much that if we would be exempt from doing a particular mitzvah, we would try our best to figure out a way to do it anyway. And if it would really be impossible to do the mitzvah, then we should accept the status, but with regret that – in a sense – G-d is not allowing us to do the mitzvah.

May we all merit to understand the importance of the mitzvahs, and if we are exempt from a mitzvah, we should not celebrate, but instead should feel a sadness that we are not able to do it.