Commento su Esodo 12:25

והיה כי תבאן אל הארץ AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS WHEN YE BE COME TO THE LAND — Scripture makes the observance of this service dependent upon their entrance into the land of Palestine (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 12:25), and they were not under any obligation, when in the wilderness, to keep more than the one Passover which they kept in the second year after the Exodus (cf. Numbers 9:1—5), and that, too, only in consequence of a special divine communication. (Cf. Rashi on Numbers 9:1 and כאשר דבר (תוס׳ קיד׳ ל"ז ע"ב ד"ה הואיל

והיה כי תבאו אל הארץ, "It will be when you come to the land, etc." According to the plain meaning of the verse the commandment mentioned here does not apply until after the Israelites enter the Holy Land. If that were so, however, why did G'd appear to have changed His mind when He commanded the Israelites to observe the Passover in the second year of their wanderings in the desert "at the appropriate time and in all its details" (Numbers 9,1)?

והיה כי תבואו אל הארץ, “it will be after you will come to the land, etc” This spells out that the Israelites during their journey to the holy Land, were not required to observe the Passover rites and the festival as such, on the anniversary of their departure from Egypt. The Torah insists that the legislation will become effective immediately the people will cross the Jordan into the Holy Land, even if they have not yet conquered part of the land and settled there. This raises the question that the Torah reports in the Book of Numbers that on the first anniversary of the Exodus the Israelites did observe the Passover rites? (Numbers 9,1-8) The answer is simple. The observance of that Passover had to be especially legislated by G’d by special instruction to Moses. If it had been mandatory based, on what we have read here, why did G’d have to give instructions on that occasion that it be observed? Although Rashi says that the fact that the Israelites’ having observed the Passover rites in the second year when they were still encamped around Mount Sinai is detailed in the Torah was an implied rebuke, i.e. that only in that year did they offer the Passover, what rebuke was there for something they had not been asked to do in the first place? We may have to answer that what Rashi meant was that the Israelites had not been deemed fit to offer the Passover after the sin of the spies, a testimony to their having rejected the whole liberation from Egypt, and they had even wanted to appoint a leader to take them back there. [I elaborated somewhat. Ed.] Had the people not committed that sin, they would have been settled in their homeland already before another year had passed, so that no more than one Passover in the desert had ever been envisaged.