민수기 9:7 해설: Rashi, Kli Yakar, Sforno & Or HaChaim

למה נגרע WHEREFORE ARE WE KEPT BACK? — He (Moses) had said to them, “Sacrifices are not permitted to be offered by anyone who is in a state of uncleanness”. They retorted, “למה נגרע” — Why should that prevent us? Let the blood be sprinkled on our behalf by clean priests, and let the flesh be eaten by the clean”. (i.e. let us partake of the flesh at night when we shall already be clean: see Note). Thereupon he said to them: “Stand still (i.e. wait a short time) and I will hear [what the Lord will command concerning you]” — he said this with confidence, like a pupil who is certain that he will get information from his teacher at any time. Happy, indeed, is a human being (lit., one born of woman) who may so confidently rely that at any time when he wishes to do so he may speak with the Shechinah! — This section, in fact, ought to have been said by Moses, just as all the other sections of the Torah, only that these men were privileged that it should be promulgated through their intervention, because “meritorious deeds are brought about by worthy men” (Sifrei Bamidbar 68; Bava Batra 119b).

Why should we be diminished so as not to offer… Some question: Was it unknown to them that a ritually impure person is prohibited from eating sacred foods? This is difficult according to the Talmud’s version (Pesachim 66b), which derives from the phrase any man that an individual is deferred to the second Pesach but not the community. However, according to the conclusion in the Yalkut (9:2) in the name of the Sifrei (and see Pesachim 77a and Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 7:4), from the redundancy of in its appointed time, we learn that a communal Pesach offering is brought even in a state of impurity — there is no difficulty. For after they heard the phrase in its appointed time, they said, Why should we be diminished from the community? And the answer came, Any man — specifically an individual is deferred, but not the community. And these men understood that when Moses said to the children of Israel to keep the Pesach at its appointed time — even in impurity — but did not say so to them specifically, it implied that he excluded them from the general rule. Otherwise, what was the purpose of saying to the children of Israel to keep the Pesach? They were already commanded and obligated to do so! Rather, it came to exclude the individually impure ones. Therefore they said, Why should we be diminished?

אנחנו טמאים לנפש אדם למה נגרע, seeing that the ritual impurity we have incurred was incurred in the process of our fulfilling a positive commandment, why should the result of this be the misdemeanour of not fulfilling such an important commandment as observing the Passover at the appointed time?