The mitzvot of Beha’alotcha

The commandment of the second Pesach on the fourteenth of Iyar

Positive · Numbers 9:11

The mitzvah of the Pesach offering is a strong and clear sign that the world was created, for at the Exodus God changed nature before the eyes of many nations, and all saw that His providence and power reach this world too. Just as the splitting of the sea and the manna were beyond nature, so is the creation of the world from nothing. Because this is a great foundation of the faith, God wanted every Jew to merit this mitzvah, and one who was prevented or far away in the first month performs it in the second.

The commandment that the second Pesach offering be eaten with matsot and marror

Positive · Numbers 9:11

The second Pesach flows entirely from the foundation of the first, whose root is that Israel should forever remember the great miracles God did for them at the Exodus from Egypt. So it too is eaten with matzot and bitter herbs like the first, so that the matzah and the bitter herbs stir the heart to remember the bondage and the redemption.

Not to leave any meat from the Pesach Sheni sacrifice to its morrow

Negative · Numbers 9:12

On the second Pesach, as on the first, none of the meat is left until morning, in the manner of kings and nobles who have no need to keep food from one day to the next. In this way it is fixed in our hearts that at that time God redeemed us, and we became free people who merited royalty and greatness.

Not to break a bone from the bones of the Pesach Sheni sacrifice

Negative · Numbers 9:12

It is beneath the dignity of princes to gnaw on bones and break them like the hungry, so on the second Pesach too, as on the first, it is fitting for us to act in ways that show the high rank we attained when we became a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. A person is shaped by his deeds, and through this act the matter is fixed in our souls forever.

The commandment of blowing the trumpets in the Temple and in war

Positive · Numbers 10:9

At the time of the offering the heart must be properly focused, and in a time of trouble a person needs great concentration in his prayer before his Creator. Being made of matter, man needs something to rouse him, and nothing rouses like the sound of music, above all the sound of the trumpets, the mightiest of instruments. Moreover, the powerful sound drives worldly thoughts from the heart, so that it turns only to the offering or to the prayer.