Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Beha’alos’cha

Question Time

June 4, 2026

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Rav Boruch Penfil

If any man will become impure through a corpse or will be on a distant road…he shall make the Pesach-offering for Hashem; in the second month, on the fourteenth day, in the afternoon, shall they make it…

Bemidbar 9:10-11

The Gemara (Psachim 6a) derives from here that “sho’alin vedorshin behilchos Pesach (we inquire into and expound the halachos of Pesach)” thirty days prior, because Moshe taught about Pesach Sheini on the 14^th of Nisan, thirty days before Pesach Sheini.

Many Rishonim explain this Gemara to mean that one must study the halachos of Pesach (sho’alin) and present shiurim about them (dorshin) beginning thirty days before. But the Ran notes that this appears to contradict the Gemara in Megillah 32a that says we learn the halachos of each Yom Tov on the Yom Tov itself (“hilchos chag bachag”), which implies that one need not study them beforehand. He therefore explains that sho’alin vedorshin means something else: If two people approach the rav with sheilos, any question about a Yom Tov within the next thirty days is considered timely and is addressed first.

Some mefarshim question the Ran from the Gemara in Psachim that derives from the din of sho’alin vedorshin that one who leaves home within thirty days before Pesach must perform bedikas chametz. According to the Ran, what is the connection? We can answer that the Ran holds that although there is no obligation to study the halachos then, the thirty-day period is connected to Yom Tov, which makes Yom Tov-related sheilos timely and requires travelers to do bedikah.