Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Emor

Far and Away

May 15, 2025

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yosef Greenwald

These are the appointed festivals of Hashem…

Vayikra 23:37

The Gemara (Psachim 3b) tells how R’ Yehudah ben Beseira, who was in Netzivin, was able to help the Chachamim in Yerushalayim catch a non-Jew masquerading as a Jew and illicitly eating from the korban Pesach. Tosfos wonders why R’ Yehudah ben Beseira had not gone to Yerushalayim himself to fulfill the mitzvah of aliyah leregel and offers multiple answers.

The Minchas Chinuch asks why Tosfos didn’t question the fact that R’ Yehuda didn’t bring a korban Pesach, though it, too, is obligatory. He answers that a person who was far from the Bais Hamikdash (“bederech rechokah”) on the fourteenth of Nisan (and on Pesach Sheini) does not incur kareis (excision) for not bringing the korban Pesach. In his view, kareis is only incurred for not bringing the korban Pesach if one is close to the Bais Hamikdash on Erev Pesach and does not bring the korban, but there is no transgression in not traveling there beforehand.

Perhaps the logic is that a standard case of bitul asei (failure to fulfill a positive mitzvah) is simply a missed opportunity. One who could have traveled to the Bais Hamikdash prior to Erev Pesach was mevateil an asei and missed the opportunity to perform the mitzvah. But he does not receive kareis unless he is in close proximity to the Bais Hamikdash on the fourteenth of Nisan and does not bring the korban, in which case he has actively broken his covenant with Hashem and is treated more severely than other cases of bitul mitzvas asei.