One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
מְגִלָּה וַחֲנֻכָּה
Scroll of Esther and Hanukkah 1
Sefer Zemanim · The reading that suspends the Temple service and yields to one unburied stranger, a calendar anchored to walls that fell a thousand years before the miracle, and the day of largest attendance on which the scroll is not read at all
14
Adar, the day unwalled cities read the Megillah
15
Adar, the day cities walled since Joshua read
2000
Cubits within which nearby homes read with a walled city
10
Present, the minimum for any reading brought forward
Part 1The obligation, its rank, and who may carry it
- A rabbinic reading placed above the whole Torah, for an afternoon. Reading the Megillah at its time is a positive mitzvah of the Sages, known to have been ordained by the Prophets, binding on men, women, converts and freed slaves, with children trained in it; priests leave the Temple service for it, Torah study is set aside for it, and all other mitzvot are superseded by it. (1:1)
- The one thing it yields to. Nothing takes precedence over the reading except the burial of a met mitzvah, a corpse with nobody to attend to it; a person who encounters such a body buries it and reads afterward. (1:1)
- Obligation cannot be borrowed. One discharges the duty by reading or by hearing, but only from a reader who is himself obligated, so a listener who hears the reading of a minor or of one who is not competent has fulfilled nothing, however well it was read. (1:2)
- Night and day, and the blessings that differ between them. The entire scroll is read twice, the whole night being fit for the night reading and the whole day for the day, with three blessings before the night reading and two before the day, since the blessing over reaching the occasion is said once. (1:3)
- A closing blessing where the custom exists. In places accustomed to bless after the reading, the long blessing is recited over the One who fights our battles, executes judgment on our behalf and exacts payment from all our oppressors, the Rambam recording the practice as local rather than imposing it. (1:3)
RememberThe Temple service stops for the reading, and the reading stops for a dead man nobody claimed. The whole ranking exists to be interrupted by the one act with no audience.
Part 2Walls, villages, and a concession that no longer runs
- The wall that matters is the one from Joshua's day. A city walled in the days of Joshua bin Nun reads on the fifteenth of Adar even if no wall stands there now and is called a kerach, while a city unwalled then reads on the fourteenth even if a wall surrounds it today and is called an ir; Shushan reads on the fifteenth although unwalled in Joshua's day, because the miracle happened inside it. (1:4, 1:5)
- The anchor was chosen to honor ruins. The measure was set at Joshua's time rather than at the time of the miracle in order to give honor to the cities of the land of Israel, which lay destroyed when Purim occurred, so that they too would read on the fifteenth and the commemoration would carry a remembrance of the land. (1:5)
- Villagers were allowed to read early on a gathering day. Where people came to the synagogue only on Mondays and Thursdays, they read on the gathering day nearest the fourteenth; a fourteenth falling on Sunday moved the reading to Thursday the eleventh, on Tuesday to Monday the thirteenth, on Wednesday to Monday the twelfth, and no reading brought forward is valid unless ten are present. (1:6, 1:7)
- Too small to be a village. A place with no ten men free for communal needs counts as a village and reads on the gathering day, but a place that lacks ten adult men altogether is treated like a large city and reads only on the fourteenth, the difficulty producing its own solution. (1:8)
- And then the whole system is withdrawn. The early reading applied only when Israel ruled itself; in the present era the Megillah is read only at its appointed times, villages and unwalled cities on the fourteenth and walled cities on the fifteenth. (1:9)
RememberFour laws of careful machinery are laid out in full and then quietly retired in the fifth. Knowing the rule for villages is not the same as knowing whether it still runs.
Part 3Travelers, doubt, and the Sabbath the scroll is kept off
- The traveler's day follows what he intended. One who left an unwalled city for a walled one, or the reverse, reads on his home town's day if he meant to be back for the reading and was prevented, and reads with the place he is visiting if he did not mean to return until after it. (1:10)
- Houses seen together with a walled city belong to it. Homes adjacent to a kerach and visible together with it, no more than two thousand cubits away, are counted as part of the city and their inhabitants read on the fifteenth. (1:10)
- Genuine doubt is read twice and blessed once. Where it is unknown whether a city's wall stood in Joshua's day or was raised afterward, its inhabitants read on the night and day of both the fourteenth and the fifteenth, reciting the blessing only on the fourteenth, since that is when most of the world reads. (1:11)
- A leap year declared after the fact. If the Megillah was read in the first Adar and the court then proclaimed a leap year, it is read again in the second Adar at its proper time. (1:12)
- The reading is moved off the day the crowd is largest. It is not read on the Sabbath, by decree, lest a man who cannot read it carry the scroll four cubits in the public domain to somebody who can; a fourteenth falling on Shabbat sends unwalled cities to Friday and walled cities to Sunday, a fifteenth falling on Shabbat brings walled cities forward to Friday the fourteenth so that everyone reads on one day, and the laws of Purim are studied on that Sabbath instead. (1:13, 1:14)
RememberEveryone is obligated but not everyone is capable, so the reading is displaced from the easiest day in the year on account of one unnamed man's likely mistake.