Megillah 2 – Days to read the Megillah

Purim happened on the fourteenths of the month of Adar; therefore, it is celebrated every year on this day, and in Jerusalem – on the fifteenth. However, sometimes for convenience the Megillah can be read on the eleventh, twelfth or thirteenth.

What is the source for making those "convenience" dates? – But first, what is the meaning of this question? Purim occurred long after the giving of the Torah; what source can there be in the Scriptures for it? – Here is what we mean: it was the Sages who established the fourteenth and the fifteenth as the day of celebration, based on the text of the Megillah itself. These same Sages must have added the provisions of the earlier days. What was their source?

Here, "To establish these days of Purim in their times," and the words "their times" indicate multiple days. "Their" gives two days, and "times" gives another two days. But we need five days total! That is because the thirteenth is when everybody came together to defend themselves, and it does not require a particular word to be added to the times of reading the Megillah. The Talmud quotes another phrase as the source and explains why these two opposing points of view do not agree.

These dispensations only existed when the Court adequately fixed the years, and the Jews lived in Israel. Later, people were calculating Passover dates as thirty days from Purim. Then they would read the Megillah only on the fourteenth of Adar. For cities that were walled in the times of Yehoshua (such as Jerusalem) – on the fifteenth.

Art: Two Jews Quarrelling by Alexander Orlovsky