The articles in this column are transcriptions and adaptations of shiurim by Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, zt”l. The Rav’s unique perspective on Chumash permeated many of the shiurim and lectures he presented at various venues over a 40-plus-year period. His words add an important perspective that makes the Chumash in particular, and our tradition in general, vibrant and relevant to our generation.
This week’s dvar Torah is dedicated to Nitza and Russell Adler on the birth of their grandson Mordechai.
Rambam (Megillah 1:1) says that everyone is obligated to perform the mitzvah of kriyas haMegillah, including women, converts and freed slaves. Why are only freed slaves obligated? After all, Canaanite slaves have similar obligations to women, so why did Rambam omit them? (This is the only mitzvah that a woman is obligated to perform but an eved canaani is not.)
Also, why did Rambam mention converts explicitly? After all, converts are obligated in all mitzvos? Chazal derive from the words “kal hanilvim alayhem”in the Megillah that there was a special edict to include converts, including all future converts, who, apparently, otherwise would not have been included in the Mitzvas Purim. We do not find special mention of converts regarding other mitzvos. Why single out converts with regards to Purim? (Actually this question can be asked on the Megillah itself.)
The Megillah describes how the Jews were victorious in battle and how they came to enact the days of celebration after their victory. It is explicitly stated that the Jews outside of Shushan rested on the fourteenth day of Adar while the Jews of Shushan rested on the fifteenth. This was a spontaneous act of rest after the miracle of vanquishing their respective foes. The following year they celebrated on the same days as a minhag.
The Megillah later notes that Mordechai wanted to codify mandatory observance of these days as days of feasting and Yom Tov on all the Jews and on all those that joined them, kal hanilvim alayhem. Mordechai enacted the days of Purim as days of feasting and joy based on the minhag of the previous years that they had already established to celebrate these days. The distinction between when Chanukahand Purimbegin bears this point out. The Jews completed their victory and began their celebration immediately on the twenty fifth of Kislev. Purimis celebrated the day after the victory was concluded. Why not celebrate immediately after the victory on the thirteenth of Adar? Because our celebration of Purimis based on the minhag that Mordechai simply codified, that they rested on the day after the victory.
Since the celebration of Purimwas based on the minhag established by those that participated in the victory, anyone who did not participate in the festivities that first year would not be included in the obligation in subsequent years. Even though many people converted to Judaism in that period, “v’rabim misyahadim,” however these people did not fully share the great joy of the salvation of the Jewish nation from imminent destruction. They were mourning for the many members of their own (former) family who conspired to murder the Jews and were killed during the battle. That is why there was a need to enact a special edict to include converts in the celebration of Purim and for them to accept upon themselves to observe the mitzvah of kriyas Megillah and the days of Purim.
Only in his subsequent letter to codify the minhag did Mordechai seek to establish the days of Purim as days on which work was forbidden. In the same letter he sought to include the converts that did not participate in the celebration immediately after the great victory. Bnei Yisrael did not accept Mordechai’s request that they observe an issur melachah, prohibition against work, because that was not part of the original minhag. However, they did accept the days of Purim as days of feasting and happiness based on the minhag. They also accepted that all converts, including future generations, should celebrate Purim.
Had a convert been obligated in Purim because he is obligated in all mitzvos like any other Jew, then there would be no reason to exclude an eved canaani, who has the same level of observance as a woman, based on a gezeirah shava of lah – lah. Since the eved canaani was not included in the takanah of kol hanilvim, as only complete converts were, he is not obligated in megillah even though women are. However a freed slave was included in the takanah of kol hanilvim alayhem.