[Avodah] When did Ta'anis Esther begin?

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, March 1, 2007 3:13 pm, R David E Cohen wrote:
: Here's my own theory:
: From the Mishnah and Tosefta, one gets the impression that the mitzvah of
: mikra Megillah is by daytime only, and that like most mitzvos `aseih
: shehazeman gerama, women are exempt...
: R' Yehoshua` ben Levi tells us that one is obligated to read at night (since
: the Jews cried out at night also -- "velailah lo dumyah li"), and that women
: are obligated (since they, too, were included in the miracle).  Perhaps this
: reflects a different, later takanah of Chazal, which gave the observance of
: Purim the additional aspect of attempting to relive the experience that the
: Jews went through....

Which would explain the mitzvah miDivrei Soferim to be limited to men during
the day. If bedi'avad, a woman read megillah for men the night of Purim, would
they be yotz'im?

: If this correct, perhaps one could suggest that Ta`anis Esteir was not part
: of the original observance of Purim, but came as part of the "reliving the
: experience" framework of this later takanah...

As I joined the bandwagon on the "bizmaneihem" thread, it has to be a later
taqanah because Adar 13 is in Megillas Ta'anis as Yom Nikanor. This is a nice
explanation as to why they made the taqanah, and how the nature of the mitzvah
shifted.

In a way, it's a shift from Chanukah's pirsumei nisah to Pesach's "lir'os es
atszmo ke'ilo hu atzmo yatza".

Tir'u baTov!
-mi