[Avodah] Reading During the Day vs at Night

[Micha Berger]

Some research motivated by something I finally noticed in Mishnah Megillah
1:1. People from kefarim would be reading megillah on the market day. So
it hits me -- doesn't this imply that they only heard megillah during
the day, when they were in shul Mon or Thu morning?

Which got me looking at the origins and relative priority of daytime
and nighttime leining.

R Yehoshua b Levi (Megillah 4a) holds that the megillah is to be read
at night and lishnosah during the day.

Originally his students take this to mean leined at night and studied
during the day. Then R Chiya bar Abba clarifies that this is lishnosah
in the sense of repeated.

But there is no mention of megillah reading at night in the mishnah.
2:4-5 discuss when to read during the day. Mishnah 4 ends by saying the
time starts at amud hashachar, and mishnah 5 continues by saying the
whole day is kosher.

Then mishnah 6 seques into the length of time for mitzvos that are done
at night, but megillah reading -- our original topic, doesn't come up.

More, the Tosefta 2:4 explicitly says, "qeri'ah balaylah lo yatza yedei
chovaso"!

Therefore, the Turei Even (on 4a) concludes that leining during the day
dates back to the generation of Esther, but leining at night is a later
taqanah by Chazal.

The Binyan Shelomo (#58) goes further, saying it was RYbL in my opening
citation made that taqanah! (IMHO, it would explain why there was
confusion about what he meant. There was no memory from previous yeares.)

R Zvi Pesach Frank (Har Zvi OC 2:120) quotes the Binyan Shelomo and
rejects it. He cannot understand why there would suddenly be a need for
this taqanah 600 years later, when the Sanhedrin saw no need during all
the glory days of the BHMQ.

He brings a proof from the Ritva (4a) who addresses what I finally
noticed, and said that villagers would try to read the Megillah at home
the night of Purim.

Whereas RZPF quotes the Ran (1a) who says chazal's taqanah was to exempt
villagers from having to hear the megillah at night.

Both presume that nighttime reading was as old as daytime. Although I
would think that both are giving priority to daytime reading: the Ritva
by saying that nighttime reading wasn't important enough to get some
workaround, the way daytime reading did, and the Ran by saying that
Chazal thought the nighttime reading could be sacrificed, but not the day.

Ritva suggests that the villagers would try their best to read
the Megillah at home on the night of Purim (Ritva, Megillah 4a).
Ran suggests that the sages may have given the villagers an exemption
from the nighttime obligation (Ran, Megillah 1a).

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l