Jewish Holidays

The berakhot prepare us for the mitzva, focusing the reader and the listeners on fulfilling the mitzva and understanding its purpose: to remember and publicize the miracle that God performed for our ancestors.

Since Megilat Esther is referred to as a “letter,” it is customary to prepare the scroll for reading in public by spreading it out and folding it over. One may sit or stand while fulfilling the mitzva of reading the Megilla.

To fulfill the mitzva of reading the Megilla, one must read it from a kosher megilla that was written in ink on parchment. However, if the reader skips a word, or makes a mistake in one of the words that changes the meaning of the word, he has not discharged his obligation according to most poskim, and he must read the Megilla again properly.

Megilat Esther is considered holy writ; therefore, it must be written in the way a Torah scroll is written. When writing a Torah scroll, we make sure that all of its letters are written according to their exact configurations.

It is a mitzva to train children to perform mitzvot, and from the moment a boy or girl reaches the stage at which he or she understands the Megilla and can listen to it as halakha requires, one must train them to do so.

According to Rashi and Rambam, women and men are equally obligated in the mitzva to read the Megilla, and a woman may read the Megilla for her family. In contrast, Behag and Rabbeinu Ĥananel maintain that a woman’s obligation differs from that of a man: Men must read the Megilla, whereas women must hear it.

One must read the Megilla at night and again during the day, to commemorate the fact that the Jews cried out to God in their time of need during the day and at night .

Everyone is obligated in the mitzva of reading the Megilla: men, women, and converts. One who hears someone else read the Megilla discharges his obligation. The main purpose of reading the Megilla is to publicize the miracle and demonstrate that God rules and oversees the world, directing everything for the best.

There is a unique halakha pertaining to Purim: it has two dates. In most places, Purim is celebrated on the fourteenth of Adar, while in cities that were surrounded by a wall at the time of Yehoshua bin Nun, and in Aĥashverosh’s capital city of Shushan, it is celebrated on the fifteenth.

Even though the joy over the salvation was great, it was initially unclear how the event should be marked. Esther wrote to the Sages, “Write an account of me for future generations,” that is, write down the Purim story and include it as one of the holy books of the Tanakh.