after the aegument between the 2 pieces of logic as to which holiday gives the 3 aliyos and which the final, the gemara decides in favor of r. yitzchak's point of view but gives no reason. Why is his idea more persuasive? Tosafot deals with this but I don't understand his answer. Any help and additional info would be appreciated.
Dan Rosen, Teaneck, NJ
1. The Gemara tells us that Rebbi Mani said that Rebbi Yitzchak Nafcha's reasoning (that 3 people are called up for the Rosh Chodesh reading and 1 for the Chanukah reading) is more logical because it follows the principle that "Tadir v'she'Eino Tadir, Tadir Kodem" -- if there is a conflict between an occurence which is more frequent and an occurence which is less frequent, the rule is that one favors the more frequent occurrence. Therefore, Rebbi Yitzchak Nafcha maintains that we read 3 from Rosh Chodesh because Rosh Chodesh is more frequent than Chanukah.
2. The Ritva writes that the reason why the Halachah follows Rebbi Yitzchak Nafcha is that "Tadir v'she'Eino Tadir..." is a better rule. This means that although one reasoning was offered by Rebbi Abin for why we should call up 3 for the Chanukah reading and only 1 for the Rosh Chodesh reading (namely, because it is only on Rosh Chodesh that we call up 4 people, so it follows that since the 4th Aliyah is caused only by the fact that it is Rosh Chodesh, the 4th Aliyah is appropriate to the reading of Rosh Chodesh), nevertheless the "Tadir v'she'Eino Tadir" logic is stronger than Rebbi Abin's logic.
3. The reason why it is better logic is that the rule of "Tadir v'she'Eino Tadir, Tadir Kodem" comes up many times in Shas (for example, this is the reason why in Kidush every Friday night we first say the blessing on the wine and only afterwards say the blessing on the holiness of the day of Shabbos; see Berachos 51b), whereas the idea that the 4th Aliyah was caused only by Rosh Chodesh comes up only in the Gemara here. It is preferable to follow a major Halachic principle rather than follow an isolated Sevara of Rav Dimi and Rebbi Abin here.
4. Tosfos here (DH v'Hilchesa) does not actually give a reason for why we read 3 for Rosh Chodesh. Rather, he deals with the question why the Gemara needed to say explicitly that the Halachah here follows Rabah against Rav Yosef. Do we not know that there is a general rule in Shas that the Halachah always follows Rabah wherever he disagrees with Rav Yosef, so it should not be necessary for the Gemara to say this again! Tosfos answers that since there are other Amora'im mentioned in the Sugya apart from Rav Yosef who also maintain that we call up 3 for the Chanukah reading, it is necessary for us to be told that the Halachah follows Rabah even though he is being opposed by these other Amora'im as well.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom