The last Rashi on the first Mishna, daf 2A: It is my understanding that Rashi is saying that we are not makdim from the closest Yom Hakenisa (Thursday) to the preceding Yom Hakenisa (Monday). What's Rashi's Hava Amina, we already know from the first line in the Mishna, that Adar 11 is the earlist possible date to read the Megilla !? I looked up R' Akiva Eiger's commentary on the Mishna, and he leaves this question with a Tzarich Iyun. Please enlighten me! Thank you
Stephan Azra, Brooklyn, NY USA
It seems to me that Rashi is not coming to teach us anything new, but to explain the first line in the Mishnah (on which you base your Kashya): Why is the earliest time that one reads the Megilah on the eleventh? Because to read it on the tenth, we would need to go back from Monday to the previous Thursday, which cannot happen because we are not Makdim from one Yom ha'Kenisah to another.
R. Akiva Eiger asks something else. His first question is that, based on the Gemara later, Chazal did not institute going back from Thursday to Monday because of 'Ein Makdimin ... '. In that case, he asks, why does Rashi cite it with regard to when the fourteenth falls on Monday, rather than on the case where it falls on Thursday (like the Gemara does).
Furthermore, he asks, according to the Maskana, that going back to the Yom ha'Kenisah is a concession to the villagers for providing the townspeople with water and food (a reason which Rashi hints at in DH 'Ela sheha'Kefarim), the reason of 'Ein Makdimin ... ' is no longer necessary, seeing as Thursday is itself as much Yom ha'Kenisah as Monday?
Perhaps I misunderstood R. Akiva Eiger's second question, but I would say that Rashi means precisely what he (R. Akiva Eiger) said. The only possibility of reading on the tenth would entail going back from Monday to Thursday, which would be pointless, since the latter is as much Yom ha'Kenisah as the former (as R. Akiva says). This will not of course, answer his first question.
The Tehilah le'Yonah, citing the Beis Yitzchak, answers R. Akiva Eiger's first question. Rashi, he says, is not coming to refute the possibility of reading on the tenth. He is coming to preclude the possibility of a second case of reading on the eleventh (besides when the fourteenth falls after Shabbos (on Sunday). Why, asks Rashi, does the Mishnah not also cite the case where it falls on Thursday ( before Shabbos), permitting the villagers to read on the previous Monday (the eleventh). And it is in this regard that he answers 'mi'Yom ha'Kenisah le'Yom ha'Kenisah Lo Makdemenan'.
Morever, the Beis Yitzchak says, when Rashi writes 'u'Tefei Lo Mashkachas Lei', he is referring to when the fourteenth falls on Monday, in which case the villagers do not read on Thursday, for the reason given in the Gemara (because the Chachamim did not institute reading on the tenth).
be'Virchas Kol Tuv
Eliezer Chrysler