Siman 685, Se'if 7 · Background to the se'if

Shulchan Aruch, Siman 685, se'if 7
"There are those who say that Parshas Zachor and Parshas Parah Adumah are obligatory to read from the Torah itself. Therefore, residents of small settlements who do not have a minyan must come to a place where there is a minyan on these Shabbosos."
(Shulchan Aruch)

Background to the se'if

• An obligation mid'Oraisa: According to many poskim, the reading of Parshas Zachor is a Torah obligation. Therefore someone who has no minyan where he lives must take the trouble to travel to a place where there is one.
• Parshas Parah: Not all the poskim agree that its reading is mid'Oraisa, but since many hold that it is, we apply the rule that a doubt in Torah law is treated stringently. So for this reading too one should come to a town that has a minyan.
• What "remembering" means: The Torah says "Zachor," remember, and Chazal derived that this remembering is done by reading and speaking, that is, an active mitzvah of saying it with one's mouth. On the other hand, the parshah closes with "Lo tishkach," do not forget, and that is a matter of the heart: a prohibition against forgetting.

Which takes precedence, Parshas Zachor or the Megillah (Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 16)

Take a person who cannot be with a tzibbur on both occasions and has to choose: does he join the congregation on Shabbos Parshas Zachor, or for the reading of the Megillah on Purim?

• The advantages of Parshas Zachor: Its obligation is mid'Oraisa, and there is a special requirement to read it with a tzibbur, with ten men.
• The advantages of the Megillah reading: Its mitzvah is mid'rabbanan, and although there is the value of "b'rov am hadras melech," the glory of the King is in a multitude of people, one can fulfill the obligation even alone.

(Parshas Ki Seitzei also contains the verses of Zachor, but our discussion concerns someone who is already close to Purim, after Shabbos Parshas Ki Seitzei has passed.)

The view of the Terumas HaDeshen

• Parshas Zachor comes first: One should give preference to hearing Parshas Zachor with the tzibbur, for two reasons: its reading is mid'Oraisa, and its reading requires a minyan. The Megillah, by contrast, is a rabbinic obligation and can be read alone.

The view of the Magen Avraham

• Preference to the place where the Megillah is read: The Magen Avraham holds that it is better to come to a place where the Megillah is read publicly, and he does not lose out on Parshas Zachor, because under pressing circumstances he fulfills it with the Torah reading of Purim day.
• The reading of "Vayavo Amalek": On Purim there is a mitzvah to read from the Torah in addition to reading the Megillah, and we read in Parshas Beshalach: "And Amalek came and fought with Israel in Refidim," concluding with "a war for Hashem against Amalek from generation to generation." So in this reading too he mentions what Amalek did.

"With this too he remembers the deed of Amalek and fulfills his obligation."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 16)

• A double gain: According to this approach, by coming to the tzibbur on Purim he hears both the Megillah in public and a Torah reading about the wiping out of Amalek.
• The Magen Avraham's reasoning: The Torah says "Remember what Amalek did to you" without specifying which passage to read. It is therefore enough to read a passage that recounts the war with Amalek, and through it he remembers what Amalek did.
• The need for kavanah: The Mishnah Berurah points out that according to the Magen Avraham, and given that we rule that mitzvos require intent, when he hears this passage he must have in mind to fulfill the positive commandment of Zachor with it.

The Mishnah Berurah's objection to the Magen Avraham

"In my humble opinion, the essential ruling of the Magen Avraham requires further study."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 16)

"Remember what Amalek did to you... how he happened upon you on the way and cut down those lagging behind you... you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens, do not forget."
(Parshas Zachor)

• The content of the mitzvah: The point of Parshas Zachor is not merely to remember, but not to forget what Amalek did to us, and to tell it over to our children and to all our generations, to say to them: this is what that wicked one did to us, and this is why we were commanded to wipe out his name. So the Ramban explains in his commentary.
• The proof from the verses: The command "do not forget" is not addressed to the individual alone but to all of Klal Yisrael, and this element of transmitting the matter to the generations is not mentioned at all in Parshas "Vayavo Amalek," where only the battle itself is recounted.

The difference between the two passages

• Parshas Zachor - the command is directed at us: "for you shall surely wipe out the memory of Amalek," "do not forget." We are the ones commanded to remember, to wipe out, and to pass this on to the coming generations.
• Parshas Vayavo Amalek - there the battle is recounted, and it says "Moshe built an altar and called it Hashem Nisi," "a war for Hashem against Amalek from generation to generation," and "write this as a remembrance in the book and place it in the ears of Yehoshua." The command and the exacting of payment from Amalek are directed at the Holy One, blessed be He, and there is no command upon us to wipe out and to transmit to the generations.

(The Holy One, blessed be He, will also exact payment from other nations that oppressed Israel, but in Parshas Zachor the mitzvah is handed over to us, which is not the case in Parshas Vayavo Amalek.)

Further explanations in the words of the Mishnah Berurah

• The parable of the scalding bath (Rashi): Amalek is compared to someone who jumped into a scalding bath and cooled it off, showing all the nations that it is possible to come and fight against Israel. For this the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts payment from him, but that passage contains no command upon us to do anything.
• The mitzvah of chinuch: This does not mean that there is a mitzvah on Purim to tell the story to children the way there is on Pesach. Rather, included in "you shall surely wipe out" is an element of chinuch, of handing the matter down to one's children, so that they will know it and learn it while they are still young.

The practical conclusion

• The Mishnah Berurah's conclusion: One does not fulfill the obligation of remembering Amalek with the reading of "Vayavo Amalek"; one must hear Parshas Zachor itself.
• What to do in practice: Therefore, someone faced with this choice should stay with the tzibbur on Shabbos Parshas Zachor and hear it with ten men, and take the Megillah along and read it by himself, since the Megillah is rabbinic while Parshas Zachor is from the Torah.

One who cannot get to a minyan (s.k. 17)

"In any case they should be careful to read them with their melody and with their taamim."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 17)

• Where this applies: Sometimes it is simply impossible to reach a place with a minyan. Even so, he should read from a sefer Torah himself, and take care to read with the melody and the taamim, the cantillation.
• What "with their taamim" means: The taamim are not merely music. Some of them separate and some of them join. Someone who does not know where to pause and where to connect may be singing beautifully, but he is not reading correctly.
• What "with their melody" means: The nigun is the way the taamim are sung, and each community has its own melody. Sefardim and Teimanim are not inventing anything of their own either; they read the very same taamim to a different tune, and each person should read according to the custom of his community.
• Precision in vowels and stress: One must also be careful with the nikud and with mil'eil and mil'ra, the placement of the accent, so as not to reverse them. Rashi points this out in several places, for example "and Rachel was coming with the sheep": if one reads "ba'ah" it is present tense, and if one reads "ba" it is past tense, and the difference in meaning is considerable.

In passing · Correcting the reader, and places that read without taamim

• Do we make the reader go back? In our generation we do not, both because once you start correcting there is no end to it, and because the honor of the tzibbur and the honor of the individual matter, and people are sensitive about this. The regular baal korei may be corrected, but another person we do not make go back.
• Reading without taamim: There were places that read the Torah with no taamim at all, so as not to get tangled up, and simply read the verses plainly. Clearly one fulfills the obligation of the reading this way, but it is not the accepted custom.
• Reading the Torah rapidly: Some have adopted for the Torah reading the practice used for the Megillah, reading quickly and without taamim, and this is not the accepted custom.

Megillas Esther, which is called an "iggeres"

• The two sides of the Megillah: On one hand, the Megillah is written on parchment and follows the laws of a sefer Torah, as we find in the Gemara's application of "buy truth and do not sell it" to Megillas Esther, that it is like a sefer Torah. On the other hand it is called an "iggeres," a letter, and therefore there are a number of halachos in which we are more lenient with it than with a sefer Torah.
• It contains no Divine Name: Megillas Esther is the only book in Tanach that contains no Name of Hashem, so none of the issues connected to writing the Names arise in it. When writing a sefer Torah, every time the sofer writes a Divine Name some have special intent and sanctify it, and some even immerse in a mikveh, and the more care taken, the more valued the sefer.
• Reading it like a letter: Because it is a letter, we find in the Rishonim, and it is implied by the Ibn Ezra there, that they used to read the Megillah without taamim and even without stopping between verses, in one breath for as long as one's strength held out, since that is how a person reads a letter: quickly, without pausing at the stops. This custom existed until the later generations, and we do not follow it.

Punctuation and taamim in the Hebrew language

• Punctuation is a shortcut: Commas and periods are a relatively late invention, and in the Torah and in Megillas Esther there are no commas or periods.
• Aharon Mirsky's pamphlet: Professor Aharon Mirsky wrote a pamphlet of some sixty pages without a single period or comma, to show that someone who knows how to write properly in Hebrew does not need punctuation, and the reader understands the material perfectly well.
• The value of the taamim: Even so, the taamim that we have help the reader know where to pause and where to connect, as was mentioned above regarding precision in the reading.