Welcome back to our pre-Pesach Mishnayos series where we are covering Mishnayos related to the period of time leading up to Pesach. We are now in a four-part series. We are up to the second of four Mishnayos that reference Rosh Chodesh Nissan. The first Mishna, which was מסכת ראש השנה פרק א משנה א, talked about how Rosh Chodesh Nissan is a Rosh Hashanah, a new year for certain matters. And tonight we will be focusing on the Mishna in מסכת ראש השנה פרק א משנה ג. This Mishna is the first Mishna in Maseches Rosh Hashanah that talks about the process of Kiddush HaChodesh, the process by which the Beis Din, either in Yerushalayim or later in Yavneh, would declare the new month after receiving witnesses. So let's quickly briefly describe how the Beis Din would declare Rosh Chodesh. Witnesses, two witnesses, would show up to the Beis Din. Sometimes many more would show up, but at least two would show up, and they would testify to the court that they saw the start of the new moon. They saw the sliver of the new moon, and the Beis Din would test them and ask them questions to make sure that they were telling the truth and they didn't just see a cloud or something else. And then once the Beis Din was satisfied that the witnesses were telling the truth, the Beis Din would then declare that day to be Rosh Chodesh. Now as we've discussed, a Jewish month can either have 29 days or 30 days, depending on the period of time when the new moon would be seen. What that would mean is that either the 30th day would be Rosh Chodesh or the 31st day would be Rosh Chodesh. And obviously it's important to know is it the 30th day or the 31st day, because if the 30th day is Rosh Chodesh, that means that's the first day of the month. And if it was the 31st day Rosh Chodesh, then that means that day is the first of the new month. And the obvious reason we would want to know that is let's say for Yamim Tovim. You need to know when Rosh Chodesh Nissan is in order to know when Pesach is. So although if you were living let's say in Yerushalayim, you would probably hear rather quickly about when the Rosh Chodesh was declared, if you were living outside Yerushalayim and especially far away in the north or south of Eretz Yisrael or even beyond the borders of Eretz Yisrael, how would you know? Right now nowadays we would just put it on WhatsApp status and everybody would know. But back then there were only really two ways of knowing, and we will cover one of the other ways tomorrow in our next Mishna in the series. But our Mishna is teaching us, will teach us that in fact the way they would let people know would be by sending messengers. The Beis Din would send messengers out, and those messengers would leave the central courthouse right after they knew when Rosh Chodesh was declared. And they would make their way across Eretz Yisrael and maybe beyond in order to let the people know when Rosh Chodesh was. But they didn't always send messengers. And our Mishna is going to be very clear that there were six months, maybe seven months for which the messengers went out. The Beis Din didn't need to let the people know when Rosh Chodesh was for the other months. And that's because for the most part the months for which the most important months for sending messengers were those months that had Yamim Tovim in them. So now let's turn our attention to the Mishna itself. So again, מסכת ראש השנה פרק א משנה ג. על ששה חדשים השלוחין יוצאין. There were six months for which the messengers would go out. Note that it doesn't say the Beis Din would send them, but rather the shluchin would leave and they would travel throughout Eretz Yisrael and beyond to inform the people. So let's begin. Number one: Al Nissan, Rosh Chodesh Nissan, they would send out the messengers simply because mipnei haPesach, because that month had Pesach and people needed to know when Pesach would be so that they can prepare accordingly both to either start traveling to Yerushalayim or at the very least to make sure that they did not eat chametz during the Yom Tov. The second month: Al Av, which is ראש חודש מנחם אב, they would send messengers out mipnei hata'anis, because of the fast day, the fast day being the sad day of Tisha B'Av, in order to let people know when they were meant to fast. This part of the Mishna is actually very fascinating because it seems to be talking after the second Beis HaMikdash was destroyed. There is a very hotly disputed question whether during the time of the second Beis HaMikdash, even though the first Beis HaMikdash was also destroyed on Tisha B'Av, there is a question as to whether or not Tisha B'Av was observed during the second Beis HaMikdash. The Mishnayos provide some conflicting views on this that are interesting from a historical perspective. But our Mishna would seem to suggest. The third is al Elul, the third Rosh Chodesh would be for Rosh Chodesh Elul mipnei Rosh Hashanah because of Rosh Hashanah, meaning the first day of Tishrei we know is Rosh Hashanah, and the Mishna is pointing out that there was a presumption, there was an assumption by the Beis Din that typically speaking, Elul was 29 days, would always be 29 days, so the 30th day would always be Rosh Hashanah. That was not always the case, and sometimes it spread out more, so that's why it could be that even in Eretz Yisroel they always kept two days of Rosh Hashanah because you never really knew if it was the 30th or the 31st. The fourth month for which they would send out messengers was al Tishrei for Rosh Chodesh Tishrei mipnei takanas hamoados because this way you needed, even though we had an assumption in Elul that Elul would be 29 days, but to make sure that everybody knew, they would send out shluchim also for the rest of the Yomim Tovim like Yom Kippur and Sukkos and Shmini Atzeres so that the people would know when to observe those mitzvos. Then the fifth is al Kislev, the fifth month they sent out messengers was Kislev mipnei Chanukah because of the Yom Tov of Chanukah, so obviously this is also later in the second Beis HaMikdash after the establishment of Chanukah. And by the way, this is only one of eight references to Chanukah in the Mishna. And then the final one is ve'al Adar for Adar mipnei haPurim in order to let people know when Purim was as well. So all six of these were for Yomim Tovim, five Yomim Tovim, one sad day of Tisha B'Av, but those were the months for which they would send out messengers. Now the Mishna concludes that כשהיה בית המקדש קיים, that during the time when the Mishna, when the Beis HaMikdash was established and was standing, they would יוצאין אף על אייר, they would send out messengers even for the second month of the year Iyar mipnei Pesach Katan for what we call Pesach Sheini in order so people knew that they can bring the makeup Korban Pesach at the later time, in order to let people know when that day would be, they would send messengers out for Iyar as well. I'll just conclude just one interesting point which is this is a very interesting Mishna, this is the first Mishna, it's only the third Mishna in the masechta, but it's the first Mishna of many that talk about Kiddush HaChodesh process, the process by which Beis Din was mekadesh the new month. Now the question is this seems to be the last step in the process, right, sending out the messengers, what about all the earlier processes and why does the Mishna start with the last point and not start with the beginning? There may be two answers to that, one is because this Mishna contains a number, al shisha chodashim, which is very similar to the prior two Mishnayos which talk about numbers, but I think the real answer is because in the following Mishna we're going to talk about people in Mishna daled which we will not be learning together here, it talks about those months for which the witnesses could be mechallel Shabbos, and those were for both Nissan and Tishrei, and so because of the Yomim Tovim involved and therefore we first had to explain where those messengers were coming from and then we can tell you why the witnesses could be mechallel Shabbos because the messengers needed as much time as possible to get the word out given that these Yomim Tovim were very important. Anyway with that we conclude and continue learning.