Rosh Hashana 1:3 — For which months the messengers went out

The Lived Mishnah·A Zeman Nakat Project
Tisha B'Av Series
Mishnah 13 of 41
אִם אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלָיִם
Part IV · Living onward
Jewish Practice in Light of the Destruction
The largest and most forward-looking movement. Once the Beis HaMikdash was gone, how did halacha keep living? The chachamim did not only mourn — they built the destruction into the way we practice, so it would never be forgotten and hope never lost. Five threads follow: remembering the rituals, the fate of consecrated items, modeling the Temple, what could now be relaxed, and safeguards that anticipate the rebuilding.
Part IV · Section 1
Remembering the Rituals of the Beis HaMikdash
These mishnayos recall the non-sacrificial practices of Temple times — how the calendar was fixed, how the seder was set, the berachos, the bechor, the purity laws, and the leniencies unique to the Mikdash. Each marks the line between “when the Beis HaMikdash stood” and now.
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MoedSederסדרמוֹעֵד
Rosh HashanaMesechtaמסכתראש השנה
1Perekפרקא׳
3Mishnahמשנהג׳
נושא · Topicעַל אֵילוּ חֳדָשִׁים יוֹצְאִים הַשְּׁלוּחִיןFor which months the messengers went out
This Mishnah is:a listwhat does that mean?
Mishnah ראש השנה א׳:ג׳ · Rosh Hashana 1:3
עַל שִׁשָּׁה חֳדָשִׁים הַשְּׁלוּחִין יוֹצְאִין:
עַל נִיסָן מִפְּנֵי הַפֶּסַח,
עַל אָב מִפְּנֵי הַתַּעֲנִית,
עַל אֱלוּל מִפְּנֵי רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה,
עַל תִּשְׁרֵי מִפְּנֵי תַקָּנַת הַמּוֹעֲדוֹת,
עַל כִּסְלֵו מִפְּנֵי חֲנֻכָּה,
וְעַל אֲדָר מִפְּנֵי הַפּוּרִים.
וּכְשֶׁהָיָה בֵית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּם,
יוֹצְאִין אַף עַל אִיָּר מִפְּנֵי פֶסַח קָטָן.
For six months the messengers go out:
for Nissan because of Pesach,
for Av because of the fast,
for Elul because of Rosh Hashanah,
for Tishrei to set the festivals,
for Kislev because of Chanukah,
and for Adar because of Purim.
And when the Beis HaMikdash stood,
they would go out also for Iyar because of Pesach Katan.
A reading aid, not an exact translation.

This English is a clause-by-clause rendering to help you follow the Hebrew. It is not word-for-word literal, and it is not a transcript of the recorded shiur — the audio carries explanation and context the translation deliberately leaves out.

case/objectreasoncondition
Structure
The Mishnah's Structure▾
נִיסָןPesachאִיָּרPesach Sheni (only while the Beis HaMikdash stood)סִיוָןתַּמּוּזאָבthe fastאֱלוּלRosh Hashanahתִּשְׁרֵיthe festivalsחֶשְׁוָןכִּסְלֵוChanukahטֵבֵתשְׁבָטאֲדָרPurimעַל שִׁשָּׁה חֳדָשִׁיםהַשְּׁלוּחִיןיוֹצְאִין
the months of the Jewish year — a messenger rides out where the date must be known
Summary Chart
For which months the messengers went out▾
CaseRulingReason
NissanMessengers go outPesach
AvMessengers go outThe fast
ElulMessengers go outRosh Hashanah
TishreiMessengers go outTo set the festivals
KislevMessengers go outChanukah
AdarMessengers go outPurim
Iyar — when the Beis HaMikdash stoodMessengers go outPesach Katan
Transcript
A machine transcript of the recorded shiur.

This is the shiur as spoken, transcribed automatically and left unedited — the wording is Ephraim's, and occasional transcription errors remain. It follows the audio word by word.

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Mishnah Insights
An amalgam of commentaries, including original insights.

These insights draw on the commentaries to this Mishnah and on the recorded shiur. Those commentaries often rest on earlier sources — the Gemara, the Yerushalmi, the Rishonim, and one another — without always saying so; where they do, we generally cite the one we read. Every commentary consulted is kept, verbatim, with this card.

Six months of messengers — the calendar’s last mile▾
עוֹלָמוֹ שֶׁל הַמִּשְׁנָה
How word of Rosh Chodesh traveled

Once the beis din sanctified the new month, the news still had to reach the whole nation. Messengers — shluchin — carried it out from Yerushalayim across Eretz Yisrael and beyond, but only for six of the twelve months: the journey was hard, and only months bearing a yom tov needed precise dating. An older method, beacon-fires lit mountain to mountain, had been sabotaged by the Kutim, who lit them at the wrong time; the messenger system replaced it (Rosh Hashanah 2:2). Word of the calendar moved at the speed of a walking man.

Why these six, and not the others

The list is curated. Sivan is absent though it holds Shavuos — because Shavuos is counted fifty days from Pesach, not dated from its own Rosh Chodesh (Tosafos Yom Tov). And among the fast-months only Av appears: after the Churban the other fasts — the Tenth of Teves, the Seventeenth of Tammuz — were left to each person’s choice, on the strength of Zechariah’s promise that the fasts would one day turn to joy (Rosh Hashanah 18b); only Tisha B’Av, its griefs doubled, stayed firmly kept — so only for Av did the messengers go (Rambam, Tosafos Yom Tov).

Why start at the end of the story

The perek’s treatment of dating the month opens with its last stage — sending the messengers — before the earlier stages, the sighting and the testimony, are even taught. Melechet Shlomo reads it as of a piece with the perek’s opening run of numbered lists: four new years, then six months, then two. Another way to hear it: the messengers must be named first so that the next mishnah — where witnesses may profane Shabbos because those messengers must reach as far as Suria — can land in context.

שְׁאֵלַת חָכָם

The messengers go out for Av ‘because of the fast.’ But was Tisha B’Av kept as a fast while the Second Bais HaMikdash still stood? Lechem Shamayim reads our mishnah as speaking only of the time after the Churban — and whether the Churban-fasts were observed at all during the Second Temple is itself disputed. (See Rambam’s Peirush and the Tashbetz.)

— Lechem Shamayim; Rambam (Peirush HaMishnayos); Tashbetz
Series Insights
Series context▾
← Previous
Shekalim 8:8
Which mitzvos end with the Bayis, and which endure
Mishnah 13 of 41
Rosh Hashana 1:3
How the calendar reached the nation
Next →
Rosh Hashanah 1:4
Witnesses who override Shabbos for the new moon

Where this sits

The series turns here from what the Churban took to how we live in its light. Where the mishnah just before it asked which mitzvos end with the Bayis and which endure, this one watches an enduring institution — the fixing and spreading of the calendar — quietly carry the Churban inside it: the messengers go out for Av ‘because of the fast,’ and the list marks off Iyar’s Pesach Katan as something only ‘when the Beis HaMikdash stood.’ The machinery of Jewish time still remembers the Mikdash.

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