a talmudic puzzler

[cellio]

A discussion in talmud tries to determine who is and is not permitted to do the public reading of the megillah for Purim, and three cases are raised: a deranged man, a deaf man, and a child. Everyone's clear that the deranged man is out. There's a lot of argument about the deaf man (who can speak but can't hear his own words), and then there's an aside by Rashi -- surprisingly not supported in text -- about the child. He says it depends on whether the child has reached the "age of training" -- that is, the age at which he can be trained to perform mitzvot. (While one is not obligated until the age of 13, you've got to learn and practice before then so you'll be ready.) The argument is mostly focusing on ex-post-facto cases (b'diaved) -- that is, someone questionable has gone and done a megillah reading; does it count?

Check me on this: we are having a discussion of whether the child who just read the megillah is of an age where he can be trained to do so? I am obviously missing something.

My guess -- also not supported in text -- is that this hinges on the typical age of training, not any individual case; if custom is that you can't learn to do this until you're 10, a 9-year-old prodigy is disqualified.

(B'rachot 15b, if you're curious.)

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that there are two parts to the "age of training" -- ability and understanding.

I can imagine a child who is old enough to have the skills to read from the Megillah, but not old enough to understand why, or what they're really doing.

Let's assume that I learned to read Hebrew as soon as I learned to read English. Which I didn't, but bear with me. I would have then been able to read the Megillah at, say, three or four years old.

There is no way, at that age, that I would have been able to understand what I was doing, in terms of having anything approaching proper kavanah.

And, it seems to me, that's what the issue is. Why else would a deranged man not be qualified? If it was just the reading, then it would count. It has to be the understanding.

Which would suggest that that time that someone programmed their Macintosh's speech synthesizer to do Chapter 3 . . . oops.

[geekosaur]

Recordings definitely don't count according to YHE. Even using a microphone / loudspeaker is technically unacceptable. (Apparently there's a discussion in the Genara about whether hearing an echo of a shofar counts as hearing the shofar on Rosh HaShanah, which was used as the basis for this.)

[cellio]

Ah, age of understanding would sure make a difference! Thanks for pointing that out.