פירוש על ראש השנה 2:1

אם אינן מכירין אותו – If the Jewish court does not recognize concerning the witness if he trustworthy or fit/valid.

Introduction As I have written on several occasions, the setting of the calendar was a point of great conflict between ancient Jewish sects, namely the Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees and Dead Sea sect (which may overlap with the Essenes or Sadducees, or perhaps even both). This mishnah alludes to this strife when it relates that the minim, a generic rabbinic term for sectarians, tried to disrupt the process by sending false witnesses. It sounds like they wanted to trick the Pharisees into declare the new month on the wrong date. Even though the sectarians in this mishnah probably used a solar calendar, they still wanted to disrupt the Pharisaic/rabbinic calendar. It’s as if they wanted to say even according to your own system, you’re celebrating on the wrong day.

משלחים – the Jewish court that is in his city.

If they don’t know him [the one who came to testify], they send another with him to testify concerning [his reliability]. This section expresses the current halakhah (the halakhah that was valid at the time of the mishnah). When someone was sent to testify concerning the new moon, if this person was not known to the central court that accepted the testimony, then they would send with him a person who was known to the court to vouch for the witness’s reliability. Basically, he would tell the court that the witness was a “kosher yid” and not a sectarian.

אחר עמו – another pair of witnesses to testify about him before the Great Jewish Court which sanctifies the [New] Moon.

Originally testimony concerning the new moon was accepted from anyone. When the minim disrupted this, it was decreed that testimony should be received only from persons known [to the court]. This explains the background to the need for a second person to testify as to the reliability of the witness. Before the sectarians “ruined” it, everyone was trusted to testify. We should note that this mishnah is probably more “historiographical” than “historical.” That is to say, the mishnah teaches us how to view history, more than it teaches us what actually happened. The mishnah presents a pre-minim history in which everyone could trust one another; it was a moment of unity between all Jews. The minim came and disrupted this unity and now we have to suspect one another. Obviously a person hearing this mishnah will know how undesirable the minim really are.

משקלקלו המינין – that they hired false witnesses to deceive the Sages.