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In the end of perek 2 of Masechet Megillah (the last two sugyas), the Gemara questions the need for the lines I’m the Mishnah that say “any mitzvah which may be performed in the daytime can be done all day, and any mitzvah which can be done in the night can be done all night.” The Gemara asks what these phrases came to add that all the other examples in the Mishnah didn’t. And the answer is that the phrase about daytime comes to include the bringing and removal of the ketoret, and the phrase about nighttime includes Korban pesach. So why didn’t the Mishnah just add these examples in as well as things you could do all day/night as opposed to just writing this כלל?

Curious Yid
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  • The general rule includes more things than just the ketoret and pesach. – Double AA May 05 '23 at 11:39
  • @DoubleAA so then why does the Gemara mention that it only includes these 2? And secondly, why does the Mishnah list all the examples as opposed to just stating this general rule? – Curious Yid May 05 '23 at 13:06
  • This also raises a more general rule about when the gemara learns that the mishnah says "kol" or whatever to include something else, why didn't the mishnah just list that? Especially since we generally don't learn "klalot" to be exhaustive and complete. – Avraham May 05 '23 at 15:08
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    In this particular case, the inclusions are not universally agreed upon so perhaps that’s why it was only hinted at instead of being written outright. In general though, I believe I heard the reason is because the mishnayos were written in the exact language that was taught through generations. Some rabbis taught the details and some taught the generalizations. So when the details weren’t exhaustive, Rebbi added the generalization to include what was missing but he didn’t add his own language – Chatzkel May 05 '23 at 16:20
  • @Chatzkel interesting. I was thinking about what you wrote in your first sentence (since it says in the Gemara that Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah disagrees about the korban pesach) but then when it comes to the removal of the זיכין there didn’t seem to be any machloket mentioned – Curious Yid May 06 '23 at 18:11

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