“The ten sons of Haman” (Esther 9:10)
When the person reading the Megillah gets up to the names of Haman’s ten sons who were hanged, he pauses while the tzibbur [congregation] reads them quickly before he reads them out loud. The Rogatchover Gaon gives a brilliant explanation for this custom. Even though most people don’t read the Megillah, they fulfil their obligation to hear it through the concept of shomei’ah k’oneh, which means that somebody who listens to something is considered to have said it himself.
However, while this principle works for fulfilling our primary obligation to read the Megillah, in this case, there’s a problem. The Gemara (Megillah 16b) teaches that there is an obligation to read the names of Haman’s ten sons in one breath to commemorate the fact that they all took their last breaths together at the same time. Ideally, we would say all of their names simultaneously, but since that isn’t humanly possible, we read them quickly in one breath.
The Rogatchover explains that although the rule of shomei’ah k’oneh makes it legally considered that the listener said something himself, it’s not enough to make it viewed as if he said it in one breath, which leaves the listener no choice but to say the names of Haman's ten sons himself in one breath, as that requirement cannot be fulfilled by listening to somebody else do it.
