We start our chapter with a fundamental distinction between neder and shevu’ah. [Translators use vow for the first and oath for the second, but I am not sure those English words reflect the differences the Torah sees.] Siman 204 taught us a neder creates an issur cheftza, places a prohibition on the item named, where a shevu’ah bans the person from acting a certain way, an issur gavra.
In most cases, the distinction is academic, the person banned from benefit from the item in question either way. With intangibles, it has more teeth. A shevu’ah not to sleep means the person has constructed a prohibition on his/her self. Should the same person instead articulate a neder (sleep shall be as prohibited to me, the same as sacrificial meat), nothing happens, because no object called sleep exists to become prohibited. Unless the person reciting the vow says “I want my eyes to be prohibited in sleep,” or “my legs in walking.” The named body part does have tangible reality, and can become bound by the vow.
In se’if two, AH notes Beit Yosef applied the idea to all sorts of intangibles, vows about speaking, walking, sleeping, none take effect unless attached to a body part. Even when the vow does not work, though, a rabbinic rule requires the person to do she’elah, to go to a Torah scholar to have it released, lest people who do not know the rules learn that it’s fine to ignore vows.
I’m going to skip se’ifim three through seven, on details of what qualifies as intangible (comparing, for example, a vow not to speak with a vow not to feed someone). Since we’re not supposed to make such vows anyway, I’ll allow myself to leave the nitty gritty.
One side issue I note as an example of an halachah I expect to change when we again have a Sanhedrin, is a vow to prohibit one’s eyes from sleep. For a day, or even two, the vow takes effect, the person must refrain or have a Torah scholar find reason to release it. If s/he swears not to sleep for three days, though, the Gemara considered it a shevu’at shav, an impossible vow (the person will be punished right away, not have to try to fulfill the vow).
[That’s what it says on the books; today, people vie for records of time without sleep, regularly more than three days. Healthline does say people start to hallucinate after three or four nights without sleep. One of those halachot that clearly will need updating, if people ever go back to taking oaths or vows they should not.]
A Vow To Study Torah
Se’if eight returns us to territory I find more sympatico, someone who commits to a certain piece of Torah study (remember this the next time you sign up to help create a joint siyum). SA in se’if two recorded the Gemara’s view of the issue, it’s a valid neder. We do not mean the usual kind, since the person has not named an object to prohibit, rather it’s similar to a neder to donate an item to the Temple, for sacrifice or as a financial donation. The Biblical verb for designating an item for sacrifice is also neder, as we noted last week. Here, the commitment to study Torah is similar to a neder to give charity, and can be created purely verbally.
AH reminds us of another difference between this neder and others. Back in 203;13, he had taught us we are generally discouraged from taking oaths (or vows), because of tradition’s awareness of how often life goes awry, something we were sure we could do ending up being out of our reach, our having manufactured a failure for no reason.
These kinds of vows have a source in Tehillim 119;106, where David says he will take such a vow and fulfill it, a commitment to keep the Torah.
Some Psychology of Carefulness
The last se’if of the chapter takes up an issue I had the good fortune to study recently with some first-year students at Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush). The Gemara differentiates two cases that seem halachically identical: in the first, a Jew prohibits his/her eyes from sleep today (a valid neder, the eyes being the object of the prohibition) should s/he sleep tomorrow. The second reverses the condition and prohibition, says s/he may not sleep tomorrow should s/he sleep today.
In both versions, the person may sleep only one day, and if s/he sleeps today, may not sleep tomorrow. Yet halachah allows the person to choose to sleep on the first day if that day was the conditional day (my eyes are prohibited to sleep tomorrow if I sleep today), but not vice versa (my eyes may not sleep today if I sleep tomorrow).
In both cases, if the person sleeps today, sleep the next day violates a vow. Why the different rules?
Nedarim 14a explained (for the view that held this way) that people are careful with a vow itself, not the conditions of a vow. AH first takes the Gemara in its plain sense, the Gemara was evaluation how people choose their care with prohibitions. Despite the identical ramifications of sleep on day two—the Jew will have violated an oath—the awareness that sleep on day two is really only a fulfillment of the condition retroactively making the oath apply to day one will not be enough to have the person force him/herself to stay awake.
He does cite Ritva and Nimmukei Yosef’s view, this is specific to sleep, which is very hard to avoid for a day and will come upon people unless they expend great effort. With conditions where more active effort is involved to fulfill it (and thus bring the prohibition), they seemed to think the person could choose to act on day one in the way that would be prohibited, with the confidence they will not fulfill the condition on day two.
AH thinks the flow of the flow of the discussion in the Gemara contradicts their claim, but notes the idea of a woman who is redufah le-beit aviha, tends to go to her father’s house. It might become so habitual, AH thinks Ritva would say, it’s like sleep.
A basic idea, with two subsets: nedarim ban objects rather than creating obligations or prohibition on people, and therefore cannot apply to intangibles. To create such a neder requires naming the underlying physical object with which the intangible would be achieved (an eye for sleeping, for example). An exception is a vow to fulfill a mitzvah or study Torah, those being more like a promise to give charity, itself an extension of a commitment to donate an animal for sacrifice. Such vows take full effect.
Then the other subsection, perhaps only about sleep, perhaps about people’s care when it comes to conditions, the different rules for a vow with a condition, whether the person can commit the condition and expect to avoid violating the vow, or vice verse.
Next time, Even HaEzer 139, properly giving a get to a soon to be ex-wife.
