Resources for Kesubos 70

1.     The משנה says that if a man makes a נדר that his wife can’t get benefit from him, the נדר is valid. The גמרא has two possibilities how the נדר can be חל since he is משובד to her for מזונות: either we are talking about small items that she cant afford to buy with her own money or it was made when she was an ארוסה. רש"י on the משנה comments that the נדר can’t be חל  in regards to עונה since he is משובד to her for that. The הפלאה here and the שער המלך in הלכות נדרים פּרק י"ב הל׳ י ask an important question that comes up several times ere: there is a הלכה that states נדר שבטלה מקצתו בטלה כולו, meaning that if some of a נדר is בטל then all of it is בטל. If so, if the person was trying to make all הנאה forbidden to his wife then if it is invalid in regards to תשמיש it should make the whole נדר not be חל. The הפלאה answers that the principle of נדר שבטלה מקצתו בטלה כולו only applies when the portion of the נדר that is invalidated was because it was a mistake (such as the case where the person was מדיר a group of people and didn’t realize his father was amongst them). However, if part of the נדר can’t be חל because it is not possible to be חל then that was never part of the נדר to begin with. He brings a proof to this from the fact that the גמרא earlier said that if a woman says קונם שאני עושה לפּיך the husband should be מפיר the נדר according to רבי עקיבא even though she is משועבד  to him because of  העדפה (extra). You see clearly from there that if a נדר can’t possibly be חל on something we don’t say נדר שבטלה מקצתו בטלה כולו. However, the שער המלך brings a ריטב"א from דף נ"ט ע"ב ד"ה מתקיף that seems to disagree with this as the ריטב"א there says that a woman cant be מקדיש her מעשה ידים even though she can get out of giving her מעשה ידים to her husband by saying איני ניזונית ואיני עושה, she still can’t be מקדיש her מעשה ידים because she is משועבד for other מלאכות to her husband. The שער המלך learns from there that even if a נדר is half בטל then the whole thing is בטל even though the part it wasn’t חל on never could have been included. Therefore, the שער המלך says that the answer to the question of why we don’t say נדר שבטלה מקצתו  in our משנה is because in reality it should have been חל even on תשמיש since קונמות מפקיעין מידי שיעבוד. It’s just that the חכמים upgraded her שעבוד to make it override the נדר. In that case we wouldn’t say the נדר  is not חל to the level that we would say נדר שבטלה מקצתו בטלה כולו.

2.     The גמרא said that one of the ways the נדר of the husband can be חל is when he said צאי מעשה ידיך למזונותיך but still needs to pay for דברים קטנים which he at the moment of the נדר he didn’t need to pay. רבי עקיבא איגר asks that if so, why does we need to say that he said to her צאי מעשה ידיך למזונותיך? Even if he doesn’t say that and he is still משובד to her, the נדר can still be חל on the דברים קטנים! רבי עקיבא איגר answers that you see from here that if the lady is still eating with him then she can’t say that she is now not “מתגלגלת עמו” even though he was מדיר her.

3.     One quick note: רש"י on our משנה and תוספות on דף ע"א ד"ה שלא say that when our משנה says that the husband is מדיר his wife שלא תטעום אחד מכל הפּירות it means she can’t eat one particular type of fruit because if it meant she cant eat any fruit then it would be impossible to keep and the נדר would not be חל. That doesn’t mean they liked fruit that much that they couldn’t handle not eating it. סתם פּירות refers to wheat as we see in the משנה in בבא בתרא דף צ"ג ע"ב. While the word פּירות may not be limited to wheat as it is in that משנה, it certainly also includes wheat and presumably other פּרי האדמה.

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