Resources for Nedarim 2

1.     The משנה discusses נדרים, כינוים and ידות. There is a fundamental מחלוקת ראשונים as to what a נדר is. The term used is “עיקר הנדר”. The ר"ן says that עיקר הנדר is simply saying “דבר זה אסור עלי”. That’s it. If you decide to add the words “like a קרבן", that’s fine but completely unnecessary. However, if you do add words to your נדר you can potentially  mess it up since if instead of saying “כקרבן” you say “כחזיר” the נדר is invalid since you weren’t נודר בדבר הנדור. תוספות and the רא"ש here disagree and hold that עיקר הנדר is only with התפסה which means that when you say the words “דבר זה אסור עלי” you must add the words "קרבן" for the נדר to be חל. If you don’t, then the only way it will be חל is as a "יד לנדר" which means the תורה allows us to fill in the blanks and assume the person meant כקרבן. So the next question becomes, what’s the נפקא מינה if your נדר is חל because it is considered עיקר הנדרor יד לנדר? There are several differences. One difference would seem to be what the ריטב"א says about ידות. The ריטב"א says that since a יד works by allowing us to fill in the blanks for the person, if the person gave an alternate explanation, even if it is far fetched, we would accept it. So, in our case, if the person said I meant this is אסור on me like a pig, or אסור on me like something illegal, then the נדר would not be חל If you hold its just a יד. However, if it’s עיקר הנדר then that explanation would presumably not help you. Another נפקא מינה is brought by the ש"ך and ט"ז in סימן ר"ה ס"ק ז in the name of the תשובת הרא"ש that says that you can’t make your property אסור on others unless you have a נדר with התפסה.

2.     The ר"ן mentions that when you do התפסה you can only be מתפּיס בדבר הנדור. What is the reason for this? The ר"ן on דף י"ד ע"א ד"ה אמר קרא explains that you can’t say “my bread is אסור like a pig” because it isn’t. You can only say your bread is אסור like a קרבן because those are similar: just like your sheep became קדוש because of your words, so to will this bread become אסור because of your words. The ריטב"א on דף ידף י"‌ג ע"ב ד"ה חולין says a different explanation. He says that all איסורים in the תורה are really an איסור גברא, and the only exception is קרבן which is an איסור חפצא so when you make a נדר you can only say it is אסור like something else which is אסור. You could not say it is אסור like all other איסורים since they are just an איסור גברא in which case the item itself is really היתר. It’s hard to understand at first glance what the ריטב"א means that all other איסורים are just an איסור גברא. Pig is just an איסור גברא?? רבי שמעון שקאפּ זצ"ל explains at the end of סימן א that all other איסורים in the תורה such as pigs, insects, etc, are there to protect the person from the איסור. By הקדש, the תורה is trying to protect the הקדש from you. So that alone is called an איסור חפצא.

3.     The ר"ן quotes ר"ת who says that you don’t need to say a שם for a שבועה to be חל except by מושבע מפּי אחרים as we see from the case of סוטה where a שם is said since she is מושבע מפּי אחרים. The ר"ן asks that the סוטה says the word אמן so in that case she is really מושבע מפּי עצמו! The נצי"ב in מרומי שדה here and in חיי שרה in העמק דבר explains that ר"ת understood that the need for the שם is because she is really מושבע מפּי עצמה and מפּי הכהן (and there is no option to do it without the כהן’s input) and she needed the שם for the מושבע מפּי כהן aspect. The גרי"ז in a letter in the end of his ספר on page פּ"א suggests that the ר"ן understood that it is really one שבועה, and in any event one can’t learn any requirements about שם from here since סוטה is special and has special requirements like only using the שם המיוחד.