Resources for Nedarim 23
1. The גמרא says that one is not allowed to be פּותח בנולד. The concept of נולד is based on the משנה on דף ס"͏ד that brings a מחלוקת תנאים about this and gives the following examples of נולד : a person is מדיר הנאה from someone and then that someone becomes a סופר and the מדיר needs his services. The second example is ראובן who is מדיר הנאה from שמעון and then שמעון decides to marry off his child to ראובן ‘s daughter and they will need to eat together at the wedding. Both these cases are נולד and according to the חכמים not a valid פּתח. Our גמרא gives an exception: if it’s considered something that is שכיח then it is not considered נולד.
What exactly is the issue with נולד? The רא"ש says that we can’t consider something a חרטה מעיקרא if the thing that happened was something that the person never would have imagined could have happened. However, if it’s a נולד דשכיחי then we say that it can be considered a חרטה דמעיקרא since the person could have known about the possibility at the time of the נדר. This is the most common understanding of נולד. However, the רמב"ם in הלכות שבועות פּרק ו הל׳ י"ב has a completely different פּשט. He says that the issue of נולד is that the person isn’t really מתחרט on the נדר. Rather, he just wishes the דבר הנולד never would have happened. That is not considered חרטה. According to this, there is no היתר whatsoever according to the רמב"ם of נולד דשכיח. The cases of the משניות about making a wedding or becoming a סופר are a problem because the person wishes that man hadn’t become a סופר or decided to marry off his son to his daughter because he really hates him. On the other hand, if he is happy with the נולד, then it’s a good פּתח even if one would never have dreamed of it. This makes the רמב"ם have a very different פּשט than we are used to in the famous גמרא in כתובות that discusses כלבא שבוע wanting to get a פּתח to his נדר against רבי עקיבא since he never would have made a נדר against him had he been a תלמיד חכם. תוספות famously asks that רבי עקיבא becoming a תלמיד חכם is נולד and אין פּותחים בנולד. תוספות answers that when you got to learn in yeshiva its שכיח to become a תלמיד חכם. The רמב"ם would simply answer this question by saying this is a נולד he is happy with so it isn’t considered נולד at all. The ט"ז in יו"ד שכ"ג ס"ק ב discusses a case where חלה was removed and then got mixed in and the person wants to be שואל on his הפרשה. The ט"ז says a similar concept to the רמב"ם that its not a good פּתח since the person isn’t really unhappy with his נדר but rather with a side issue that came up such as the חלה getting mixed in with the היתר. The מפרשים on the רמב"ם all ask how we can understand our גמרא when it seems to be clear that a נולד דשכיח is a valid פּתח even though in our גמרא you are clearly just unhappy with a side issue as the bystander hit him in the head for annoying the חכמים.
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