Resources and Review Test for Nedarim 53
The גמרא says that if someone makes a נדר that he won’t eat “oil” and lives in a place where most people eat olive oil and a minority of people eat sesame oil, he can’t eat either one. The reason is that we aren’t sure if he meant olive oil or sesame oil or olive oil and sesame oil, so we are מחמיר מספק. Many אחרונים discuss why in fact don’t we go after the רוב and assume the person meant what רוב people in that town eat? The מרומי שדה explains that we only follow the רוב when following the מיעוט would contradict the רוב since both cannot be true. However, in our case, the person could have meant both oils so we can’t go only after the רוב. The שב שמעתתא in שמעתתא ד׳ פּרק ו brings a ריטב"א in קידושין דף נו ע"ב who says that any רוב that isn’t inherent in creation but is rather just a מנהג בני אדם is a weak רוב and we don’t follow it.
There is a related question brought by many of the אחרונים. The שולחן ערוך in יו"ד סימן רי"ז סעיף י"ד paskens like our גמרא that we don’t go after the רוב when someone’s language is unclear, yet in סימן ר"ח סעיף א the שולחן ערוך appears to be saying that if someone says this is אסור to me like בשר מליח and some people when they say that mean קדשים but most people when they say that mean חולין then we go with the רוב and he may eat salty meat. The בית יוסף, ב"ח, ט"ז and ש"ך all ask why this isn’t a סתירה to what we paskened in our גמרא that you don’t go after רוב in regards to interpreting someone’s speech. The ש"ך explains that in the case of the salty meat he explained himself and said he meant חולין meat so we believe him since he isn’t going against the רוב. However, in the case of oil, the person did not explain himself at the time so we don’t believe him now even to say he meant what the רוב mean. The ט"ז has a different פּשט. He explains that anytime we have a ספק in which item you were describing when making something אסור, we do not follow the רוב since you may have been from the people who eat sesame oil in a town where most eat olive oil. However, when you are saying this is אסור like that item, then you are trying to explain yourself and לא מחית איניש נפשיה לספיקא and you surely meant what רוב people mean. He brings a proof to this from the case in קידושין דף ס"ד where someone has two sets of daughters from two different wives and says he was מקדש his older daughter and we don’t know if he meant the oldest of all his daughters or the oldest of a specific set of daughters from one wife. In that case, we can assume he meant the absolute oldest daughter since לא מחית איניש נפשיה לספיקא. The גמרא says this also applies to נדרים. The ט"ז is מדייק that had he just said he was “מקדש a daughter” we would not know which one he meant even though most people marry off their oldest daughter first. We see from here that when a person is trying to describe something they don’t talk in a way that would go against what most people mean but when making a statement about an item he may use a לשון that may be interpreted differently by different people. Interestingly, there is no note from the נקודות הכסף here saying he disagrees and to look in the ש"ך which he normally does. The ערוך השלחן says in הלכות עלרה that when that happens it means the ש"ך like the ט"ז pshat.
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