Resources and Review Test for Nedarim 56
The גמרא says that when a כהן is looking at a house with a נגע and decides that it must be put it in הסגר, he must go out of the house to do the “הסגר”. What exactly does doing the הסגר entail? The ר"ן says that since the כהן can’t be in the house to do הסגר he will need to do the הסגר with a long rope. It sounds like הסגר means physically closing the door. תוספות suggests you can use a שליח to do it. The רמב"ם in הלכות טומאת צרעת פּרק י"ד הל׳ ה does not mention anything about using long ropes or needing any tricks. The משנה למלך there asks a question on the ר"ן and תוספות (as well as almost all ראשונים in our סוגיא). The ר"ן and תוספות both seem to understand that you need a way physically close the door. The משנה למלך is shocked by this. It says הסגר by a human with a נגע as well. Are we to think that a person with a נגע gets literally locked up? Certainly not! Rather, הסגר just means declaring the house מוסגר, similar to when you call the house מוחלט or פּטור. He suggests that the רמב"ם understood like him and therefore the רמב"ם says he should stand outside and either be "יסגיר או יחליט או יפטור". Interestingly, the תוספות הרא"שin מו"ק דף ז quotes רש"י as saying that in fact הסגר by a human means he is עומד בבית הכלא which means he is locked up. תוספות הרא"ש himself says הסגר means the כהן draws a border around the נגע and in that way is מסגיר הנגע. So the term of הסגר by a human and a house seem to be a מחלוקת. Some ראשונים hold that in both cases the person and house are locked up and other may hold in neither case are they locked up.
The גמרא discusses a person who made a נדר to not get benefit from a דרגש which the גמרא initially understood to be an ערסא דגדא which is literally a “good luck” couch. The ר"ן describes it as something you do not sit on since it is set aside for the “שר הבית”. This also what רש"י says in סנהדרין דף כ׳ ע"א. Amazingly, the ר"ןhimself there in חידושי הר"ן there says רש"י’s פּשט is wrong and “ח"ו לא תהא כזאת בישראל” since having a chair put aside for an angel is דרכי אמורי and possibly worse. Rather, this chair was just to basically show that they were rich (as our גמרא said the king had one) and that they even had extra seats they didn’t need. The רא"ש here says that the point of the chair was that the שר העשירות would only dwell in a clean house so they kept a chair perfectly clean for that purpose. The question on the ר"ן and רא"ש on our דף is why is there is no איסור of דרכי אמורי and לא תנחשו? (דרכי אמורי is doing useless superstitious acts and ניחוש is setting up omens for yourself.) The simple answer is that, as the שולחן ערוך in סימן קע"ט סעיף ד says quoting the גמרא, "אע"פּ שאין נחש, יש סימן" which means that if something is just done as a סימן טוב and no one is relying on it for anything there is no איסור of לא תנחשו. Therefore, you can dip the apple in the honey or anoint kings by flowing rivers since they are just a סימן טוב and nothing more. It is also not דרכי אמורי if the act you are doing is helpful even if it is supernatural. However, you cannot offer anything to an angel as that is real עבודה זרה and would be similar to the פּסוק "העורכים לגד שולחן" where they offered a table to “good luck” which means they put food on the table for some angel.
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