Resources for Nedarim 59

The גמרא says that if an onion that had תרומות ומעשרות removed from it was planted in the ground and grew גידולין enough to be the majority of the onion, then we view the entire onion as טבל and we take תרומות ומעשרות from the whole onion. רב חסדא disagrees and says the איסור is not מבטל the היתר. The רא"ש explains that this is the same מחלוקת we’ve been discussing in the previous דף about whether גידולין are מבטלין the עיקר. However, the ר"ן disagrees and explains that this case is worse because איסור cant be מבטל something מותר. The קובץ הערות in סימן נ"ט אות א points out that תוספות in יבמות דף פּ"ב ע"ב ד"ה אמר says that היתר can be בטל and the רמב"ן at the beginning of בבא בתרא and the ר"ן here disagree. He explains the מחלוקת as follows: the רמב"ן holds that ביטול can remove a חלות איסור. However, if all there is is היתר then there is nothing for ביטול to remove. היתר is not a status. Its simply the absence of any other status. All things are born מותר unless the Torah says they are אסור. Therefore, ביטול cannot apply to היתר since there is nothing to rmeove. However, תוספות disagrees and hold ביטול means that the רוב turns the מיעוט into itself. According to this, the famous תשובה of the עונג יו"ט is a מחלוקת ראשונים (Reb Elchonon z”l points this out himself). The עונג יו"ט says that if מצה שמורה לשמה becomes mixed with a מיעוט of regular מצה, it’s not בטל ברוב. The reason is that ביטול cannot create a חלות…it can only remove one. So it cant turn regular מצה into מצה שמורה לשמה. This sounds exactly like the way the קובץ הערות described the ר"ן and רמב"ן that ביטול can only remove a status of איסור but not create one. There is actually a תשובה in the הר צבי about what the הלכה is if one was טובל a bunch of pots but forgot one and it gets mixed up with the rest, is it בטל ברוב. He mentions this concept that ביטול cannot create a status of being נטבל.

The גמרא says there is a מצוה to be שואל על הנדר because someone who makes a נדר and us מקיים it, it is as if he built a במה (בשעת איסור במות) and brought a קרבן on it. The גליוני הש"ס from ר͏"י ענגל asks that if it is a מצוה perhaps we should make a ברכה on the הפרה? He answers that there is no ברכה since it is similar to the ראבי"ה who says you don’t make a ברכה on שריפת נותר because it’s a מצוה that can only happen through an עברה. Similarly, the נדר was an עברה of sorts so there is no ברכה. As to why making a נדר is similar to building a במה, the מהר"ל back on דף כ"ב explains that the ענין of the בית המקדש is all Jews coming together to do עבודה together. Someone who builds a במה is running his own show and doing his own independent עבודה and that’s not what the Torah wants. Similarly, making a נדר is running your own personal religion of איסור והיתר and the Torah doesn’t want that.