Resources and Review Test for Nedarim 61
The גמרא says brings a מחלוקת תנאים in a case where a person says he was מקדש his older daughter but doesn’t remember if he means the absolute oldest daughter or another daughter who is not the absolute youngest. ר"מ says a person will say something unclear (מחית איניש ספיקא לנפשיה )and רבי יוסי says a person would never put himself in an unclear position (לא מחית איניש ספיקא לנפשיה). From our גמרא in נדרים, it is unclear whether the father actually said the daughter’s name at the time of the קידושין. However, the גמראin קידושיןon דף נ"א ע"בsays that according to רבא, at the time of the קידושין the father said “my oldest daughter, Sarah”; it’s just now the father has forgotten what he said other than the words ”my oldest daughter”. That is why it says ואיני יודע and not ואינו ידוע. If so, that means, as רש"י says there, that when we say that רבי יוסי holds לא מחית איניש ספיקא לנפשיה it means that even when you clarify which daughter you mean, you still wouldn’t have called her the oldest if you didn’t mean the absolute oldest since people might forget which daughter you said. אביי there might disagree and say the משנה is discussing a case where it was never spoken out. The מקנה in קידושין דף ס"ד ע"ב ד"ה למימרא asks why don’t we say that all of the daughters should be מותר because רוב of the daughters are מותר and כל דפּריש מרובא פּריש! In fact, תוספות in נזיר דף י"ב ד"ה אסורsays that if a man sends שליח to be מקדש any lady for him without saying who, he is אסור to all women in the world lest it be the sister of the woman who his שליח was מקדש. תוספות there says that its really just a קנס for making such a horrible שליחות, but the person is really מותר to all woman because we can go בתר רוב and רוב women are not the sister of whichever lady the messenger was מקדש for him. If so, why should the daughters in our משנה be any different? He answers that the מרדכי at the end of חולין says that anytime we say ביטול, it must be that there was first an איסור and then it got mixed in with היתר, but if the איסור was born mixed, then there is no ביטול. If so, in our case, if you assume that the father would be מחית לספיקא, and you assume like אביי may hold that the משנה is discussing a case where the daughters name was never said, we could say the reason we cant go with רוב is because the איסור was never recognizable, as opposed to the case of the שליח where at the time of קידושין it was הוכר האיסור, there we can go with רוב. However, according to רבאthere who says our משנה is discussing a case where the daughter’s name was spoken out, we could not answer that and would need to say it’s some kind of איסור דרבנן.
The ר"ן says at the top of the דף that if the person said he will not eat something for “one year” he means 12 months and not the extra 13th month if it happens to be a leap year. However, our גמרא is actually quoting the משנה on דף ס"ג, and there the ר"ן says he thinks that when a person says “one year” they mean to include the extra 13th month. The שלמי נדרים explains that the ר"ן here is just explaining like the רשב"א he quotes there, but he himself הלכה למעשה is חוכך להחמיר that it includes 13 months.
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