Resources and Review Tests for Nedarim 64
The משנה discusses the מחלוקת תנאים about whether you can be פּותח בנולד or not. To understand the סוגיא fully it is important to take a step back and understand the concept of פּתח and חרטה and how it relates to נולד. The ר"ןback on דף כ"א ע"ב in ד"ה אין חכם explained that a פּתח means we offer to the person “had you thought about or focused on this point would you still have made the נדר at the time?” If the person says they would not have made the נדר then it is considered like a נדר בטעות and we can be מתיר it. חרטה however is something entirely different. חרטה means that there is no new point of information or thing to focus on that would have changed my mind at the time. It is simply this: I was angry then and I’m not angry now. Therefore, because I’m not angry now, I regret having made the נדר originally. That is a חרטה that works (assuming you hold חרטה works). If however, you only regret the נדר from today but do not regret having made the נדר originally, that is not a valid חרטה since the נדר must be uprooted retroactively. On our דף we discuss the concept of נולד where the חכמים hold אין פּותחין בנולד. The ר"ן explains that the reason נולד can’t be a valid פּתח is because it isn’t common. The רא"ש explains this further that נולד means a new situation arose. If it wasn’t likely that the situation would have arisen then it can’t be considered a valid פּתח because the way פּתח works is we say to the person “had you focused on this, would you have made a נדר?” In this case, even had he focused on the possibility of this unlikely event occurring, he still would have made the נדר since it was unlikely to occur. However, if the new event was considered שכיח, then he might not have made the נדר. That means that when the גמרא explains why the story of "מתו כל האנשים המבקשים את נפשך" is not a question on the חכמים, it is saying that since poverty is common, Hashem is saying that had משה רבינו focused on the possibility of them becoming poor and having no power, he never would have made the נדר to יתרו to stay. That means poverty is considered שכיח. The בית יוסף in סימן רכ"ח points out that the fact that we say they got poor and not that they died means that we must say that death is not considered as common as poverty, even though everyone dies and not everyone becomes poor, because the נודר has as much chance to die and the מדיר. The רמב"ם in הלכות שבועות פּרק ו׳ הל׳ י"ב has a different approach. He does not make any differentiation between a נולד שכיח versus an uncommonנולד . Rather theרמב"ם says that the reasonנולד doesn’t work is because the person doesn’t want the new situation to have arisen. In other words, he still hates the guy he made a נדר against, but has no choice but to get הנאה from him because he became the mail carrier and he is the only mail carrier in town. In that case, he is not מתחרט מעיקרא. Rather he is happy with the נדר till the guy became mail carrier, and just wishes to undo the נדר as of today. That does not work. However, the רמב"ם would hold that if the person actually regrets the נדר even from the beginning because of what changed in the future then the פּתח would work. A great example of a נפקא מינה of this מחלוקת is the story in כתובות דף ס"ג about רבי עקיבא and כלבא שבוע. In that case, כלבא שבוע was מדיר his son in law רבי עקיבא from his belongings because he was an עם הארץ. Once he became a תלמיד חכם, he was מתיר נדר. תוספות there asks why this isn’t a problem of נולד? He answers it is נולד שכיח because people who go to yeshiva usually become תלמידי חכמים. The רמב"ם would simply answer that in this case כלבא שבוע regretted ever having been מדיר him since he would one day be רבי עקיבא so there was no issue of נולד.
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