370. Raisin a Ruckus: The prohibition against a nazir eating raisins

Sometimes a thing changes form and it gets a new name. When it gets a new name, it might be subject to a completely different set of rules. For example, one might say the blessing ho’adoma before eating roasted grain, mezonos on cake and hamotzi on bread, even though they’re all wheat. Similarly, the idea that ketchup should count as a vegetable in school lunches met with derision because it was apparent to all that ketchup is fairly far removed from its origin as a tomato. But what about raisins? Are they still grapes or are they something else? Here’s your answer, at least as far as a nazir is concerned: raisins, being dried grapes, are as prohibited to a nazir as fresh grapes.

A nazir couldn’t eat any volume of grapes or grape products, but he would not be liable to punishment unless he ate a k’zayis, which is a unit of volume. (A solid that displaces .96 of an ounce of liquid is a k’zayis, although there are other opinions.) It may take more raisins than grapes to reach a k’zayis, but the volume for which a nazir would be culpable remains the same.

This mitzvah continues the idea of abstaining from physical pleasure as part of one’s spiritual pursuits.

This mitzvah applies to both men and women in all times and places. It is discussed in the Talmud in the sixth chapter of tractate Nazir, particularly on page 38b, and is codified in the Mishneh Torah in the fifth chapter of Hilchos Nezirus. This prohibition is #204 of the 365 negative mitzvos in the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvos and is not listed in the Sefer HaMitzvos HaKatzar of the Chofetz Chaim.