We are learning Gemara Nedarim, and today we are on page seven. Whenever we use the language of a sacrificial offering, it is generally the language of an oath. We know that when a person makes an oath, the oath applies to the person himself. Therefore, when he says, “I swear that I will not sleep,” or “I swear that I will not speak,” or “I swear that I will not walk,” the oath takes effect. All of these oaths are binding and forbidden to violate.
Now consider the statement, “An offering: I will not eat from you.” Here, the person merely says the word “offering.” Even though we know that the word “offering” is associated with vows, and even though we might understand him to be saying, “This will be forbidden to me like an offering,” everyone agrees that this is a vow only when the statement is formulated appropriately. The same applies to the formula that means “consecrated.” But here he did not say “consecrated,” and he did not say “like an offering”; he simply said, “Offering: I will not eat from you.”
This is neither a vow nor an oath. It is not a vow because he did not prohibit himself from anything. He merely said the word “offering” and then said, “I will not eat from you.” It sounds as though what he will eat will not be an offering. In other words, he did not actually prohibit anything. It is also not an oath, because the Gemara will explain that if he means, “By the life of the offering,” he would be using an expression associated with an oath. But for an oath, one must say, “I swear,” or use the Divine Name, or some expression connected to the Divine Name. Here, he merely said “offering.” It is as if he said, “I swear by the life of this offering,” but that is not the language of an oath. Therefore, “Offering: I will not eat from you” is nothing—not a vow and not an oath.
Similarly, if a person says to his friend, “The offering that I will eat from you,” the phrase “the offering” was previously understood as “by the life of the offering.” That is not an oath either. Or, if he says, “Not an offering: I will not eat from you,” we have a different version of the text. Our Mishnah at least has the word “not” before “offering.”
That wording implies that what he does not eat will not be an offering, whereas what he does eat will be an offering. Once again, this would be based on an implication. Our Mishnah therefore says that the food is permitted, because we do not follow that implication. We do not say, “From the negative statement, you understand the positive.” This is consistent with Rabbi Meir’s position.
The Ran reviews the Mishnah in this way. In the first case, “An offering: I will not eat from you,” the person might mean, “By the life of the offering, I am making an oath.” It is permitted, because “offering” is not the expression used to formulate an oath. Alternatively, he might mean, “The food that I will not eat from you will be an offering.” That would also be permitted, because he has prohibited only the food that he will not eat. He has not placed a vow on the food that he will eat.
In the case of “The offering that I will eat from you,” he may be saying, “By the life of the offering,” because people do speak that way. In that case, he has said nothing relevant to a vow. The Ran then discusses the different versions of the text. According to the version that reads “not an offering” with the shorter vocalization, it means that what he does not eat will not be an offering. The implication would be that what he does eat will be an offering, but we do not follow that implication. Thus, all the versions are explaining the same basic point.
The Gemara asks: Who is the author of our Mishnah? It must be Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Meir does not distinguish between “offering” and “like an offering.” He does not require the word “like.” The Ran explains that Rabbi Meir does not need the comparative word because the two expressions have the same force.
If the Mishnah were following Rabbi Yehuda, asks the Gemara, why did it specifically discuss the case of “Offering: I will not eat from you,” which is permitted? It could have taught an even more obvious case: “The offering that I will eat from you,” which is also permitted. According to Rabbi Yehuda, the word “offering” does not create a vow unless the person says “like an offering.” Therefore, according to Rabbi Yehuda, neither formulation would create a vow. The fact that the Mishnah chose the first formulation indicates that it is following Rabbi Meir rather than Rabbi Yehuda.
But the Gemara raises a difficulty from the latter clause of the Mishnah: “Not an offering: I will not eat from you,” which is permitted. Why is it permitted? According to Rabbi Meir, the statement means that what he will not eat will not be an offering, implying that what he will eat will be an offering. We said that the reason it is permitted is that we do not follow implications. Yet we learned elsewhere that Rabbi Meir considers this formulation prohibited.
As Rabbi Abba explained previously, the statement can be read as though there were a pause after the word “offering”: “It will be an offering; therefore, I will not eat from you.” In that reading, the person is not implying anything. He is directly saying that the food will be an offering and that he therefore will not eat it. If so, it is forbidden. We seem to have a contradiction: in one place, according to Rabbi Meir, the statement is not a problem, while in another place it is a problem.
The Gemara answers that everything depends on how the words are pronounced. If the phrase is pronounced with the shorter vocalization, it means, “It will be an offering; therefore, I will not eat.” But if it is pronounced with the open vowel, it means, “What I will not eat is not an offering.” The latter wording implies that what he will eat is an offering, and we do not follow that implication. Thus, the distinction is between the two pronunciations.
The Ran explains that the first pronunciation means, “It will be an offering,” whereas the second means, “It is not an offering.” This resolves the difficulty according to Rabbi Meir.
The Mishnah then proceeds to oaths: “I swear that I will not eat from you”; “The oath that I will eat from you”; and “Not an oath: I will not eat from you.” In all these cases, the ruling is that the statement is forbidden. Let us take them one at a time.
“I swear that I will not eat from you” clearly means that he is making an oath not to eat from his friend’s food. What about the second case, “The oath that I will eat from you”? It could imply that he is making an oath that he will not eat. Although the words say “that I will eat,” the Mishnah understands them as meaning “that I will not eat.” We will see why.
One might think that he could make an oath that he will eat from his friend’s food. In practice, a person cannot guarantee that he will eat someone else’s food, because it is not entirely under his control. But he can make a positive oath regarding his own food. The relevant point here is that he is making an oath not to eat from his friend’s food.
As for “Not an oath: I will not eat from you,” the apparent meaning is that what he will not eat will not be forbidden, implying that what he will eat will be forbidden. That is an implication, and it should therefore be forbidden, perhaps even according to Rabbi Meir.
The Ran explains the cases. “I swear that I will not eat from you” is plainly an oath not to eat. As for “The oath that I will eat from you,” perhaps the person means, “By the life of the oath.” But an oath does not have a life. This expression can be used with an offering, but not with an oath. People do not speak this way when formulating oaths. Therefore, the statement must be understood according to its context as an oath not to eat.
Even if he says “not an oath,” with the open vowel, it is forbidden. Although that wording might sound as though he is saying “no oath,” it still does not mean that he is permitting the food. The Mishnah follows Rabbi Meir in that we do not generally follow implications. Nevertheless, in the case of an oath, even Rabbi Meir agrees that we follow the implication.
The reason is that Rabbi Meir derived his position from the condition made by the tribes of Gad and Reuben. That discussion concerns monetary matters. Matters of prohibition are different. The category of an oath is a prohibition, not a monetary matter, and it is therefore not subject to the same limitation. Vows must be placed on an object, because a vow applies to a tangible item. An intangible object cannot ordinarily be the subject of a biblical vow. An oath, however, is a prohibition that applies to the person himself. Since an oath is a personal prohibition, even Rabbi Meir follows the implication in that context.
Therefore, in the case of “Not an oath: I will not eat from you,” the meaning is that what he will not eat will not be an oath, whereas what he will eat will be an oath. That implication creates a problem, even according to Rabbi Meir.
Rav Nachman then makes an inference from the Mishnah itself. The Mishnah says, “The oath that I will eat from you,” but it rules that the statement is forbidden. This implies that the phrase means, “I will not eat.” If the person were making an oath that he would eat, the Mishnah should have said that he is liable for failing to eat. Since the Mishnah says that the food is forbidden to him, it must be discussing a case in which he is prohibited from eating, even though he used positive terminology.
This appears to contradict a Mishnah in Tractate Shevuot. That Mishnah teaches that there are two basic types of oaths, which become four. The two basic cases are: “I will eat,” and “I will not eat.” One violates the oath if he swears that he will eat and does not eat, or if he swears that he will not eat and then eats. Those are the two cases concerning the future. The additional two cases concern the past: “I ate,” when he did not eat, and “I did not eat,” when he did eat.
There are therefore four distinct formulations: “I will eat,” “I will not eat,” “I ate,” and “I did not eat.” The word “eat” plainly means eating, because it is contrasted with “I will not eat.” How, then, can our Mishnah understand “The oath that I will eat from you” as meaning “The oath that I will not eat”? We seem to be forced to decide: Does “The oath that I will eat” mean an oath that I will eat, or an oath that I will not eat?
The Gemara gives the characteristic rabbinic answer: it depends. The phrase “I will eat” can have either meaning, depending on the context.
Suppose people are pressuring someone to eat. They say, “Eat something. You have to eat something. Have something to eat.” He responds, “I will eat, I will eat.” If they continue pressing him, and he says, “I swear that I will eat,” then the phrase clearly means that he will eat. The context has already established that meaning.
But suppose he initially says, “I will not eat, I will not eat.” He is telling them that he does not want to eat. If they continue pressuring him and he then says, “The oath that I will eat,” he means, “The oath that I will not eat.” The meaning is determined by what preceded the statement. The Mishnah is evidently discussing that kind of exchange, even though it does not spell out the entire background.
Rav Ashi offers another explanation. When the Mishnah says, “The oath that I will eat,” it means that the person actually said, “The oath that I will not eat.” If that is the explanation, the difficulty seems to disappear. But the Gemara asks: If so, why is this worth teaching? It is obvious that the person merely mispronounced or stumbled over the word.
The Gemara answers that this teaches us that even when a person says the negative expression incorrectly, we do not automatically correct his words and interpret them as the positive expression. We understand the words he actually said as having the meaning he intended.
Why, then, did Abaye not explain the Mishnah like Rav Ashi? Abaye could have said that the Mishnah’s expression means the negative form. The answer is that the Mishnah did not actually say the negative form. Rav Ashi must therefore explain that the person stumbled over the wording, whereas Abaye understands the expression itself as capable of carrying either meaning, depending on the context.
Rav Ashi, in turn, distances himself from Abaye’s explanation. He maintains that both the positive and negative expressions can have two meanings, depending on what preceded them. For example, imagine the same host urging a person to eat. The person repeatedly says, “I will not eat, I will not eat.” Then he says, “Whether I say ‘I will eat’ or ‘I will not eat,’” or he phrases it rhetorically. Because the preceding conversation involved his refusal to eat, the statement may actually indicate that he will eat.
In other words, the host tells him, “Eat,” and the person responds rhetorically, “Did I say that I will not eat? I did not say that I will not eat.” He is actually indicating that he will eat. Then he says, “Did I make an oath that I will not eat?” The rhetorical question means that he did not make such an oath and that he will eat. Thus, even the negative expression can sometimes mean the positive one, depending on the context.
Why, then, did the Tanna teach only one direction—that “I will eat” can mean “I will not eat”? If the negative expression can also have the opposite meaning, the Mishnah should have taught both sides. The answer is that the Mishnah was presenting the straightforward case and was not attempting to discuss every possible connotation of the words. If the entire background conversation had been included, the other formulation could also have been taught.
Abaye himself agrees that the Mishnah presents only one side. The question is which difficulty is more acceptable: changing the wording of the Mishnah, as Rav Ashi does, or understanding the words according to the context, as Abaye does. In either case, some explanation is necessary. The disagreement is not necessarily about the underlying law; it is about how to read the Mishnah.
We now arrive at a well-known Mishnah that we have encountered several times. Until this point, we have been discussing the ways in which oaths are more stringent than vows. We had not yet identified the precise Mishnah to which the opening statement was referring. But there is also a way in which vows are more stringent than oaths.
What is the case? A person says, “The sitting in the sukkah is forbidden to me,” and that vow takes effect. Or he says, “The lulav that I will take shall be like an offering.” That also takes effect. With vows, he can prohibit these things even though they involve a commandment.
With an oath, however, if he says, “I swear that I will not wear phylacteries,” or “I swear that I will not sit in a sukkah,” the oath does not take effect. He cannot create an oath that contradicts an existing commandment. This is an area in which vows are more stringent than oaths.
The Gemara returns to the opening statement of the Mishnah: “The stringency of oaths over vows.” It sounds as though oaths are more stringent, but the cases discussed are still connected to vows. The difficulty is that in the previous Mishnah, when we discussed expressions such as “I will eat from you” and “I will not eat from you,” we said that the ruling was that the food is permitted. That sounds as though no vow exists at all. Here, however, the wording seems to assume that there is a vow, merely one that is less stringent than an oath.
The Gemara answers that the opening statement is not referring to those cases. It is referring to the latter clause of the Mishnah: “The oath that I will not sleep, the oath that I will not speak, and the oath that I will not walk.” Those oaths take effect because they apply to the person himself. They are not vows at all. At most, when a person imposes a vow on an intangible matter, it can be considered a rabbinic vow, whereas an oath is a biblical prohibition. That is the stringency of oaths in this context.
The Ran explains that the opening clause is connected to the previous Mishnah, while the latter clause is the source for the comparison under discussion. The oath is more stringent because it is biblical, whereas the corresponding vow on an intangible matter exists only on a rabbinic level.
The Gemara then asks: In what case are vows more stringent than oaths? Rav Kahana teaches in the name of Rabbi Giddal, who said in the name of Rav: From where do we know that one cannot make an oath to violate a commandment? The verse says, “He shall not violate his word.” This implies that one must not violate his own word, but if his word conflicts with the word of Heaven, his oath is overridden. In other words, the oath is nullified when it contradicts a Divine commandment.
One might object that the verse itself mentions the Divine Name in connection with both a vow and an oath. It says that a person may make a vow to the Divine Name or swear an oath to prohibit something. Since the Divine Name appears between the two expressions, perhaps it applies to both. Just as a vow takes effect even when it concerns a commandment, perhaps an oath should also take effect.
The Gemara answers that the expression referring to the Divine Name applies only to the vow mentioned immediately before it. The verse should be understood as saying that a person makes a vow in the name of Heaven, but the oath does not take effect when it contradicts a commandment.
What is the practical difference between a vow and an oath here? If a person says, “The benefit of the sukkah is forbidden to me,” he is prohibiting himself from deriving benefit from the sukkah. That is the language of a vow. He is not directly saying that he will not sit in the sukkah; he is forbidding the benefit of the sukkah to himself. Therefore, the vow can take effect. Once a person says that he may not benefit from something, we cannot force him to use or consume the very thing from which he prohibited himself.
By contrast, if he says, “I swear that I will not benefit from the sukkah,” that is an oath imposed on his own person. It should not take effect against the commandment, because the obligation to sit in the sukkah already applies to him. This is why it is more plausible to say that the Divine Name in the verse applies to the vow but not to the oath.
However, Rava raises a difficulty: Are commandments given for personal benefit? We have the principle that commandments were not given for personal benefit. If so, what does it mean to say, “The benefit of the sukkah is forbidden to me”? There is no ordinary benefit involved in fulfilling the commandment.
The Ran explains that this is the wording used in Abaye’s original explanation. If one uses the expression “the benefit of the sukkah is forbidden to me,” it should not prevent the person from sitting in the sukkah, because the fulfillment of a commandment is not considered personal benefit. Therefore, Rava changes the formulation.
According to Rava, the person says, “The sitting in the sukkah is forbidden to me,” while in the parallel case he says, “I swear that I will not sit in the sukkah.” The oath does not take effect because one cannot make an oath to violate a commandment. The vow does take effect because he has prohibited the act of sitting in the sukkah through the language of a vow.
But another difficulty arises. If he says, “The sitting in the sukkah is forbidden to me,” he is placing the vow on sitting, which is intangible. A vow ordinarily must be placed on a tangible object. This would therefore be a significant innovation.
Rava’s explanation was intended to address the issue of personal benefit, but the formulation still requires us to understand how a vow can apply to an intangible act. The Ran notes that Rava dealt with one problem, while another remains.
The Tosafot offer a different approach. They say that even if a person says, “The sitting in the sukkah is forbidden to me,” the vow can take effect because he mentioned the sukkah, which is a tangible object. The act of sitting is associated with that object. This differs from expressions such as “My speech is forbidden to me” or “My walking is forbidden to me,” where no tangible object is mentioned.
The same principle appears in another discussion. If a person says, “My hands shall be consecrated,” the statement can take effect because he mentioned his hands, even if he did not explicitly say, “I consecrate my hands.” We understand the statement as though he said, “My hands shall be consecrated for the person who uses them.” The tangible object has been mentioned, and that is sufficient.
According to Tosafot, one might ask: Even if the person says, “The sitting in the sukkah is forbidden to me,” how can it take effect when sitting in a sukkah is a commandment and commandments were not given for personal benefit? The answer is that once he prohibits the sitting itself, the vow takes effect despite the absence of ordinary benefit. This is an innovation of the laws of vows: a vow can apply even to something that is not defined as personal benefit.
This idea is illustrated by the statement, “The throwing of this stone into the sea is forbidden to me.” There is no personal benefit in throwing a stone into the sea, yet the vow can take effect. The innovation is that a vow does not necessarily have to concern an act from which a person derives benefit. It can prohibit even an action that has no benefit.
Nevertheless, the Ran limits this principle. It applies when the person explicitly says, “The sitting in the sukkah is forbidden to me,” or “The throwing of this stone is forbidden to me.” But if he says merely, “The sukkah is forbidden to me,” or “This stone is forbidden to me,” we understand him as prohibiting the benefit of the object. In that case, he presumably intended to prohibit only the benefit, not the act of sitting in the sukkah or throwing the stone into the sea.
Thus, when a person mentions the sitting or the throwing explicitly, the vow can prohibit the action even though it involves no personal benefit. When he mentions only the sukkah or the stone, the ordinary meaning is that he is prohibiting his benefit from the object. The precise wording determines the scope of the vow.
For purposes of the practical law, the Ran refers to his discussion in Tractate Shevuot. The Rambam rules like Abaye in the earlier discussion concerning the expression “I will eat”: it can have either meaning depending on the circumstances and what preceded it. However, the Rambam rules like Rav Ashi regarding the formulation itself: the positive expression ordinarily means “I will eat,” and the negative expression ordinarily means “I will not eat.”
The Ran explains that although this discussion appears to involve only a dispute about how to understand the Mishnah, the discussion in Tractate Shevuot indicates that there may be an underlying disagreement. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Nimukei Yosef, and the later authorities rule according to Rav Ashi, following the principle that the law generally follows the later authority. The Meiri, however, rules according to Abaye in Tractate Shevuot.
The Ran concludes that one must examine whether there is truly a disagreement between the authorities or whether they are merely explaining the wording of the Mishnah differently. That is the point at which we conclude this discussion.