Ayin Bet, we ended with a She'elah (question) yesterday. At the bottom of Ayin Alef, Amud Bet, we asked the She'elah and left it hanging. We asked whether, if a person divorces his wife, that is like Shtika (silence) or like Hakama. Meaning, the husband divorced her while she was an Arusah (betrothed). Maybe that is like Hakama, like he confirmed the vow, because he is basically telling her, “Have a nice day; you’re stuck.” Or is it just Shtika—he is ignoring it, remaining silent? Then you have to depend on all the laws of being silent. That was the She'elah. Ta shema (come and hear) is going to try to bring proofs one way or the other.
Ayin Bet, now at the top of the page. A phrase appears at the top of the page.
When do we say that, if the husband died, the power goes back to the father? Either the husband didn’t hear about it, or he heard about it and was mefer (annul), revoking his part, or he heard about it, was silent, and died that same day. Why? Because any of the other possibilities would be Hakama. If the husband did Hakama before he divorced her or died, the father won’t be able to do it. Every time there is a Gerushin (divorce), it’s only like being silent.
Give me a fourth case. It should have said, “When does the power go back to the father?” It says the husband didn’t hear, or he heard and died. No, tell me he divorced her, though. If you tell me divorce is not considered confirmation, that would be a very good reason. Since it didn’t use that case, I see that divorce must be like confirmation. It didn’t give me that case. It says only that the husband revoked it, or didn’t hear about it, or died. It doesn’t say that case. And I said, no, that’s not a good proof.
But look at the next part. It says the opposite. The flip side says that if the husband heard about it and confirmed it, or died the second day, then the father cannot get the power back because the vow is confirmed. If divorce is like Hakama, the Beraita should tell me, “And if you divorce her, too, the father doesn’t get the power.” It must be that the Beraita doesn’t hold that way, because divorce must be just like being silent. That’s why it doesn’t mention it.
So I have two contradictory views from the Beraita. The first part seems to say that it is Hakama. The second one says it’s like Shtika. No proof follows from that. You can’t bring a proof from this Beraita. You have to say, “I resha dafka nasiv seifa mishum resha; i seifa dafka nasiv resha mishum seifa” (If the first part is precise, the latter is because of the first; if the latter is precise, the first is because of the latter). You have to say the Beraita just wasn’t being precise in how it said it. If you tell me it was precise in the first case and didn’t mention the case where he divorced her, then in the second part, too, it wants to make the cases parallel, so it doesn’t mention it. The Beraita isn’t trying to teach me this law. It wants to tell me the things that are known for sure. The things that are questionable, it just leaves open, hanging, and therefore it cannot bring a proof.
You can learn from the Mishnah. I don’t know why you guys didn’t jump up from your seats and bring a proof from the Mishnah. “Nadra v'hi arusa, nitgarsha bo bayom, nit'arasa bo bayom, afilu l'me'ah, avihah u'ba'alah ha'acharon mefirin nedareha” (She vowed while betrothed; she was divorced that day and betrothed that day, even to a hundred; her father and her last husband annul her vows). She made a neder (vow) when she was an Arusah, and she got divorced and betrothed, even to a hundred men. A father and the last Arusah could take off the neder.
She got divorced in between. If you tell me divorce is tantamount to confirmation, the first guy divorced her. Once he divorced her, the last guy shouldn’t be able to do it, and the father shouldn’t be able to do it. So we see it’s not—it’s a sfeika (doubt). I can make the case, but the husband didn’t hear about it. That’s why his divorce for sure is not going to happen. If he didn’t hear about it, then his divorce for sure isn’t going to happen; it goes to the father.
Why does it not say he died that day? Even if she was divorced and betrothed again after a hundred days, the father or the last husband could revoke the vow. Why does it have to be that he died that day? Because the husband didn’t hear about it, but the father heard about it. Since the father heard it that day, it has to be that day for the father. So the guy divorced a hundred times, all on the same day—not because of the Arusah; the Arusah didn’t hear about it. So if he died, it doesn’t matter. But the father won’t be able to get the power back because he heard about it. That’s what it says: he died that very day. So we have no proof again.
Ta shema: the last time, she made a vow on the very day of her marriage, and he divorced her and took her back that very day. He divorced her; they got into their first fight. He said, “Here, here’s your gift. I had it written already. Here’s your gift.” After that, she apologized: “I’m sorry.” “Okay, I’ll take you back.” But in between, she had made a vow the first time. Now he can—he remarries her—he cannot do hafarah (annulment). Why not? Can we blame it on the divorce? That means the divorce made it like a confirmation. That’s why he can’t divorce her. That’s why he can’t revoke it.
I mean, no, she was fully married. I’m not talking about a husband alone. We say you can never revoke a vow that was made before his jurisdiction. Since she was fully married, divorced, and then fully married again, now he has no—the reason why he can’t revoke her previous vow, I can understand. You just said before that if she got married to a hundred guys, the last guy got married. But the father—in this case, the father could act only when she’s an Arusah. Here she’s in nisu'in (fully married). She’s fully married; there’s no father. She’s out of the father’s jurisdiction. It’s only the husband. The husband has no right over a vow that came before, even if he’s the same husband. You understand? But it’s only a vow that was made during the first term of marriage. While she was married to him the first time, she made a vow. He divorced her fully, remarried her, and she entered nisu'in again. Now, even though he’s the same husband, he has to revoke a vow that was made in the first term of marriage. It’s like a different marriage. It doesn’t count.
What happened to her vows? She’s stuck. She’s stuck. She’s stuck with it? The father can’t do anything but his... Right?
Now, what’s the ending of this She'elah? The Gemara leaves it open. We don’t know. They probably have to be machmir (stringent) in Halakha (Jewish law). That question remains unresolved. Turn the page.
This is the way of the wise men. You want to know the way of the wise men? Try to be wise yourself, or at least learn from them. Know what they do? Before his daughter goes out of his jurisdiction—meaning she’s still an Arusah, before the nisu'in, right before the full marriage—he tells her like this: “My dear,” Omer lah (he says to her), “any vow you made while you’re still under me here, I revoke.” This way he covers her. This way she won’t have a vow going into her marriage.
Oh, very nice. Charles is asking a good question. Also, the husband—what does he do? Before she enters his jurisdiction, meaning before nisu'in, he tells her, “All the vows that you made before, I’m going to revoke them now,” because right now I have the power with your father. Once you’re going to be nisu'in to me, I’m not going to be able to revoke previous vows, so he wants to revoke them before she comes. Once you come to this point, you won’t be able to be mefer because it has to be prior.
So what does the Mishnah teach me? This is the way of the Talmidei Chachamim (Torah scholars). I was going to ask right now: it doesn’t mean this is recommended only for the learned. It’s coming to teach us that learned people who do this—we should learn from them and do it, too. So when your daughter is about to get married, betrothed, maybe already over 12, the father can do it. Make sure you tell her, “Any vow you made, I’m here to revoke it.”
Good, I’m going to ask you a question. Could the husband revoke a vow without hearing about it? I want to make it generic like that. Why? “V'shamah ishah, davka? Hu, lav davka?” (And her husband heard—is that specific? Or not specific?) The Torah gives an example. It says, “V'shamah ishah b'yom shom'o v'hecherish lah” (And her husband hears it on the day he hears it and remains silent). “V'shamah ishah” (and her husband heard). He heard it. Is that davka, specifically? Or lav davka, not specifically? The Torah is just giving you a scenario. You don’t really have to hear it. You can make the vow, and you can revoke the vow without hearing it. It’s a big Hiddush (novel insight).
Ta shema, ha'omer. If he makes this general hafarah, he tells her, “My dear daughter, before you leave my reshut (jurisdiction), I’m hereby revoking all your vows.” He didn’t hear them. So how does it work? No, when he hears them, he actually revokes them.
What exactly is being done? Only when he hears the vows does he actually revoke them. That means when he says, “All the vows you have made,” it doesn’t mean they’re revoked right now. They’re revoked when he hears about them and declares hafarah a second time. When I said that, what do you say to, “Why don’t you wait until he hears it and revoke it?” No, you know what he does that for, guys? It’s common sense. It’s logic. By him telling her that, she says, “Oh, could you remind me? I did make a vow.” So then he hears it and makes the revocation. His generic statement doesn’t really do it. He’s just telling her, “All the vows that you have, I’m going to revoke.” “Thank you for reminding me; I did this one.” She has to remember and say it over to him. So it’s the practice of Torah scholars to seek it out, discover it, and revoke it when he hears it.
There is another proof from the end of the Mishnah. The husband, when she is betrothed, says before she enters his jurisdiction that all the nedarim before she enters, he’ll revoke. He didn’t hear about it. He’s saying this: “I’m going to revoke it when I hear about it.” So it’s the same answer. Both are good.
Where’s this Mishnah? Mishnah 75. The Mishnah is going to say it like this: “Ta shema, ha'omer le'ishto: kol nedarim shetidori ad she'avo mimakom ploni, harei hen kayamim” (Come and hear: one who says to his wife, all the vows you make until I return from a certain place, they are confirmed). The guy’s going on a trip. So he says like this: “All the vows, all the nedarim that you’re going to make until I return from such a place, harei hen kayamim” (they are confirmed). He’s warning her, “Listen, honey, I’m going on a trip. I have to go on business. I’m telling you now: if you make a vow, all the vows that you make from the time I leave until I come back, I’m confirming them now.” So whatever you do, you’re going to be stuck with it.
He’s telling the administrator to revoke—no, no, he skipped ahead; we’re not there yet. You’re looking on the right side. Go look on the left side. You can’t confirm a vow that hasn’t been made yet. But if he says, “All the vows that she makes, I’m going to revoke them from now,” it seems like he’s doing it from now. It says that it’s good. We’re going to see this later. Even according to Rabbi Eliezer, they can make the vow; they can revoke the vow beforehand. But he didn’t hear about it. He didn’t hear about it. He’s doing it before he leaves. He didn’t hear. So you see, you don’t have to hear. He’s just telling her, “All the vows that you’re going to say, when I hear about it, when I come back, I’m going to revoke them.”
And I said, “So, so lama li mehashta? Ki shama li farda?” (Why now? When he hears it?) So what do you have to do from now? When he comes back, he’s going to hear it again and revoke them. So what does he revoke them now for? He’s afraid that when he comes back from his trip, he’ll be very busy. He just landed, has to undo the suitcases, and he’s getting ready. So therefore he says it now.
“Isn’t there a time limit to revoke the vow?” “Yeah, the whole day.” So he says that when he comes back, it could be a month later. “I don’t understand that.” “No, when I come back, I’m going to hear it.” Oh, first he has to hear it. Then he’s afraid he’ll be so preoccupied by other matters on the day he hears about it that he won’t get around to revoking it. So he revokes them now to ensure that the revocation will take effect when he hears about the vows upon his return.
So we’re saying like this: there’s no way you can revoke a vow before you hear it, but he’s revoking them now. It’s not going to be chal (take effect) now. When he hears it, when he hears about it, then the revocation will be chal then. Even though he’s making the hafarah now, it’s going to work for that. Why would he even make it now? “When I come back, let me hear the vows you made.” I know, but he may be too tired, too busy, too involved. We do it ourselves. We make that a Russian account. It’s not hafarah. Yeah, but it’s not hafarah. It’s not revoking. You’re making—it’s like making a declaration that anything I do now should not be valid. You can do that, but that is not revoking the vow.
And he brings up the great Rabbi I met, the Rabbi—what’s his name?—from Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). He has a whole set of Sefarim (a whole set of books). He says the Ran never meant that when the husband hears about the vow, the vow becomes effective as of the time of the revocation—now, before he left. He means that when the husband hears about the vow, the act of revocation becomes effective retroactively, serving to determine the vow only from the time of the hearing onward.
Just like I was telling you before, he left on Rosh Chodesh Nisan (new moon of Nisan). He said, “I’m going to come back,” which is Tammuz (the Hebrew month). When he comes back and hears about the vow she made, he said it’s going to be chal—not from then, because he didn’t hear about it. When he hears it in Tammuz, that hafarah from before will be chal now. It’s a Hiddush. That’s another proof.
This is the case where he told his administrator. Again, it’s going to be a case we’re going to have later. He’s going abroad. He says, “So I’m going out of town. My wife’s going to make vows and get in trouble.” So he tells the guy in charge of the house, the administrator, “Any neder that my wife makes from the time I leave until I come back, I want you to revoke it. I don’t care what the vow says; revoke the vow,” and it works, and he did it.
“I would think it does count.” No, it does not count, because you can’t give the power of revocation to someone else. You have to be her husband. “I don’t understand you. Why?” So I see this is divided. The first Rabbi who said it doesn’t work—how does he answer Rabbi Yonatan? I have a pasuk (verse): “Only the husband,” implying that only the husband could do it. But the whole world would agree that the shaliach (agent) could do it, not because of the pasuk.
You might be asking a bomb question. I cannot make a shaliach to do something that I cannot do. So the moment he’s leaving and making the administrator a shaliach—let’s say he tells me I can make a shaliach—I tell the guy, “Make sure you revoke it when you hear about it.” But right now, did I hear about it? No, she hasn’t made it. So if I didn’t hear about it, I don’t have the power to revoke. How can I give you the power to revoke if I don’t have it? I can’t give a shaliach power to do something I don’t have the power to do.
He gives an example: can I tell the guy, “I want to marry the lady. I’ll appoint a shaliach: take money and marry that lady for me,” as Abraham did with Eliezer? But she’s an eshet ish (married woman). I can’t marry a lady who’s married. I tell my shaliach, “I know she’s not going to get—I want to make sure that as soon as she gets to get, marry her.” I can’t do that, since I’m making him a shaliach to marry the wife of me. Right now I can’t do it because she’s married. She can’t make me a shaliach. Same thing over here. Every time a guy has to hear it, I can’t make him a shaliach.
My answer is the same answer. When I hear about it on my return, then you revoke them for her. So he says, “If so, you’re going to hear about it, so you do it yourself.” L'khi shama' lefe lehu again: I may be too busy; I may not be able to do it. Therefore, you do it for me when I hear about it.
Baruch Adonai le'olam, amen ve'amen.