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Here we go into Nedarim! Its placement in Seder Nashim will become revealed only in the last couple of chapters, so hold tight :)
The concepts in Nedarim will by and large be new to us, as we have long-ago been warned off the practice of accepting nedarim (vows) upon ourselves. Cue Kol Nidre! But the practice of pronouncing nedarim was obviously relatively commonplace (though generally discouraged!) in Mishnaic times, and as we shall see people who pronounced nedarim tended to not know the intricate ins-and-outs of the laws of nedarim. And that's why we have a whole tractate dedicated to this topic.
For today, a general intro, and a look at the first Mishna. By its most basic definition, a neder is an individual's pronouncement that an object that one is ordinarily permitted to derive benefit from, shall by virtue of his pronouncement, now be forbidden to him. And the proper and full halachik formulation of such a neder is, "Behold, object "x" is forbidden to me as if it were a korban (i.e. an animal that has been dedicated to be a Temple offering). Our opening Mishnayot deal with all kinds of possible variations on the proper and full formulation that people apparently used, which of these variations constitute a binding neder and which do not.
To understand Mishna one, you need to actually ignore the first couple of lines for the moment. (We will return to them as we go along in the perek.) Begin with "He who says to his friend...". The discussion here is about what is referred to as a "yad" (a "handle"), i.e. a neder pronouncement that lacks the key phrase "as if it were a korban", but has enough words in it that we might reasonably infer that this is the person's general intent. For example, various articulations of a person's intent to distance himself from another's objects do constitute a binding neder even without the explicit korban reference.
Similarly a person's pronouncement that he will regard something as bring prohibited to himself "in the manner of evil neder-makers" does result in a binding neder, as the pronouncement of nedarim is in fact regarded as the act of unscrupulous persons, i.e. those who have no fear of the sin of breaking one's neder. So the phrase is intrinsically meaningful and effective. Not so though if a person said "as in the manner of righteous neder-makers", a category which doesn't actually exist. As you will see though, with a slight variation from neder to nedavah, i.e. a free-will offering, which the righteous often do in fact offer).
More to come!
As a reminder, please save the date for our next Zoom shiur, with Rabbi Shlomo Weissman the administrator of the Beth Din of America, on March 17th. Save the date!
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