[Avodah] Modern-day essurai, etc.

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 01, 2011 at 10:13:30AM -0700, Garry wrote:
> Moderator:  If this is too elementary for this list, I apologize; feel 
> free to omit.
>
> I have been puzzling over the list of vows in Kol Nidrei.  I finally have 
> some grasp of their halachic definitions, but I'm having trouble thinking 
> of modern day situations when each type of vow is made.  We have Neders,  
> Assurs, Cherems, Konams, Kinuyei, Kinusei, and Shevuot...

Nidrei -- I'm donating that shas to the yeshiva library.

Esarei -- From now on I'll be machmir not to eat chadash (in chu"l).

Shevu'ei -- I'll never eat one of those again.

Charamei -- You're not allowed to get any future benefit from me. (Nedarim
    47b) There is another flavor of cheirem, charmei kohanim, but we
    don't often donate something to a kohein for personal use, at least
    not qua kohein.

Qonam and qonas are foreign words that mean roughly the same thing as
qorban, and thus are examples of kinuyei. (See Nedarim 1:2) They were
used to avoid someone accidentally saying the idiom "qorban Lashem"
and thus take sheim H' lashav. But the mishnah is clear, they are kinuyim.

They are effectively kinuyei neder, as they are maqdish an object, and
don't know why they are spelled out on a list of expressions coined in
the days of the ge'onim. That long after qorbanos, who would use the
turn of phrase "like a sacrifice"?

Also, why do two examples of kinui straddle the word "vekinuyei"? I
could see "vekiniyuei [such as] qonamei veqinusei" or "qonamei, qinusei
[and other] kinuyei".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke