[Avodah] nedarim and shevuos

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2025 at 02:37:27PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
> > Or maybe not. Maybe it's *only* the noun "okhel" that has a minimum size.
> > Other cases aren't crossing my mind right now.

> A neder to not get hana'ah from a piece of food?

IF we judge a neder by technical meaning:
If "food" means "a kezayis or more of something edible", then a piece of
food would have to be a piece bigger than a kezayis.

But I think we judge it by colloquial usage. So, "piece of food" would mean
whatever normal English usage is. Even if it's not "okhel".

> Switching to the subject line, this is probably a softball question, but if
> a neder relates to a cheftza, and a shevua applies to an action, why do
> people say "bli neder" so often in the context of actions?

When the pasuq uses the word "yad", does it definitely mean the weaker
hand, or is that only the implication of the word "yed" when "yemin" is
also being used?

I would like to think the former, so that "Poseiach es Yadekha umasbia"
would mean "You open Your 'Hand' of Restraint, so that Your 'Hand' of
Chessed can satisfy..." But that Yeminkha is always there trying to
give. We are talking about a hasaras hamoneia' that would otherwise
prevent the giving.

I ask, because I am tempted to say here that "neder" and "shavua" may
only have specific meanings when they are being used with other such
words so that we know that the general topic is being broken down into
different subcategories.

Like if I said "X is bright and Y is brilliant", you would know that
I definitely mean two different things by "bright" and "brilliant".
But usually, they're pretty much interchangable. (With apologies to R
Jay Schachter.)

> And while I'm at it:  a few days ago, on the daf, the gemara (around
> Shevuos 29?) spoke about Moshe (in Devarim) getting am yisroel to swear
> they will follow the mitzvos.  The discussion revolved around Moshe's
> specific lashon, but I found it curious that I didn't see a mention of the
> issue of "isn't this a shevuas shav" (particularly because we had just
> finished discussing shavuas shav)....

We're talking about the shevatim in Trans-Jordan making a shavu'ah that
they would help fight? Because I cannot get from there to the possibility
of it being "shav". If the tenai is faulty, there is no shavua, and
if it's not, I don't see how it's shav. Please explain further.

Personally, I like the whole idea of logic vs. rhetoric that seems
implied by R Meir's position. Miklal lav implies that there is no middle
ground between lav and hein. And people usually do talk that way. But
in terms of formal logic (using non-Boolean formal logics), "not tall"
includes not only "short" but everyone in the middle of the bell curve
too. (Unless you're closer to my height, where people in the middle of
the bell curve look tall too. <grin>)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 If you can't get beyond your stresses, your
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   problems, and your pain, you can't create
Author: Widen Your Tent      a new future where those things don't exist.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                - Dr. Joe Dispenza