נדרים

The sedra of מטות commences with a set of laws concerning נדרים, vows or promises made. Some of these are straight forward, namely that should a man make a promise to Hashem or swears to obligate something on himself, he should not profane his words and must keep to the נדר or שבוע.

The same goes for a woman over the age of 12 and unmarried, or alternatively who is a widow or divorced.

Those laws can be understood logically and appear to be straightforward.

The interesting laws in the rest of the parsha concern the other cases, namely where a girl between the ages of 11 and 12 makes a נדר. Where an engaged girl makes a נדר and finally, where a married woman makes a נדר.

There are detailed laws whereby basically the father or the husband, or in the case of an engaged girl, both together, have the opportunity to annul the נדר in certain cases and with a certain time limit as enumerated in the parsha. The final verse reads as follows אלה החקים אשר צוה ה' את משה בין איש לאשתי בין אב לבתו בנעריה בית אביה.

The Torah clearly considers that these laws are chukim, statutes, things that we would not have understood from our own logical processes.

In order to understand the parsha properly, one should study it carefully at least with Rashi but the purpose of this article is to highlight certain phrases or laws which may seem, at least, strange, but which I believe have a connection with a previous event and therefore, can be better understood and appreciated.

In order to deal with this, I will try to enumerate and highlight certain wordings and laws.

I mentioned that the parsha is called מטות. In fact, this is the only time in Torah that there is a phrase stating that Moshe spoke אל ראשי המטות, to the heads of the tribes. Why was this particular phrase used and why were these laws given to the heads of the tribes?

From the wording in the whole parsha, there appears to be no hint that in addition to a father or husband being able to annul a vow, there is also what is known as a התרת חכם namely that a great scholar can also annul a vow. Furthermore, he can make it annulled retrospectively, that is from the time it was uttered and not like a father or husband from the time they find out, onwards. They cannot cause it to be annulled retrospectively.

Although the Torah states the case of a girl between the ages of 11 and 12, firstly, it then continues regarding an engaged woman and only then turns to the case of a husband and wife. Right at the end of the parsha, the emphasis in on בין איש לאשתו between a husband and wife as if this it the most important case.

The Torah uses an expression as follows:-
ואם ביום שמע אישה יניא אותה והפר את נדרה
And if on the day that the husband hears he, יניא, restrains her, והפר and he annuls her vow.

Rashi asks what does the word יניא mean and then says it means annulling. If that is so, why are both expressions יניא and והפר necessary?

There is another verse which reads as follows:-
כל נדר וכל שבעת אסר לענת נפש אישה יקימנו ואישה יפרנו
Every promise and every oath which, לענת נפש, her husband can confirm and her husband can annul. I have seen the expression, לענת נפש, translated as personal affliction or alternatively, vitiating ones life. Rabbi Shimson Rafoel Hirsch explains that vows which would entail neglect of care for one’s health, curtailment of one’s joy in life, would embitter one’s existence or stunt one’s feelings are all included. So are vows which affect the conjugal relations between husband and wife. All this the husband has the power to annul, but not any other vows. Why is this?

Finally, the expression מיום אל יום, from a day to the next day, is used by the Torah. We have a tradition, הלכה למשה מסיני, from Moshe Rabbenu that this means that the husband, only has the right to annul any such נדר or שבוע during the actual day that he hears it. For example, if he hears on a Monday evening after night falls, he will have up to Tuesday evening before nightfall to annul the נדר. (Subject to a proviso that if, however, during that period, he has already indicated that he agrees with it, he cannot then annul it).

If he hears about a נדר shortly before sunset, on the Tuesday, he still only has until nightfall on the same Tuesday evening, possibly only a half an hour, to annul it. He does not have 24 hours from the time that he hears it, but just during the actual day, which for Jewish purposes, is from nightfall until the next evening at nightfall.

Furthermore, as you may have realised, he does not have to annul it on the day that the נדר was made, but the first day that he hears about it is the relevant day for these laws.

I think one can see that there are some very unusual points I have made and, in fact, there are more in the parsha.

Let me make a suggestion as to what the underlying rationale might be, based on what happened during the first day that man was created.

We all know the story of אדם and חוה being placed in Gan Eden and being told that they could eat every fruit except one tree עץ הדעת טוב ורע, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were further told that on the day they ate from this tree they would die.

Nevertheless, the נחש, the snake, spoke to חוה regarding the matter and Rashi tells us that she told him that she and her husband were not allowed to eat or touch the tree. The snake pushed חוה into the tree and nothing happened. She did not die. She then ate and compounded the sin by persuading her husband אדם to eat.

Because of that the whole perfection of creation was spoiled. The words spoken by חוה without due consideration led to the chain of events for which we are still paying. It is also in our hands to try to rectify, to some extent, the damage caused.

It would also have helped considerably if she had not persuaded her husband and he would have not eaten from the fruit.

אדם הראשון compounded the sin by, when being questioned by Hashem said,
האשה אשר נתת עמדי הוא נתנה לי מן העץ ואכל,
The woman you gave to me gave me the fruit and I ate it. He blamed his wife for the problem instead of accepting that the problem was his.

The ספרים הקדושים state that we should attempt, by our actions, to try to rectify the problems caused by the fact that אדם and חוה ate from the עץ הדעת.

Let us now proceed to deal with the points I raised and maybe we can appreciate better the unusual points and laws.

As a general rule, men tend to make decisions with logic whereas ladies tend to rely on their emotions more. In fact, the Torah tells us that חוה saw
כי טוב העץ למאכל וכי תאוה הוא לעינים ונחמד העץ להשכיל
She perceived that the tree was good for eating and that it was a delight to the eye and that the tree was desirable for understanding. She, therefore, ate the fruit and then gave it to her husband to eat as well.

חוה was swayed by her emotions rather than thinking logically that they had been commanded that they may not eat from the fruit.

In the same way one can suggest that ladies are more likely to make a נדר when faced with strong emotions or a crisis (in their eyes) at that moment.

When this concerns only themselves and is a matter of very little consequence, for example, to vow that she will never wear a dress colour blue again, this is acceptable. However, when she makes a vow which affects her relationship with her husband or can lead to major consequences in some other way, there has to be a mechanism whereby this can be stopped and annulled.

Similarly in respect of girls who are reaching the age of puberty where they are beginning to assert their own personality there is the danger of them making irrational נדרים ruled by their emotions.

At that stage, the father figure is the one to have the opportunity of step in with calmness and logic.

The other major period covered is when a girl becomes engaged, אירוסין, and makes a נדר. In that case, both her father and future husband have to intervene jointly in the matter. The engaged girl is likely to be in a more emotional state than at other times. Here, however, it is not sufficient for her father to step in but also the future husband as this may affect him during their life together.

Let us now proceed to try to deal with the wordings and laws that I highlighted. Bearing in mind my remarks above, we begin to understand why it is that a father or husband has the ability to annul נדרים made. In the same way as חוה let her emotions at that moment rule her head regarding a most important matter, with dire consequences, the Torah is trying to forestall a similar situation.

Therefore, the power of the husband or father only applies where a factor of לענת נפש which I went into in detail earlier on, and quoted Rabbi Shimson Rafoel Hirsch (please see above) applies. Furthermore, a husband must use logic and common sense. By using a double expression יניא, restraining and והפר annulling, the Torah is emphasising that he should act as a restraining influence altogether as well as annulling this particular נדר. In effect, by stopping it once, this will, hopefully lead to such situations not happening again. It is also, to a small degree, a rectification, תיקון, for the original sin of אדם and חוה.

One could even, perhaps, suggest that the words לענת נפש also include the fact that by אדם and חוה having eaten from the עץ הדעת, this caused affliction, לענת, for all the future souls, נפש, namely all their offspring.

The reason why it has to be annulled on the same actual day, even if it is only a short while before and not as one would otherwise understand as a 24 hour period (which is the maximum) is because of the sequence of events at the time of the sixth day of creation when אדם and חוה were actually created.

The Gemorra in Sanhedrin tells us that by 11.00am that day, אדם הראשון stood on his feet, by 1 o’clock in the afternoon, he was already presented with חוה as his wife. By 3 o’clock in the afternoon, they were commanded not to eat from the עץ הדעת. By 4 o’clock they had already eaten, by 5 o’clock Hashem had decided their fate and just before evening came they were sent out of Gan Eden.

We are also told that as it was beginning to get dark, אדם thought that it was the end as far as he was concerned because he had been told that on the day that he would eat from the fruit he would die. Indeed, it may have been so, but Shabbos, which was imminently coming in, pleaded with Hashem to accept אדם’s repentance, his תשובה and as Dovid Hamelech says in tehillim כי אלף שנה בעיניך כיום,
A thousand days in G-d’s eyes is like one day. Hashem commuted the sentence and allowed אדם and חוה to live up to 1,000 years.

However, all this took place during the same day and was decided by nightfall.

Therefore, in the same way, the rectification for אדם not having stopped חוה from eating or at least, not eaten himself and also putting the blame on חוה all took place in the period up to nightfall on that very same day.

Because of this the maximum time that can be allowed for annulling a נדר is up to nightfall on that same day.

Let us turn now to the hidden law, namely that there is התרת חכם, a great scholar can annul a vow and furthermore, he can annul it retrospectively unlike a father or a husband.

May I suggest that the חכם represents the Rebbonu Shel Olam, Hashem Himself, who is היה הוה ויהיה, was, is and will be, and He is above time. He, therefore, has the ultimate power to do things retrospectively unlike human beings who can only act from now onwards. That is the reason why a father or husband can only annul the vow from the moment that he says מופר, it is annulled. We now see why their annulment of the vow does not take retrospective effect.

Finally, returning to the first question that I posed, namely as to why does it say that Moshe spoke אל ראשי המטות to the heads of the tribes. Perhaps one could find a רמז here that the ראשי המטות are אדם and חוה who were the first two human beings and therefore the heads of all the tribes of the world for that matter.

Moshe was implying that by adhering to the laws, חוקים, of נדרים, we would assist in the rectification of the two original ראשי המטות.

The gemmatria of the three words אל ראשי המטות adds up to 1,002. Bearing in mind the remarks that I made about Hashem granting אדם a thousand years life and that אדם and חוה were the two human beings that this all concerned, we have 1,000 + 2 = 1,002 and that adds up to the words אל ראשי המטות as a רמז to the whole picture and a clue to the חוקים of נדרים having an affinity with אדם and חוה.