Nedarim 20b
A Wife's Complaint, a Rebellious Son, and Annulling a Vow
Part of Ein Yaakov · 21:39
Covers the halachic category of a rebellious and criminal child, why a wife initiating intimacy is said to merit great children, and the procedure for annulling a neder through 'pesach charatah.'
Audio Transcript
וואו האלט מען? דא. דא האלט מען, יא. רנ״ג. We're holding this is the middle of סימן ד׳. We're holding here about the things that the מלאכים told told him to Rabbi Yochanan. Tomorrow night? Huh? Tomorrow night. I said tomorrow night. No, tomorrow night בראפמאן has yahrzeit. So he's No, he just told me he's going he says he's not going to be here tomorrow night anyway, so. שיחה שיעור tomorrow? Tomorrow the שיחה שיעור. Okay. So we're holding here ההיא דאתיא לקמיה דרבי.
There was a lady who came to Rabbi. אמרה ליה she said to him, רבי, ערכתי לו שלחן והפכו. Whatever that you mean says, I prepared the table, and he turned it around, which we learned yesterday, which means if he didn't do the intimacy in the proper way. So she complained. אמר לה so he said to her, בתי, my daughter, תורה התירתך, the Torah allowed it, ואני מה אעשה? and what could I do? Another story, ההיא דאתיא לקמיה דרב, someone came to Rav. אמרה ליה she said to him, Rabbi, the same thing, ערכתי לו שלחן והפכו. Turned it around. אמר, he said, מאי שנא מביניתא? Why is this different than fish? If you get fish, you could eat it salty, you could eat it roasted, you could eat it cooked, you could eat it every way you want, so if she's מותר, she's מותר, so. Okay. זאגט די Gemara ווייטער: דרש'נט דער pasuk ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם. Do not turn, huh? Well, כמעט, we're still on this sugya a little bit further. Different type of הרהורים. It says you do not turn after your heart. מכאן אמר רבי, רבי said, אל ישתה אדם בכוס זה ויתן עיניו בכוס אחר. Literally, it means don't drink in one cup and think about another cup. That means when you have relations, don't think about another woman. אמר רבינא, Ravina said, לא נצרכא אלא אפילו בשתי נשיו. Chiddush is, stam a body you can't think about another woman, but even the other woman is also your wife, you have two wives, so בשעת you have one wife, you shouldn't think of the other wife. Then he quotes a pasuk. It says like this: וברותי מכם The Navi says I'm going to choose from you, means the Aibershter is going to help even המורדים והפושעים בי, even those who rebel and are פשע, with דייטשמן, פשע bad, do bad things. פשעי ישראל.
אמר רבי לוי, רבי לוי said, who are the people are called מורדים ופושעים? אלו בני תשע מידות. These are children that happen from nine types of things that happen during relations, different types which are no good, and this are the מורדים ופושעים. Those children as a result of these relations Who are they? בני At first, it's a roshei teivos: אסנ״ת משג״ח, אל״ף, סמ״ך, נו״ן, ת״ו, מ״ם, שי״ן, גימ״ל, עי״ן, חי״ת. Asnat, didn't Yosef marry Asnat? Asnat, yeah, that's why we Whenever we give a siman, we mention a word that's a known word, otherwise how would we remember it? So here's Asnat, but it sits. So the Gemara explains what they are: אל״ף is בני אימה. If you have relation with your wife by scaring her, she doesn't really want to have relation with you, and you threaten her, you're scaring her, that's no good. So the children will come out מורדים ופושעים, they'll come out bad children. בני אנוסה, or actually you force her. The other one was not force, you're just threatening, scaring. This is force. Then בני שנואה, if you have relations with a wife that you hate. בני נידוי, or if a person is in cherem, so you're not allowed to have relations, if you have relations with her. בני תמורה You're asur to your wife when you're in cherem? Yeah. Really? בני, like avel. בני תמורה. תמורה means an exchange. He thought it was a different wife. I mean, it was both his wives, there's nothing wrong as far Yaakov Avinu? Yaakov Avinu, yeah. בני תמורה. Rachel. Yeah. בני מריבה, if you have relations after you have an argument with her. It's not a peshat that you hate her. It's before we said someone you hate. I don't hate her, but just now you had a So it says if you have an argument, you have to make up first. You have to mefayes her before you do anything. בני שיכרה, or you have relation when you're drunk. בני גרושת הלב, a woman that you have in mind to divorce. You're planning to divorce her, but you didn't divorce her yet. Not allowed to have relations with her. בני ערבוביא. Now, בני ערבוביא is a strange case. Rashi says שבאו עליה כמה בני אדם. If other people had relations with her. What does that mean? She's a married woman, she's your wife. So someone else other people had relations? So someone had different פרטים. Some say peshat is that after divorce No, no, that's שתי נשים, that's a woman that you had different nights, it's not like Rashi. She had relations with a woman that there were a whole bunch of women, you don't know which one she was. You don't know whether it was this wife or this wife. For all we know you exchanged, if you don't know either. But that's not what Rashi says, Rashi says that I don't know if it's shayach by a wife, maybe it's a, but I don't know, that Rashi just says ערבוביא means באו עליה כמה בני אדם. באונס? באונס, then she's מותר to her husband. So a woman that was ever נאנסה, she can never have relations with her husband? דארף מען ווארטן דריי חדשים? דאס דארף מען ווארטן סתם אזוי. You have to wait pashut to know a child if the child בן ז׳ or בן... then you do wait... So then it's a, I think there is one pshat here, not davka by אנוסה, that if it's a ספק on a woman if the child is from the first husband or the second, that's ז׳ or or ח׳ or or ט׳, this could be Rashi, yeah that's why they don't marry after three months. Three months, right. Right, right, right, you have to wait three months. And בני חצופה, בני חצופה means a woman who has the chutzpah of asking her husband for intimacy. Because we know a woman should not ask. It says והוא ימשול בך it says by Chava, that was the curse, that he's the one that should initiate, she's not allowed to initiate, and if she does, it's called a chutzpah. פרעגט די גמרא: איני? הא? Yeah, איני, well that's, gonna ask איני, it's not so? ואמר רב שמואל בר נחמני אמר רבי יונתן, שמואל בר נחמני in the name of רבי יונתן,
כל אדם שאישתו תובעתו, any woman that, any a person that his wife asks for it, הויין לו בנים, will have such great children שאפילו בדורו של משה רבינו לא היו כמותם, such great children that we don't have in the generation of Moshe. Where do we see that? If she asks? If she asks, yeah. You're not allowed to. That's the Gemara's קשיא. Just a minute ago we said you're not allowed to and now we say it's a good idea. And where do we see that you have good children? שנאמר, it says like this, the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, Yisro gave him an advice what to do and he said הבו לכם אנשים. Moshe Rabbeinu repeated it in Devarim that he said you should find אנשים חכמים ונבונים. וכתיב and then it says ואקח את ראשי שבטיכם, it says later I took heads of שבטים, he took the דיינים, ולא כתיב נבונים. It doesn't say he found נבונים, because he couldn't find נבונים. So in the generation of Moshe there was no נבונים. וכתיב and then it says יששכר חמור גרם. Yissachar is like a donkey, that's that's that's writing, וכתיב מבני יששכר יודעי בינה לעיתים. From Yissachar came people who have binah. How did Yissachar, how was Yissachar born? Because Leah asked for it. Leah met him when she got that and she exchanged with the night with Rachel and she came and she said tonight you're coming to me, and with the דודאים, and that's what made the Eibershter gave, right, that from that ביאה came out Yissachar. So Yissachar came out from her asking. And what happened then? So Yissachar are people who have binah, which in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu when he tried to find נבונים, he couldn't find. So we see how good it is to ask. So the Gemara says, ההיא that means something else, דמרציא ארצויי. That means that not she don't say it outright, you just hint, you מרצה, you you try to appease, you try to make feel good, umemila the the husband understands. But to come outright and say it, that's not nice. That's what she did with the דודאים, come to me. No, Rashi says she didn't. All she said, ah, אלי תבוא, all she said is: Come to my tent. She had the דודאים, that was also Yes, also the דודאים, right. She gave the דודאים, she gave away the דודאים. She gave it to Rachel. But she said to him, come to me, come to my tent, maybe have a good geshm ake shmoos, have a cup of tea. בפה, בפה means outright, clear. When you say clearly, that's a problem, but if it's not outright clear, then it's okay. Not only it's okay, it's good, but she should make herself basically what it means, she makes herself desirable to him, that's something that's her job to do. זאגט די Gemara ווייטער in another פרק, בר ברתיה דרבי ינאי סבא, the grandson, the son of the daughter of Rabbi Yanai Sava, there were a few Rabbi Yanai's, he was known as רבי ינאי סבא, אתא, she came, לקמיה דרבי ינאי סבא, she came to her grandfather. This is a a פרק that talks about Nedarim, and it talks about being matir neder. In
order to מתיר נדר you have to find a פתח חרטה, that you have to find that make a נדר and then you want to change it, so you have to say, had I known this and this and this would happen, I wouldn't make the נדר. If you say that, so then the בית דין is מתיר or the מומחה is מתיר. So what was the case here? She made a נדר, ואמר לה, he said to her, the reason she wanted to מתיר נדר, she was ready to keep her נדר, usually when are you מתיר נדר, when you don't want to keep it or you feel... she was ready to keep it, but she heard that if you make נדרים and you keep it, למעלה they start looking into your case. No one wants they should open your case. So if you make נדרים and you keep it, as if you make yourself like a fayne shtikl tzadik, so למעלה they say, \"Hey, who's this guy? Let's...\" and they open your they open your case. Who knows what they're going to find there? So that's why she wanted to now be מתיר נדר. אמר לה, so he said to her, what was the פתח חרטה? אילו הות ידעת, if you would know בשעה she made the נדר, if you would know דפתחי פנקסך, that they're going to open your book, ומשמשין בעובדך, and they're going to start looking into your behavior, מי נדרת, would you make a נדר? אמרה ליה, לא, she said, \"No, I wouldn't.\" ושריא. So he was מתיר נדר. אמר קרא, אמר רב אבא, מאי קרא? רב אבא said, \"Where where is it in the פסוק?\" It's a פתח חרטה. That's, yeah, that's that's the חידוש of the גמרא. פתח חרטה is not only in the דין itself. Had I known making a נדר opens up the doors there, because the פסוק, ואחר נדרים לבקר. After you make נדרים, they they're מבקר, they they investigate, it's no good. It's like the story with ר' זושא, with the guy who used to come to ר' זושא, you know, this reminds of the same of the same case. ר' זושא had a guy who used to come to him, a man used to support him, used to come and see him for Yom Tov. Once he came to Rabbi' Zusha and he heard that Rabbi' Zusha is out of town, he's not home. So he asked, \"Where where is he?\" So they told him he went to his Rebbe. He went to the Maggid. So he thought to himself, \"I always go to Rabbi' Zusha, a big tzadik, but he has a Rebbe, why should I go to Rabbi' Zusha? I'll go to his Rebbe.\" So he started going to the Maggid. Started becoming poor. Just, well, started losing his money. So he understood, min hasetam it's because he stopped going to Rabbi' Zusha. So he comes back to Rabbi' Zusha and then he asks, \"I don't understand. I went to you, I was rich. I go to your Rebbe, I should be even richer, why did I lose?\" So he says So Rabbi' Zusha says to me to him, \"You came to me, who am I? Nothing. So you came to me, so... You started coming to to the Maggid, to my Rebbe, they למעלה said, 'Hey, it's a new guy coming to the Rebbe, must be a special guy.' So they started opening your case and they saw it's not so gevaldig, so they said, 'Why why should he have money?' They started taking it away. We shouldn't know it, we try. Same thing with the government, you know, you try to stay away. They shouldn't get to your case. We don't want that they should get to your case.\" זאגט די Gemara ווייטער: יש בוטה כמדקרות חרב ולשון חכמים מרפא. It's a pasuk, but what it means is בוטה לשון מבטא שפתים, when you say a neder, it's called bitui. You could have one that sticks like a sword, but לשון חכמים מרפא. If it sticks like a sword, you get you're sick, it's bad. But the words of the chachamim could cure you. Meaning, כל הבוטה, anybody makes a נדר, ראוי לדקור בחרב. You shouldn't The Gemara keeps on saying, \"Never make nedarim.\" To make a neder, you deserve to be stuck with a knife. אלא, לשון חכמים מרפא, but there's an eitzah, even after you made the neder there's an eitzah. You go to chachamim, and they're matir neder. So the words of the chachamim, the לשון חכמים could cure it. So even though be'etzem it's a wrong thing. And tanya, we said something similar, ר' נתן אומר, ר' Natan says, הנודר כאילו בנה במה. If you make a neder, like you built a bamah. Now a bamah is a private mizbe'ach for korbanot, but you're not allowed to make a bamah. There were certain times that you're allowed you were allowed to have a bamah. Since the Beis HaMikdash is built, the Gemara says, משבאו לירושלים נאסרו הבמות ואין להן היתר עולמית. It's like this, when they came to Shilo it became asur, and after Shilo it became mutar again, asur. They stopped when they built the Beis HaMikdash, never ever will habamot be mutar. So if you make a neder, it's like you're building a bamah. והמקיימו, if you keep it, that means you're not matir a נדר, כאילו הקריב עליה קרבן. It's even worse, as if you brought a korban on the bamah. What you should do is, you shouldn't make nedarim, and if you do make it, don't keep It doesn't mean chas veshalom don't keep your neder. Be matir a neder, find a פתח חרטה and be matir. It's not good to have nedarim on your head. When you when you mekayem it that that's like a korban on the bamah, it's the the the actually coming lema'aseh of the bamah. The bamah is is a bamah. What's wrong with a bamah? The main problem is the korban. A bamah is wrong because you're going to bring a korban on it. The korban is the fruition, I don't know whatever the word is, the main. Same thing, making a neder is one thing. But then you could be matir it. If you keep it, then it's like you made the neder and then you actually actualize it. You put a korban on it, you actually did a neder. Is asur, it's asur. Yeah, but you shouldn't do it. And if you bring a korban... There's a whole אריכות, a sichah, the Rebbe talks about this. אמר שמואל, שמואל האט געזאגט: כל הנודר, anybody makes a נדר, אף על פי שמקיימו, even if you do it, נקרא רשע. Called a רשע. Where do we see it? אמר רבי אבהו, מאי קרא? Which pasuk tells you that? HaPasuk says like this: וכי תחדל לנדור לא יהיה בך חטא. It says, if you make a neder and you don't keep, it's terrible. If you don't make a neder, no problem. No mitzvah to make a neder. So if you תחדל, you will stop, you will hold yourself back from לנדור, לא יהיה בך חטא. But the word תחדל says here: דיליף חדלה חדלה חדלו. We have a gezeirah shavah. כתיב הכא, here it says תחדל, כתיב התם, there it says, שם רשעים חדלו רוגז. It says over there, in Gehinnom, the resha'im will stop being angry. Like this, and the resha'im are angry, bad people. But we see the word resha'im goes together with the word חדלו. Here it says כי תחדל, so we put the two together. So when it says here, it means that if you're gonna make a neder, you go together with the resha'im. So from there, we see that if you make a neder, you're called a rasha. This is in a positive sense. Yeah, over there. Yeah, but that's in Gehinnom already, that's it. אמר רב שמואל בר נחמני אמר רבי יונתן, רב שמואל בר נחמני said in the name of רבי יונתן, כל אדם שכועס, כל מיני גיהנם, all kinds of punishment of גיהנם, שולטין בו. A person that gets angry, all kinds of punishments of Gehinom will get on you. שנאמר, it says, והסר כעס מלבך, if you take away the anger from your heart, והעבר רעה מבשרך, then you take away the bad from your flesh, from yourself. What does it mean take away the flesh? Take away the bad, I mean? אין רעה אלא גיהנם. Bad is Gehinom. שנאמר, it says, כל פעל ה' למענהו, that whatever Hashem does is for Himself, וגם רשע ליום רעה. And a rasha, what he does will make him a bad day. What does What happens to the rasha? When is it bad for the rasha? Goes to Gehinom. So we see רעה is Gehinom. So when it says here, if you don't have If you take away your anger, you'll take away the רעה, means you'll take away the Gehinom. See, in Tanya, he quotes this pasuk, but he has a complete different peshat. Famous It's famous, וגם רשע ליום רעה. He says the kavanah is Speaks about teshuvah. וגם רשע, what should a rasha do? ליום רעה, you should take from רע and make it into יום. רע is bad, dark, so you should change it to יום. He quotes that from from the pasuk by by Yitzchak told Yaakov, make me מטעמים. Make me food, מטעמים לשון רבים. Alter Rebbe says there are two types of geshm ake food. One type of geshm ake food, it's pashut tasty food, lechatchilah, sweet, it's good. Then you have some food which is sour, and then you put in spices and this, then it becomes azoy geshmak, it's even better than the other food. So he says the same thing: A person who's a tzaddik, he's geshm ake food, he does everything good. But then a רשע, ליום רעה, when you make from the רע into יום, that's a that's taking the sour and making it into sweet, into geshmak, is a higher madregah. It's spelled the same always the I mean ר' ע' ה'? רעה is... No, there's רע, רעה. רע is bad, לשון זכר. רעה is לשון נקבה. Yeah, like a lot of things, no? Certain The words with a ה' at the end is a נקבה, without a ה' is a... Except except by Except by numbers. But the ע'? רע is with a ע'? ע' ר' ר' ע' רע is always. עין הרע? No. רע. Yeah, עין הרע? No, it's always with a ע'. Always with a ע'. Yeah. ולא עוד, not only that, אלא שתחתוניות שולטות בו. If you get angry, so תחתוניות he says you get hemorrhoids. Yeah? What do we know? We don't get angry. Azoy shteit. Azoy shteit, mistama iz azoy. No, I see you shaking your head. I thought I thought you heard it from a doctor or you heard something. I thought you you're you're see you came to confirm it. שנאמר, it says, ונתן ה' לך... לב רגז, He'll give you a heart of anger, וכליון עינים ודאבון נפש. איזהו דבר שמכלה עינים ומדאיב את הנפש? What is something that ruins your eyes and is it makes your נפש uncomfortable, feel bad? הוי אומר זה תחתוניות. It's this, I guess hemorrhoids is. And the pasuk starts off: When will you get it? If you have a לב רגז, that means if you're angry. ווייטער, עולא במיסקיה לארעא דישראל, עולא when he was going to ארץ ישראל, איסלבו בהדיה תרי בני חוזאי, so two people from חוזאי went along with him. קם חד שחטיה לחבריה, on the way, one guy killed the other guy, שחט'ed him. אמר ליה לעולא, he says to Ulla: לאו יפה עבדי? Didn't I do good? Now, he was afraid to tell him, 'No, you're a murderer!' He was afraid, 'If I say it, he'll kill him.' אמר ליה, he said, 'Yeah, אין. Yeah, it's good. ופרע ליה בית השחיטה, but you know what, close up the the place where you שחט'ed, the wound, so you won't bleed so much.' I mean, he died, but it Who did he kill? So he has less pain, I guess. Who did he kill? His friend. The other guy. A friend? I don't know if he was a friend. The other guy. כי אתא לקמיה דרבי יוחנן, when he came to Like Rabbah and Rabbi Zeira? No, this was not, this is a a רשע. This is outright murder. Anger maybe. Yeah, סתם, but that's the המשך of the Gemara. Yeah, that's he came to רבי יוחנן, אמר ליה, so he said, Ulla said, דילמא חס ושלום חזקתי חזקי ידי עוברי עבירה? Maybe by saying yes, I gave חיזוק to a person who did an עבירה. אמר ליה, so he says, no, נפשך הצלת. You saved you saved your נפש. Pikuach nefesh, I mean, you could you should He said it, you know, you But the רבי יוחנן, רבי יוחנן is wondering. Says in פסוק, ונתן השם לך שם לב רגז. Hashem says, I'll take you to גלות, and there you will get a heart of anger. There! Where was there? בבל, כתיב. This guy was going to ארץ, he was in ארץ ישראל. ארץ ישראל shouldn't be angry, and here, obviously, the
guy did it out of a fit of anger. So, he was wondering. אמר להו עולא, so Ulla said, ההיא שעתא לא עבר עבר לירדנא. We didn't cross the ירדן yet. We didn't go to ארץ ישראל yet. If we'd be in ארץ ישראל, this anger wouldn't happen, since we're in ארץ ישראל. Is it true nowadays that people in ארץ ישראל don't get angry? Forget it, I think so too. I think in the shul also, not only in the בית הכנסת, but also in בית המדרש. People do get angry. So, is that a We have another two more minutes, but we will stop here. Is that a reason that lets him off the hook, that he was when he wasn't in ארץ ישראל? No, it's not off the hook. Who, the He's a murderer. That was Ulla. No, the Oh, Ulla didn't kill. Ulla saw this guy kill, and the guy asked him, \"Didn't I do good?\" And he said, \"Yes.\" Okay. Bless you. Huh?