Matos – 2015

· The start of the parsha talks about Nedarim

· A Neder is when a person makes an object ossur (prohibited) to himself.

· For example, a person says cigarettes are usser to him for the next month.

· Or he won’t get hanah (satisfaction) from a certain person for the next month

· A remarkable thing is that if a person violates the neder he is chayiv malkus – 39 lashes.

· For the most part, the Gemara in Nedarim, and the poskim – are critical of someone who makes a neder

· They call a person who makes a neder a Rasha

· One reason is because generally a Neder is made out of anger

· An example is if someone makes another person angry, and the angry person makes a neder not to get hanah from the other person for a certain period of time

· However, the Gemorah and Poskim do say that if a person’s intention is to improve himself by means of a Neder, then making a Neder can be good

· If he uses the neder to motivate himself to get to a higher madrega, then it is praiseworthy.

· So a Neder can be bad or good, the  person making a Neder can be considered a rasha or praiseworthy

· Question: Why call a person who makes a Neder for the wrong reason a Rasha – doesn’t that seem a bit harsh?

· Because a Neder is a powerful and potentially dangerous activity.

· Hashem defined in the Torah what is Mutar and Usser

· Hashem did it with Dibur – Matan Torah – Asseret Hadibros

· Hashem even created the world with 10 utterances.

· So one is playing with a type of activity that is Divine.

· Don’t get involved with this powerful stuff unless you are on the madrega to deal with its power

· Like dealing with nuclear energy when don’t know how to prevent an explosion, or even handle radioactive material

· It’s playing with fire

· Similarly, there are two ways of looking at a person who becomes a nazir, which is a form of neder

· At the end of his nazirus, a Nazir brings several korbonos

· One of them is a Chatos (sin offering).

· There’s a debate in the Gemorah as to why he brings a korban Chatos

· Some say it’s because he should not have become a nazir, he denied himself pleasure

· The Torah ossured enough, he shouldn’t add to the prohibitions of the Torah

· The others – including the Ramban – say the Nazir brings a Chatos because he’s leaving such an exalted and holy activity

· Let’s give an amazing example of the power of Nedarim – playing with really powerful and dangerous stuff

· Kesubot 72b describes a situation where a person is mekadesh (marries) a woman al tenay (on condition) that she has no nedarim.

· If she had made nedarim that she is still obligated to keep, then the Kedushin is not chal – there is no marriage.

· The Gemorah then says if at any point in the future she goes to a Chachim who mater’s (undoes) her nedarim, the nedarim are erased lemafrayah (retroactively)– and the kedushin is chal lemafrayah (retroactively).

· Let’s say a man does this, and the woman has nedarim

· Then the kedushin is not chal

· She is then free to marry another man

· Let’s say she gets married, has 10 kids, and each of them has 10 kids – and she is now 75 years old with 100 grandchildren.

· Then she happens to go to a Chacham and says, the neder than I made when I was 17 – for example, to be a vegetarian - I wish I had never made that neder – please Matir (undo) that Neder

· The Chacham finds a pesach – an opening based on her charatah (regret)

· Then lo and behold, the kedushin back when she was 18 becomes chal retroactively.

· It turns out that when the original Kidushin was done, she really had no Nedarim

· It also turns out that her second marriage was a violation of Ashes Ish

· And lo and behold, all her children and grandchildren become mamzerim

· Not only that, they always were mamzerim

· This shows that making Nedarim is dealing with very powerful and dangerous stuff.

· Chazal are saying, if you don’t know how to handle gasoline, don’t play with it

·

· Another example – A Nazir is prohibited from doing 3 things –

o drink anything from grapes

o cut hair

o be in contact with a mase, even in the same building (called Tumas Ohel).

· If a person for example is in a house, such as an apartment building – and someone in the building dies – the nazir is over the issur of being in the building with a mase-– and he has to bring a korban chatos

· The Gemorah discusses this, and asks – what did he do wrong to bring a chatos?

· He was in a building where someone died – what did he do wrong?

· The  Netziv has a chidush about this.

· The Netziv says that the Nazir has to bring a chatos because - the fact that someone died in a building that the Nazir was in shows that the Nazir was not on the madregah to warrant his becoming a nazir

· The loshon of the Netziv is that it’s a Gilui Milsah Lemafreyah (it reveals retroactively) that he should not have become a Nazir

· He was biting off more than he could chew – reaching beyond his pay scale

· If he had been on the proper madregah, then he would have had more siatah deshmayah, and this thing would not have happened to him

· Here is another example of how powerful words can be

· Messechet Shabbos tells a story that a father (who was a Tzaddik) was talking to his married daughter erev Shabbos.

· He said to his daughter, it’s rather late for Yossi (her husband) to come home, I hope nothing happened to him.

· Yossi had been learning, and got caught up in the learning, and didn’t realize how late it was

· Yossi was walking on the roofs of the building on his way home

· Just when his father in law said “I hope nothing happened to him” the roof he was walking on caved in and Yossi died.

· The words of the father had a Kiyum – became physical reality – even though he certainly did not intend them to have this effect.

· A lesson is that words and nedarim are extremely powerful

· We should be very careful what we say – words use the same Koach that Hashem used in creating the world and in giving us the Torah

· A Neder uses words to change the world of Issur and Heter

· This is atomic energy

· We shouldn’t handle this type of energy unless we are on the madregah to use it wisely