For many years I believed that the laws of vows that appear in the Torah may have been meaningful in their time, but that their time had passed. When the Mishnah describes how the discovery that a woman had taken vows prior to her marriage is grounds for divorce and that her husband would not have to pay her ketubah, it is making a statement that such vows are a type of blemish (see Mishnah Kiddushin 2:5). It appears that the women of the Mishnah impulsively translated every matter in their lives into a ban or an oath. Since there are almost no such women alive in our day and age, I assumed that parashat nedarim – the laws of vows found in our parashah – was no longer relevant in contemporary times.
I was, therefore, surprised when a woman in distress turned to me recently and shared the following story. A good friend of hers had taken ill, and in the heat of the moment this woman had decided to take an oath to quit smoking. She took the oath as a prayer – a sacrifice of sorts – on behalf of her sick friend. A short time later, however, she took up smoking again. Now she is searching for a way to undo the vow, since it is troubling her conscience. Her question made me realize that the institution of vows and oaths is still relevant to our lives, and that the Torah understood how deeply rooted this is in human nature – to a much greater extent than I had thought. This reality demands that we examine the topic of vows within the context of our own times.
It appears that vows are a multi-faceted phenomenon. The short vignette described above illustrates a typical situation that would lead a person to take a vow. In response to an event of distress or fear of disaster, there is a desire to sacrifice, to give something to God, as if to make a bargain with Him (we find such a situation when Queen Helena of Adiabene took an oath to become a Nazirite in the hope that her son would return safely from war). This is just one example of an oath discussed in Tractate Nedarim, which also includes “vows of encouragement, vows of exaggeration, vows made in error, and vows made against one’s will.” All such vows stem from different places in one’s soul and serve different purposes. There is one common denominator, however. These all express a declaration and externalization of one’s heart’s intentions and their commitment to a future behavior.
How do we view the taking of oaths? Is this phenomenon positive or negative? Here we find a disagreement among the rabbinic sages (Vayikra Rabbah Behukotai 37:1). The verses in the Torah appear to be intentionally opaque. On the one hand, the concept of vows is fully supported, with the individual who has taken a vow being warned “do not put off fulfilling it,” because “for the Lord your God will require it of you.” The vow is raised to the level of a Torah prohibition with the words “and you will have incurred guilt.” On the other hand, the Torah then adds “whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing” (Devarim 23:22-23).
Thus, we find that the Torah emphasizes to us that we must be sensitive to the words and ideas that we express with our verbal utterances, even as it assures us that there is nothing wrong with refraining from making such statements. This hints to the fact that there is much value in simply remaining silent, perhaps just as much as talking. Rabbi Yehudah said as much in his teaching “Better than either one is the individual who refrains from vows entirely, and simply brings his sheep to the Temple where he sanctifies it and sacrifices it” (Vayikra Rabbah, ibid). Rabbi Yehuda recognizes that often there is too much talk, a tendency to pompousness and showing off. There is no need to advertise positive things like sacrifice and sanctification – you can simply do them. There is no need to blare out a headline, to idealize and then to realize. One can approach the matter directly.
The understanding that vows show us that the world is made up of people with widely differing personalities – on a spectrum ranging from those who need to make announcements about everything they do to those who are modest about their commitments – has significance with regard to a number of questions about the act of taking on a vow. One such question relates to how we interpret the person’s intention when a vow is taken. What happens when a person who receives an invitation, responds by swearing that he will neither enter that home nor eat there (“Entering your house is konam for me, as is tasting even a drop of cold liquid of yours” Nedarim 63b)? The baraita limits the application of the vow, assumes that the person who took the vow really meant to decline a full meal, and permits him to enter the house and even to have something small to eat. The Gemara explains that this is based on the personality of the host, since recognizing that “the righteous say little and do much” (Nedarim 21b), we can assume that invitation was worded as “have a drop of cold liquid” even though the intent was to invite him for a large meal. The image presented by the Gemara is one of a host who uses his words modestly while the one who responds with a vow uses his words as ammunition. Why make pronouncements if he could simply refrain from entering the house?
The Gemara assumes that someone who takes vows is likely a talkative person, and, perhaps, a simpleton. In contrast, one can assume that when those who limit their words speak, they express only a small part of what is in their hearts. Their language is the language of understatement. To understand their words requires sophistication and examination, study and analysis (Nedarim 21a-b).
Identifying the opposing poles – words vs. action –can help us recognize the value of both sides. Sometimes making an explicit statement helps define goals, which also helps in realizing them. It is told of one Bnei Brak rabbi who would tell all his visitors that he had already stopped smoking, and by doing so he hoped that his pronouncement would make it too hard for him to change his mind so that he would be forced to quit. The declaration anticipates the endpoint of the process and forces its realization. There is a downside, however. “R. Shmuel bar Nahman said: Anyone who takes a vow and is delinquent in offering it will come to worship idols, commit sexual crimes and murder” (Vayikra Rabbah, ibid). Big announcements about small things can lead one to the abyss. A person identifies his good name and his entire being on this one thing. Everyone knows that he is being tested. He is wagering everything that he has.
The methods used to dissolve a vow can help shed light on an additional element of our discussion. We find a dispute among the sages of the Mishnah regarding the method used to dissolve a vow. Do we ask “Is this desire still upon you?” or do we say “Had there been ten people who could have appeased you at the time, would you have made the vow?” According to the first approach we enquire as to whether the individual is still in the same state of mind that he was when he made the vow originally. The second approach aims to determine whether he would have originally refrained from making the vow had he fully understood its implications. The common denominator between the two approaches is the recognition that the vow limits the person’s ability to grow and to change. The vow ties the person to his thoughts and feelings as they were experienced at an earlier time. The vow keeps the individual from expressing new creativity, from having second thoughts, from reexamining his intentions and from clarifying his vision. In a fleeting instant, a person freezes his humanity together with the dynamism that is connected with it, abandoning any possibility of hesitation, questioning or raising doubts.
Perhaps this is why the sage, R. Natan concludes:
One who vows is considered as if he built a forbidden personal altar outside the Temple, and one who fulfills this vow is considered as if he sacrificed an offering on it. (Nedarim 22a)
When an individual makes a vow it is as if he prepares himself to worship idolatry, and when he fulfills his vow, it is as if he brought a sacrifice outside the Temple precincts. The vow steals away the person’s independence, and leads him to serve a moment that has passed and is no longer extant.