Thursday, January 03, 2008

Nedarim 14b - Neder not to sleep today if i sleep tomorrow

The gemara quotes a machlokes about one who makes a neder not to sleep today if he sleeps tomorrow, meaning that sleeping tomorrow is a condition that if it is done would retroactively assur him from sleeping today - there is a machlokes whether we allow him to sleep today because we are concerned he will violate his condition tomorrow.
The Ritvah asks that if one would give a get on condition that she not drink wine next week, she can get married this week and we are not concerned that she will violate her condition (the Ran in gittin elaborates about when we are and when we aren't concerned that the condition will be violated). Similarly here we should not be concerned that the condition will be violated tomorrow, and we should allow him to sleep today? Ritvah answers:
קא סבר רב יהודה דשינה דבר שאין בידו הוא וממילא אתי וחיישינן שמא תאנסנו שינה
Meaning, sleep is not something that one does actively, rather it is something that just happens. For example, one does not go to sleep during a shiur, it sort of just happens automatically.
The Mitzpah Eisan (although he doesn't quote the Ritvah) uses this concept to answer another question. Rashi implies that for violating the neder i.e. sleeping both today and tomorrow, he would receive malkus. The question is that to receive malkus one has to be warned definitively at the time of the act of issur, but here at the time of the act of issur (when he goes to sleep today), it is a hasra'as safek, since he may not sleep tomorrow and it would be totally permitted for him to sleep today. This type of warning doesn't qualify as "warning", so how can he receive malkus? He answers based on Tosafos Shabbos 4a that it is only considered hasra'as safeik if he must actively do something to make the issur go into effect, but if by being passive the issur will go into effect, then the assumption is that the issur will go into effect and it is not hasra'as safeik. Here too, sleeping tomorrow does not qualify as having to actually do something, rather we consider falling asleep to be passive so that it will automatically go into effect and create an issur on sleeping today. Therefore, the warning given before sleeping today is considered a definitive warning.

1 comment:

Avi Lebowitz said...

When learning the gemara today, that according to r' yehuda we should be concerned that she will violate the condition of not going to her fathers house and not going to makom ploni. Based on the Ritvah that this only by sleep which happens automatically are we concerned that the condition will be violated, the question doesn't make sense. After asking this question on the Ritva i found that the maharatz chiyus actually asks on the Ritva and leaves it as a question.