Friday, January 04, 2008

Nedarim 15a - Who is in violation of B'al Yachel?

The Ran understands that if Revuen makes his object assur on Shimon and Shimon then benefits from the object, Shimon is in violation of b'al yachel. The Rambam quoted in the Ran argues and says that Shimon is not in violation of b'al yachel since he is not the one who made the neder, rather Revuen is in violation of b'al yachel when shimon gets benefit. The Rambam seems to understand that the language of "b'al yachel divaro" implies that only the person who made the neder can be in violation of not keeping his own word, whereas the Ran understands that Shimon can violate b'al yachel for not keeping the word of Reuven. In other words, the Ran understands that when Reuven makes his object assur on Shimon it is tantamount to making it hekdesh albeit a lower scale that it only effects Shimon, so that Shimon will be in violation. But the Rambam understands that the issur placed on the object is purely a result of the madir keeping his word, therefore the madir would be the one in violation.
According to the Rambam, would it be assur for Shimon to benefit from Reuven's object? It would seem that the issur preventing Shimon from benefiting would be lifnei iver, meaning that through his benefit he is causing Reuven to stumble in the issur b'al yachel. Based on this, would it be mutar for Reuven to hand Shimon the object for Shimon to benefit from it. When Reuven hands Shimon the object he may be violating lifnei iver, because he is causing Shimon to benefit thereby violating lifnei iver by causing Reuven to violate ba'al yachel or do we say that you can't be in violation of lifnei iver by causing someone else to violate lifnei iver? It seems that one should be in violation of lifeni iver by causing someone else to violate lifnei iver - why should lifnei iver be any worse than any other issur. Although the gemara says in avoda zara 14a that there is no violation "lifnei d'lifnei"; that is where you provide an animal to goy#1 who will sell it to goy#2 to use for avoda zara, so the jew is 2 steps removed from the issur. In that case goy #1 is not commanded in lifnei iver, so the jew isn't violating lifnei iver by causing him to violate lifnei iver. But here since Shimon is metzuvah in lifnei iver, it would be lifnei iver for Reuven to cause him to violate lifnei iver.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i found that tosafos in avoda zara 15b explicitly makes the distinction of whether the middle person was a jew or a goy - if he is a jew then there is lifnei iver for making him stumble on lifnei iver.
another point is that if reuven would give a cup of wine to shimon and shimon will give it to a nazir. although reuven was presumably in violation of lifnei iver immediately when he gives it to shimon, the gemara a.z 15b is cleear that there is a tikkun for reuvennto buy it back from shimon before shimon gets a chance to give it to the nazir.