Saturday, February 23, 2008

צדקיהו

עיין שער המלך ריש הלכות שבועות מהראשונים שמקשים איך שאל צדקיהו על שבועתו והרי צריך לפרוט הנדר וכבר נשבע שלא יגלה הדבר ואם יפרוט הנדר הרי כבר עובר על השבועה. ותירץ שאה"נ במקום צורך גדול יכול לסמוך על זה שיותר לו למפרע. ועוד תירצו שפרט הנדר בדרך כללי כגון שאמר שנשבע לאחד שלא לגלות שראהו אוכל ארנבת חיה ולא אמר למי.
ובדרוש המעשה צ"ע מה ביאור דברי בגמרא? וצ"ע

1 comment:

Avi Lebowitz said...

very interesting point.
Another issue that i had is that the Ran at first assumes that the requirement to receive the permission of the person that you swore to keep something a secret, is only required l'chatchila, but bidieved the hatara would work. The Ran then asks, what was the rationale of the sanhedrin to violate the din of requiring the permission or at least the knowledge of nevuchadnetzar? The Ran answers: 1. For the sake of the mitzvah we forgo this requirement of "b'panav", and the vow was causing tzidkiyahu to be mevatel from mitzvos. 2. They were obligated to follow the command of king tzidkiyau who demanded that they be matir his neder.
Based on the second rationale it is understandable why the sanhedrin did not justify their position to nevuchanetzar, because by doing so they would be accepting the leadership of tzidkiyahu and slighting nevuchadnetzar. But, my question is why were the sanhedrin obligated to listen to tzidkiyau who gave them a command to violate a prohibition? If a king tells someone to violate an issur, are they required to listen? The Rambam writes clearly that one is not allowed to listen to a king who commands him to be mevatel a mitzvah רמב"ם (הל' מלכים פ"ג הל' ט') וז"ל המבטל גזרת המלך בשביל שנתעסק במצות אפילו במצוה קלה הרי זה פטור, דברי הרב ודברי התלמיד דברי הרב קודמין, ואין צריך לומר אם גזר המלך לבטל מצוה שאין שומעין לו עכ"ל How then was tzikiyahu's command a justification for the sanhedrin to violate the obligation of being matir the neder in front of nevuchadnetzar? I would like to suggest that the Ran understands that the command of a king to violate a prohibition is binding as a decree of the king, just that the halacha is to forgo the command of the king and fulfill the mitzvah of the Torah. This applies to most circumstances where the command of the Torah doesn't allow dispensation for a d'var mitzvah. However, the halacha of being matir the neder in the presence of nevuchadnetzar doesn't apply in the case of a mitzvah, therefore the command of a king which is binding would take precedence over not being matir sh'elo b'panav. Perhaps the command of a father on the son would be different because the gezeiras hakasuv of "ani Hashem" teaches that the mitzvah of kibud av is not binding at all when it is coming to be mevatel one from doing a mitzvah, and even if a father would tell a son to be matir his neder without notifying the person who the neder was made to, the son would not listen - v'tzarich iyun!