Nazir 34 - February 26, 5 Adar

This month’s learning is sponsored by Jon and Yael Cohen for a refuah shleima for Refael Itamar Tzvi ben Devorah Esther. "A doctor who has healed thousands of people with his medical expertise, providing endless care and love at all hours of the day and night. May Hashem give him the same attention and grant him a full and speedy recovery." This week's learning is sponsored by Natanya Slomowitz in honor of the birth of their two newest granddaughters, Yahav Ahuva bat Shifra and Gal Slomowitz and Keshet Naomi bat Sivan and Ariel Sheleg. The Mishna stated that if the person they were betting on turned around and was never identified, none of them are nezirim. This implies that if they identified the person, those who are right would be nezirim. The Gemara proves that this opinion must be Rabbi Yehuda who held that if there was a pile and one said, "I will be a nazir if there are 100 kur in the pile," and the pile gets lost or stolen, the person is not a nazir. A similar, but different Mishna is brought regarding those who bet on a koi, an animal that it is unclear if it is a domesticated on a non-domesticated animal. Six people bet they will be a nazir if it is a domesticated animal or not, is a domesticated animal or not, is both, is neither, and then three people bet on whether any of the previous are or are not or are all nezirim. The Mishna rules that they are all nezirim. There could also be a case where one person took on nine terms of nezirut in this way. How? If a nazir ate an olive bulk of grapes, grape seeds, and skins together, one would get lashes as those can combine for the requisite amount. Is the amount needed for wine different from grapes? The earlier tradition was that the amount was a quarter-log of wine. Rabbi Akiva ruled that if one soaked bread with wine, and ate bread the size of an olive bulk, one would also get lashes. Some think that he disagrees also about the requisite amount and says it is an olive bulk. One can be obligated separate sets of lashes if one eats an olive bulk of grapes and also an olive bulk of grape seeds, etc. but Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria disagrees. He also obligates differently for grape seeds and skins as he does not require an olive bulk but requires two seeds and one skin as per the verse in the Torah. Which word in the Torah means seeds and which skins? There is a tannaitic debate about this. Our Mishna doesn't follow Rabbi Eliezer who prohibited also the leaves and edible tendrils of the vine. Their debate is based on a different method of extrapolating the verse ribui and miut or prat, klal and prat. The Gemara delves farther into the prat, klal and prat drasha to better understand why they reached the exact conclusion that they reached and also to define the terms mentioned in the drasha.