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Week 75 - Monday - 30 April 2001

NAZIR: CHAPTER 2: MISHNAH 9

"I am a nazir, and a nazir when I will have a son"; he began to count his own, and then a son was born to him -- he completes his own, and then counts that of his son. "I am a nazir when I will have a son, and a nazir"; he began to count his own, and then a son was born to him -- he sets aside his own and counts that of his son, and then completes his own.

Kehati

This mishnah discusses the case of the person who has vowed two terms of nezirut: one which he will begin immediately, and one which will begin on the birth of his son. There are two possibilities here: (1) in the wording of his vow he gave precedence to his own term of nezirut before the term of nezirut which is conditional upon the birth of his son, as is explained in the first part of our mishnah; (2) in the wording of his vow he gave precedence to the term of nezirut due to the birth of his son before his own term of nezirut, as is explained in the second part of the mishnah. This mishnah teaches, regarding these two possibilities, the case in which he began his own term of nezirut, and a son was born to him before he completed this first term.

If one says, I am a nazir, and a nazir when I will have a son" -- he adopted with this vow two terms of nezirut, one immediately, and one when he will have a son, and he mentioned his term nezirut before that for the birth of his son; he -- the person vowing, began to count his own -- the days of his own term of nezirut, as he had undertaken, and then a son was born to him -- while counting the days of his own term,

He completes his own term, and then -- after he completes his own term, he -- counts that of his son -- he begins to count the second term of nezirut, which he undertook because of the birth of his son; since in the wording of his vow he gave precedence to his own term of nezirut, the term of nezirut that he undertook because of the birth of his son does not take effect until he will complete his own term of nezirut, which he undertook first. He therefore observes two consecutive terms of nezirut, and he shaves and brings sacrifices after each term of nezirut, as is the law of a nazir on the day he completes his term of nezirut. If one said, "I am a nazir when I will have a son, and a nazir" -- in this case he also undertook two terms of nezirut, as in the case above, but he mentioned the term of nezirut for the birth of his son before his own term of nezirut; nevertheless, he may begin hi sown term of nezirut immediately, and if he completed it prior to the birth of his son, then he shaves and brings his sacrifices, and when he will have a son, he will begin the term of nezirut that he undertook because of the birth of his son; and if

He began to count his own term of nezirut, and then a son was born to him -- before he completed counting his own term, he sets aside his own -- he interrupts his own count, and counts that of his son -- and begins to count the days of the term of his own nezirut because of the birth of his son, because he undertook it first,

And then completes his own -- the days which he lacks to complete his own term of nezirut; and he does not shave after the term of nezirut for his son, but rather after completing his own term, i.e., he shaves for both of them and brings the sacrifices of a nazir twice, for the term of nezirut for his son and for his own. If, however, he undertook his own term of nezirut for more than thirty days, and after the term of nezirut for his son at least thirty days remain for him to complete his own nezirut, he may shave after the term of his son and bring the sacrifices for this nezirut, and then complete his own term of nezirut and once again shave and bring his sacrifices. Since, however, our mishnah deals with an unspecified term of nezirut, which is for thirty days, it follows that if he shaves after his son's term, he may not shave once again for the completion of his own term of nezirut, which is less than thirty days, for "there is no tiglahat for less than thirty days," as will be explained in the following mishnah. Therefore, he does not shave after the term of nezirut for his son, but rather after he completes his own term of nezirut he shaves for both of them and brings sacrifices twice, as was explained above (Rashi; Tosafot). According to Rambam, even though less than thirty days remain for him to complete his own term of nezirut, nevertheless after the term of nezirut for his son he shaves and brings his sacrifices, according to the law, "and he completes his own" -- i.e., he once again counts thirty days for his own term of nezirut, for the reason which was mentioned above, "for there is no tiglahat for less than thirty days," and he once again shaves and brings his sacrifices.

NAZIR: CHAPTER 2: MISHNAH 10

"I am a nazir when I will have a son, and a nazir for one hundred days"; if a son was born to him before seventy -- he has lost nothing; after seventy -- he discounts seventy, for there is no tiglahat for less than thirty days.

Kehati

This mishnah is the continuation of the preceding mishnah. According to Rambam, it interprets the second part of the preceding mishnah, i.e., how does he complete his own term of nezirut?

If one says, "I am a nazir when I will have a son, and a nazir for one hundred days" -- he undertook two terms of nezirut: one, when his son will be born, an unspecified period of nezirut, which is thirty days; and one for himself, a 100-day term of nezirut; and he began to count the days of his own term of nezirut, and then a son was born to him, before he completed his own term; in such a case, we have already learned in the preceding mishnah that "he sets aside his and counts that of his son, and then completes his own"; if --

A son was born to him before seventy -- within the first seventy days of the count of his own term of nezirut, and after the term of nezirut for his son he must still complete an additional thirty or more days, he has lost nothing -- for he sets aside his own term, counts the term for the birth of his son, shaves and brings sacrifices, and returns to complete the days lacking for completion of his own term of nezirut; thus he lost nothing by interrupting his count upon the birth of his son, for he only counts a total of a hundred and thirty days, which is the total amount of the two terms of nezirut that he undertook. But if the son was born to him after seventy -- after he had already counted more than seventy days of his own term of nezirut, and he lacks less than thirty days for his own count,

He discounts seventy -- he discounts up to seventy (Rambam), i.e., the additional number of days above seventy, which he had observed in nezirut until the birth of his son, are subtracted from the count, and after he had counted the days of the term of nezirut because of the birth of his son, he shaves and brings the sacrifices, and returns to his own count of an additional thirty days to complete his own term of nezirut,

For there is no tiglahat for less than thirty days -- for the law of tiglahat does not apply to a nazir who grew his hair less than thirty days. It follows that if a son was born to him after seventy days of counting his term of nezirut, then he loses the additional number of days above seventy which he had already counted, for he counts for the two terms a number exceeding a hundred and thirty by the number of days exceeding the seventy days: e.g., if he had counted eighty days of his own term of nezirut and then his son was born, he sets aside his own term, counts the thirty days of the term which he had undertaken because of the birth of his son, and then resumes counting an additional thirty days to complete his own term of nezirut, even though he only lacked twenty days to complete his count; he therefore loses the ten additional days above the seventy that he had counted until the birth of the son, for the reason explained above, for there may not be less than thirty days between one tiglahat and another.

We have already explained this mishnah in accordance with Rambam; most of the commentators have interpreted the mishnah in similar fashion. Tosafot, however, interprets this differently.

Rashi interprets "after seventy -- he discounts seventy" as follows: "he discounts everything, and begins to count that of his son and shaves, and then counts his own one hundred. To what case does this refer? To an extended period of nezirut, but in a minimal period of nezirut he does not discount anything, as was taught in the preceding mishnah: 'he sets aside his own and counts that of his son, and then completes his,' and he does not discount; the reason is that there is no interim tiglahat (as was explained there), and this is considered as one long term of nezirut."

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