Sunday, May 23, 2010

kiddush for a nazir

The gemara (Nazir 3b) quotes a derasha to prohibit a nazir from mitzvah wine as well as non-mitzvah wine. What mitzvah wine are we talking about, asks the gemara? The gemara answers: kiddush and havdalah. But, asks the gemara, why is a derasha needed to permit that – the nazir is “mushba v’omeid” already? Rashi explains: since the Torah commands that kiddush be made over wine, no vow of nezirus can interfere with that pre-existing obligation.

Tosfos disagrees with Rashi's reading. Reciting kiddush over wine may be a din d'oraysa, but drinking the wine of kiddush is certainly is not! The gemara, explains Tos, is asking a rhetorical question – is the person mushba v’omeid to drink the wine, requiring a pasuk to teach that it is allowed?! Obviously not, therefore the pasuk must teach us something else.

Did Rashi really think that even drinking wine is part of the mitzvah d’oraysa of kiddush? Possibly, but it is difficult to understand why this should be so. Rav Soloveitchik suggested a different approach to Rashi (quoted by R’ H. Schachter in “M’Pninei haRav”, Zeved Tov p. 249). Rashi read the gemara to mean that the cheftza of mitzvah wine is mufka, inherently excluded, from the parsha of nezirus. In other words, wine used for kiddush is a food-item which is excluded from the nezirus vow, just like most other food and drink. It's not that the mitzvah of kiddush overrides the vow of nezirus, which would force us to define kiddush as including drinking, but rather that kiddush wine is never included in that vow in the first place.

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:11 PM

    i dont understand. if kiddush wine is only a chiyuv midrabanan, how could you say it never was included in the original vow. drabanans werent meant to be oker dorayasas.

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  2. Kiddush wine is like coca cola with respect to nezirus. Oker = dechiya. We're not talking about dechiya here, where the mitzvah pushes off the nezirus; we're talking about the food item simply not falling under the issurei nezirus.

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  3. But why does the problem arise in the first place?
    Let the nazir make kiddush and give it to his wife to drink.
    If he's alone, can he not use chemar medinah to avoid the problem in the first place?
    And given that we don't let him near a vineyard in the first place how can he pick up the kiddush cup?

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  4. Bamidbar 6:3-4:
    3 מיין ושכר יזיר, חמץ יין וחמץ שכר לא ישתה; וכל-משרת ענבים לא ישתה, וענבים לחים ויבשים לא יאכל. 4 כל, ימי נזרו: מכל אשר יעשה מגפן היין, מחרצנים ועד-זג--לא יאכל.

    What is the definition of Nezirut( in the Hava Amina, according to Rashi), that allows the Nazir Qidush wine, but forbids him other wines and other products of the grape vine ?

    Chaim B.: Kiddush wine is like coca cola with respect to nezirus. Oker = dechiya. We're not talking about dechiya here, where the mitzvah pushes off the nezirus; we're talking about the food item simply not falling under the issurei nezirus.

    How is Qidush wine any more like, leHavdil, Coca-Cola for Nezirut, than grapes are like berries, vinigar is like lemmon juice, or Yayin Shekhar is like Whisky ?

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  5. >>>Let the nazir make kiddush and give it to his wife to drink.

    If the act of drinking is itself part of the mitzvah, then the nazir himself must drink.

    >>>What is the definition of Nezirut( in the Hava Amina, according to Rashi), that allows the Nazir Qidush wine,

    Because the vow cannot be chal on a cheftza designated as a mitzvah object. It's like coca cola in the sense that both food items are not affected by nezirus vows.

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  6. Anonymous12:37 PM

    ....Kiddush wine is like coca cola with respect to nezirus...

    i meant to ask like this-kiddush wine is a drobanan concept acc. to this approach in rashi. wine is wine, what makes kiddush wine different then other wine was done by the rabonan. true. its like coca cola, but only the rabanon did that. if so before the rabanon did that of course it was included in the vow. you cant say its not a cheftza of wine if originally it was. then i said vchi taima that the rabanon are being oker the deoraysa i.e. the rabanon are being mechadesh kiddush wine is mufka from wine...thats diffcult to say or to mechadesh on our own.

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  7. Even if you don't have to drink the wine, there is still a potential din d'oraysa to recite kiddush over wine, which defines it as a cheftza shel mitzvah.

    What bothers me is that the term "mushba v'omeid" -- since when does that have anything to do with a cheftza shel mitzvah instead of a chovas hagavra?

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  8. Anonymous11:05 PM

    ... Even if you don't have to drink the wine, there is still a potential din d'oraysa to recite kiddush over wine, which defines it as a cheftza shel mitzvah........

    i disagree. kiddush deoraysa is stam kiddush. nothing is added by wine except for a kiyum drobanan. the wine beforehand was no different then making kiddush on a tootsie roll. certainly the tootise roll didnt turn into a cheftz shel mitzvah deoraysa.

    the chidush drabnan of kadsheheu al hayayin was not just in terms of shtiyat yayin but also that the kiddush is on the yayin as the words suggest kadsheyu al hayin. if so the entire kiyum is only drobanen.

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  9. Anonymous, see Tosfos Pesachim 106 2 deyos whether "al ha'yayin" is d'oraysa or not. If even Tosfos (who learned Nazir 4 differently than Rashi) is willing to entertain the possibility of it being d'oraysa, kal v'chomer Rashi could learn that way.

    If you reject saying kiddush on a kos as being d'oraysa, and I assume you certainly reject any requirement to drink as being d'oraysa, how then do you understand Rashi in Nazir?

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  10. Anonymous4:33 PM

    ha gufa. thats exactly what i understood r solvetchik to be saying.

    i.o.w. the way most learn the sugya in nazir is tos comes to their conclusion b.c they hold that kiddish al hayayin is drobanan, lshitatm to pesachim, and t/f nezirus is adif.
    rashi learns kiddish al hayayin is deoraysa, and t/f is docheh nezirous. and there are other mashmaous's that that is shitat rashi like in teshuvas rashi if i remember correctly.
    however since its a big chiddush to say kiddish al hayin is deoraysa for a variety of reasons, therefore r solv was trying to minimize the chiddush and saying really rashi agrees to other rishonim that its only drobanan. just af al pi chen one can make kiddush not b.c its docheh rather b.c its mufka from issurei nezirous.
    on that i asked what i asked.
    that was my understand of r sol, maybe i got it wrong.

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  11. You got what r' sol was saying right, but now I am totally confused as to what you were asking. Sounded to me like you were arguing that wine is not mufka (because on a d'oraysa level it is not part of kiddush at all), but you also don't like saying that drinking is d'oraysa. So where does that leave you?

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  12. Anonymous6:06 PM

    no no. i was arguing that the simple reading in rashi is good, that drinking is deoraysa.
    i didnt like what r sol was saying on a deoraya level its not part of kiddush.
    i was explaining why i argued on his chiddush

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