Nazir 4 - January 27, 5 Shevat

Study Guide Nazir 4

Today's daf is sponsored by Goody and Eric Weil to our beloved mother/mother-in-law, Lili Weil z”l on the Shloshim since her passing. Aside from the many acts of chessed and philanthropic organizations she created, Lili was also a pioneer of women’s learning. Several years after making Aliya from France in 1970, she wanted to learn Gemara, but organizations like Hadran didn’t exist back then. So Lili and her friends started Matan around her kitchen table, helping generations of women deepen their Jewish learning and connection to our tradition. We honor her with our collective learning today.

After pointing out the derivations of Rabbi Shimon and the rabbis regarding their debate of one who accepts to be a nazir by only refraining from one particular prohibition of a nazir, the Gemara has a back-and-forth discussion of what each one does with the verse the other one uses and so on. Throughout the discussion, several verses in the section of the nazir are used to derive different halachot by each of them. What language needs to be used to accept upon oneself to be a nazir Shimshon? One who is a nazir Shimshon can never cut one's hair but can become impure to dead people. One who is a nazir olam (forever) can trim one's hair periodically but can never become impure to the dead. Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon disagree about nazir Shimshon as Rabbi Shimon holds that one cannot accept upon oneself to be a nazir in this way as Shimshon did not accept upon himself to be a nazir and a vow only works if one connects it to something that is vowed upon, not something that has inherent sanctity. A different tannaitic debate is brought and compared to this debate, but in the end, the comparison is rejected. From where do we derive that Shimshon was not forbidden to become impure to dead people?