Nazir 44 - Shushan Purim - March 8, 15 Adar

Study Guide Nazir 44

Today's daf is dedicated in memory of our fellow Hadran learner, Miriam Kerzner. In her eighties, Miriam was drawn into the world of Gemara’s intricacies and excitements, enchanted by Rabbanit Michelle’s teachings and enthralled with the intellectual challenges. Talmud became an integral and vibrant part of her life during the long days of Corona and nurtured her during her illness. She joined us in learning up to her last days. Yehi Zichra Baruch, with much comfort to her family from the Hadran Zoom family.

Today’s daf is sponsored by Amy Goldstein in memory of her grandmother, Ann Barnett. "Eishet Chayil who embodied qualities from each of the 4 Imahot. Your legacy lives on in your great-granddaughter."

Today’s daf is sponsored anonymously in memory of Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim ben Yaakov Yisrael, Rav Chaim Kanievsky.

Of the three prohibitions of nazir, there are stringencies in some that don't exist in the other(s). Impurity and shaving are strict as they cancel the previous days, whereas drinking wine does not. The prohibition to drink wine is stricter than the others as there is no situation in which drinking wine is permitted, whereas a nazir who becomes a leper can shave and if there is a met mitzva, the nazir can become impure. Another stringency of impurity over shaving is that impurity cancels all the days and requires a sacrifice, whereas shaving only cancels thirty days and there is no sacrifice. There is a long discussion in the Gemara full of many suggestions of why we wouldn't learn laws from one to the other, in the style of: "If this one is more lenient than this one in this way and yet more stringent in another, why isn't the other one that is stringent in the first way, also stringent in the second way!" Or the reverse. Each answer provides is either based on a verse or some other clear explanation as to why the logical inference is not followed. The Mishna explains what is the process for a nazir who becomes impure to a dead body. The shaving is to be done on the seventh day. But is it part of the purification process and therefore one can only bring the sacrifices on the following day, even if one pushed off the shaving to the eighth day, or not? Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon disagree. After Rabbi Akiva's explanation that it is different from the leper, does Rabbi Tarfon concede? A zav cannot go into the Levite camp on the seventh day or purification even after going to the mikveh (status of a tvul yom) as is derived from a verse. Abaye questions this drasha as the same thing appears by nazir and yet the halacha is not the same.