Daf: Nazir 64-66

This concludes our Nazir comments. Some interesting material in here, but - as always - it will be more intelligible with a Gemara in your hands.

64a
Pseudo-Rashi, at the bottom of the page, says that water containing the ashes of the פרה אדומה would be dense, and therefore would float atop regular water. I’m not sure of the science here, but that seems a bit odd. Rashi was an experimenter, as noted in his commentary to the chumash (such as in his comments to Shemot 16:14 on the evaporation of dew from inside an eggshell), so I’m not sure he would have written this at all.
Perhaps the ashes would have some grease from the פרה אדומה, and would therefore have a floating film?

64b
The words ותיפטר משתיהן seem very odd here.

Also, we should probably have ואמר רב כהנא just below that, since it’s mid-sentence.

65a
See Tosafos אחד on why we would, or would not, identify an area as a cemetery based on one known body and two newly discovered bodies.

The description of Yosef’s removal from Egypt is cited as a source, or perhaps אסמכתא, for taking out more than just the body itself, but some area around it as well. This is problematic for two reasons:
1) Yosef was embalmed, and therefore he would not have decayed.
2) As the Tosafos Yom Tov (cited in the inside margin) notes, the midrash says that Yosef was not buried in earth at all, but in a box in the Nile.

The verb of פירש associated with R’ Elazar reminds me of פריך ר' אחאי and Tosafos’s comment (Ketuvot 2b) about specific verbs being associated with specific sages.

Note the debate between Tosafos and pseudo-Rashi as to the definition of קססות. The Rosh has a view that these are spices placed with the body; this was done in Talmudic times in order to dispel the aroma of decay.

65b
Note the debate between pseudo-Rashi and the Rosh about the definition of the word עילא. The "cause" definition takes it as עילה.

On the list of 7 things which may cause זיבה, one of them is called מראה. Pseudo-Rashi and Rosh (printed on 66a) disagree as to the nature of מראה.

66a
It seems that Chanah prays for Shemuel to not fear other people; this seems to indicate that many traits of character are Gd-given, or at least Gd-influenced. This fits the idea that HaShem creates us with traits, and our job is to balance those traits. Our Free Will is in the balancing act we perform.

Note that in translating מורה as fear, we equate it with מורא, a very different root.

66b
The Rosh says that the rule here for grabbing the “cup of blessing” applies not just here, but to all blessings.

The issue here of whether it is better to recite a blessing or to listen and respond Amen is particularly interesting in light of the view of Aruch haShulchan and Mishneh Berurah that when many families dine together, only one should recite Kiddush and the rest should answer Amen.

On to Sotah!

Daf: Nazir 28b-30b

[This week's Haveil Havalim is up here!]

There is some great fun in these daf. Of particular note: Shemuel’s status, or lack thereof, as a nazir. The mitzvah, or lack thereof, of חינוך, for father/mother to educate son/daughter - and at what age the mitzvah ends. And, assorted notes. As always, read with a gemara in front of you for maximum benefit.

28b
According to the mishnah on 28b, a woman cannot accept nezirut for her child – which immediately raises the question of how Chanah vowed to accept nezirut for her (unborn, unconceived!) son Shemuel in the beginning of Shemuel I! Radak to Shemuel I 1 11, referred to in the Giyon haShas, is also very surprised by this.
(Note that Hatzlelponit/Shimshon does not pose a problem, because there it was not her own vow that made him a nazir.)

In the mishnah, the word כיצד does not seem to belong. The Rosh and Tosafos indeed remove it, but the Rambam in his פירוש המשניות reads the mishnah in a way that this word fits.

29a
How could nezirut constitute a solid way to educate a child? The Rosh says it’s b/c it trains the child in פרישות, separating from harmful things.

See also the Rosh’s note on chinuch which is not respected by the child’s relatives.

There is quite a bit of confusion in the Rosh, throughout this discussion and on to the next page, about R’ Yosi b”r Chanina and R’ Yosi b”r Yehudah. Presumably it’s simply a copyist’s error.

The Rosh’s definition of “נחירה” is to kill the animal in such a way that the blood departs from the vessels. Recall Pesachim 49b לנוחרו.

29b
R’ Yosi b”r Yehudah indicates here that the obligation of חינוך to educate one’s children ends when they hit physical puberty, at or around age 12. This is remarkable for many reasons, but among them is the debate about the berachah of ברוך שפטרני, the Baruch shePetarani recited when a son reaches Bar Mitzvah. One view (see Magen Avraham 225:5) is that the source for the berachah is the newfound exemption from teaching the child, but see also the alternative view that the obligation of chinuch continues, and the berachah is because of the child’s exemption from the father’s punishments!

Note that our gemara equates הלכה למשה מסיני and דאורייתא. I seem to recall something on this in the Rambam’s introductory section to his ספר המצוות, but I don’t have time right now to look it up.

See the great question in Tosafos ואי בעית אימא

On Rabbi Chanina and Rabban Gamliel’s conviction שמורה הלכה בישראל, that he would grow up to (that he now does!) pasken halachah, see also Gittin 58a on R’ Yehoshua ben Chananiah and R’ Yishmael ben Elisha in the Roman prison.

30a
Note that the Rosh has a different edition in the mishnah here, which makes the gemara on 30b more complicated within R’ Yosi’s view.

30b
The Rosh views the series of hypotheticals as אם תמצי לומר cases, which then tells us how we rule in all but the final case.