Siman 233 — four questions on the year of the מופלא הסמוך לאיש (יורה דעה רל״ג)
יורה דעה · סימן רל״ג
עונת נדרים לזכר ולנקבה
עונת נדרים · מופלא הסמוך לאיש · בדיקה כל השנה · שתי שערות · חינוך הקטנים
🔥 Lamdan level · תלמידי חכמים
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Four questions only — and none of them is filler
Subject: שולחן ערוך יורה דעה סימן רל״ג (1 seif) With the apparatus: ש״ך (ב) · באר היטב (א) · פתחי תשובה (א) Foundations: משנה נדה מ״ה ע״ב · רמב״ם הלכות נדרים פרק י״א · רמב״ם הלכות שבועות פרק י״ב · טור ובית יוסף יורה דעה רל״ג
Written by: הרב יוסף חיים סממה · DAAT
What we shall ask of the text
Why twelve and eleven — and why the examination lasts all year
מופלא הסמוך לאיש: from the Torah, and yet without penalty
The clause the Shulḥan Arukh let fall
The Rama’s gloss and its source: two cases redistributed
1. Twelve and eleven — and the examination that lasts all year
Begin with the structure, before the halakha. Three periods, two boundaries, and a one-year asymmetry between boy and girl. The asymmetry is not a rule peculiar to vows: it traces that of majority. The period of examination is, in both cases, the preceding year.
« קטן בן י״ב שנה ויום אחד וקטנה בת י״א שנה ויום אחד אם יודעים לשם מי נדרו ונשבעו נדריהם נדר ושבועתם שבועה » (שו״ע יו״ד רל״ג:א)
The ḥakira that governs what follows. What is being measured during that year? Two readings are possible, and they do not yield the same regime. Either the year of examination is an anticipation of majority: the child is presumed a minor, and a finding of discernment exceptionally raises him to adult standing. Or it is a status of its own — that of the מופלא הסמוך לאיש — which is neither minority nor majority, and whose regime the Torah settled in its own right.
The second is the Rambam’s, and he says it plainly:
« וְדָבָר זֶה מִדִּבְרֵי תּוֹרָה שֶׁהַמֻּפְלָא הַסָּמוּךְ לְאִישׁ הֶקְדֵּשׁוֹ וְנִדְרוֹ נֵדֶר » (רמב״ם הלכות נדרים פרק י״א הלכה ד׳)
« וְזוֹ הִיא עוֹנַת נְדָרִים הָאֲמוּרָה בְּכָל מָקוֹם » (רמב״ם הלכות נדרים פרק י״א הלכה ג׳)
And the first nafka mina is in the seif itself. If the year of examination were an anticipation of majority, one would expect the physical signs to play a part. Yet the seif says expressly the opposite — “ אע״פ שלא הביאו ב׳ שערות ” (שו״ע יו״ד רל״ג:א) — and the Shakh ס״ק ב extends that exemption to the last period. The regime depends neither on the signs nor on their absence.
The second nafka mina is the reach of the examination in time, and this is what the Shakh draws from the seif:
« שאפילו בדקם בתחלת השנה ונמצאו שיודעים לשם מי נדרו אם נדרו אחר כך בסוף שנה אינו נדר עד שיבדקם פעם אחרת טור ועב״י » (ש״ך יו״ד רל״ג ס״ק א)
Read the reasoning the Rambam rejects: “since they were found to know at the beginning of the year, they need no examination”. That is the natural reasoning if discernment is taken to be an acquired state. The Rambam refuses it — which confirms that what is examined is not a general faculty but knowledge of one determinate vow, this one and not another. The consequence is entirely practical: the examination is repeated each time.
2. From the Torah, and yet without penalty
Set side by side the two halves of one halakha of the Rambam, and the difficulty appears.
« וְדָבָר זֶה מִדִּבְרֵי תּוֹרָה שֶׁהַמֻּפְלָא הַסָּמוּךְ לְאִישׁ הֶקְדֵּשׁוֹ וְנִדְרוֹ נֵדֶר » (רמב״ם הלכות נדרים פרק י״א הלכה ד׳)
If the מופלא’s vow is a vow of the Torah, why does transgressing it cost him nothing? The most immediate answer — the one found among the Rambam’s commentators — is that flogging presupposes liability to penalties, and a minor has none; the vow holds, the sanction does not. That cleanly separates the validity of the act from the responsibility of the agent.
summary: The Mishneh LaMelekh, on that same halakha, observes that the matter is not as obvious as it looks: he recalls that an amora, Rav Huna, held on the contrary that the child is flogged — דהא רב הונא ס״ל דלוקה — and that the Rambam ruled like those who contradict him. In other words, the absence of penalty is not an automatic consequence of minority: it is a decision, taken against an opinion.
summary: And on the preceding halakha the Mishneh LaMelekh goes further: he refers to tractate נדה, infers that so long as the child has not produced two hairs he remains a minor and his vows are merely subject to examination, and closes on the Rambam’s words with a ודברי רבינו צל״ע — this requires study. The Leḥem Mishneh, in the same place, opens with a צ״ע בפרק יוצא דופן.
That is exactly where the Pitḥei Teshuva sends the reader, and it is the reason for his single entry on this siman:
« עב״ה ועיין בספר לח״מ ומל״מ פי״א מהלכות נדרים ועיין בתשובות משכנות יעקב סימן נ״ז מ״ש בזה » (פתחי תשובה יו״ד רל״ג ס״ק א)
What we do not settle. The status of the מופלא הסמוך לאיש — from the Torah or from the Sages — is a classic debate among the Aḥaronim, and the Shulḥan Arukh does not name it here. Our siman gives the regime; it does not give its characterisation. We flag the debate and leave it open.
3. The clause the Shulḥan Arukh let fall
The Shulḥan Arukh follows the Tur here very closely — the order of the propositions is the same, and so is the vocabulary. Except on one point, and it is not a small one.
« ומיהו אינן לוקין אם חללו נדרן ועבדו על שבועתן עד שיגדלו » (טור יורה דעה רל״ג)
The Tur and the Rambam both say that the child is not flogged before his majority. The Shulḥan Arukh does not say it. He passes straight from “אינו נדר” to the last clause, and no clause of the siman mentions מלקות. The ומכין אותן of the Rama’s gloss, read in section 4 below, is a measure of upbringing and not the penalty incurred for the transgression.
Two explanations are possible, and we do not choose between them.The first: the siman treats the validity of vows, not penalties; penalties belong to another chapter, and the Meḥaber pruned what is not his subject. The second: the clause is so obvious in his eyes — a minor is not liable to penalties — that it did not need writing. The first is the more economical; the second is what the Mishneh LaMelekh’s observation reported above indirectly suggests, since it showed that the matter did not go without saying.
What is certain, on the other hand. The omission is not a divergence: nowhere does the Shulḥan Arukh say that the child would be flogged. So do not read disagreement with the Tur into that silence. A silence is not an opinion, and this is a common reading error.
4. The Rama’s gloss and its source
The Rama names his source at the end of the gloss: “ רמב״ם פי״ב מהל׳ שבועות סמ״ג וכל בו ” (רמ״א יו״ד רל״ג:א). Let us go there and read exactly what the Rambam writes.
« וְאִם הָיָה הַדָּבָר שֶׁנִּשְׁבְּעוּ עָלָיו דָּבָר שֶׁאֵין הַקָּטָן יָכוֹל לַעֲמֹד בּוֹ אֶלָּא אִם כֵּן נִזָּק » (רמב״ם הלכות שבועות פרק י״ב הלכה ז׳)
« מַכֶּה אוֹתוֹ אָבִיו אוֹ רַבּוֹ וְגוֹעֵר בּוֹ וּמַרְאִין לוֹ שֶׁהֻתְּרָה שְׁבוּעָתוֹ כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיֶה רָגִיל לְהָקֵל רֹאשׁ בִּשְׁבוּעוֹת » (רמב״ם הלכות שבועות פרק י״ב הלכה ז׳)
The Rambam distinguishes two cases by the content of the oath.Ordinary case: the child is compelled to keep his word, in order to educate him. Case of an oath he cannot keep without harm — to fast, to abstain from meat for a long time — : his father or teacher strikes him, rebukes him, and they show him that his oath has been released.
And here is the Rama:
« וגוערים בהם ומכין אותן שלא ילמדו לשונם בנדרים ושבועות » (רמ״א יו״ד רל״ג:א)
« ואם הוא דבר קטן וקל ואין בו עינוי נפש אומרים להם שיעמדו בנדרם ושבועתם כדי שלא ירגילו עצמם בזה » (רמ״א יו״ד רל״ג:א)
The redistribution is plain. In the Rambam the blows answer the harmful oath. In the Rama they answer the habit of swearing — “שלא ילמדו לשונם”. And in the Rambam the compulsion to keep one’s word is the general rule; in the Rama it is reserved for the light case, under the express condition ואין בו עינוי נפש.
What the Rama gained in the exchange, and it is real. By tying the compulsion to the lightness of the matter, and by setting עינוי נפש as an express limit, he makes the criterion usable: the father need not assess whether the child “can keep it without harm”, only whether the matter is light. That is a rule a parent can apply.
And one must add the Rambam’s next halakha, which the Rama did not carry over but which gives the whole gloss its direction:
« צָרִיךְ לְהִזָּהֵר בַּקְּטַנִּים הַרְבֵּה וּלְלַמֵּד לְשׁוֹנָם דִּבְרֵי אֱמֶת בְּלֹא שְׁבוּעָה כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיוּ רְגִילִים לְהִשָּׁבַע תָּמִיד » (רמב״ם הלכות שבועות פרק י״ב הלכה ח׳)
“One must take great care with children, and teach their tongue words of truth without an oath.” The aim is not to get them to keep their oaths: it is that they stop swearing. The Rama’s blows and the Rambam’s compulsion are two means to one end, and it is that end one must keep in view so as not to apply them crookedly. How to apply them is itself a matter of judgement — and the question is put to a Rav, not to the parent alone.
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