Hand Fashioner
On Nedarim 85
On Nedarim 85, Amoraim discuss taking a vow on something that hasn’t yet come into being. Usually, we’d think such a vow (or any transaction) cannot take effect on something which hasn’t yet arrived in the world. Yet, there is often a mechanism by which such can work — where one establishes a connection to something that will come into the world. For instance, selling a field vis-à-vis the crops it will produce in the future.
(A similar issue arises in terms of halacha and intellectual property. Assuming one cannot halachically “steal” something with no physical substance, perhaps one could attach the ownership of the music on the CD since it on a physical medium.)
We have Rav Huna son of Rav Yehoshua suggest something like that. How can a woman prohibit that which she will eventually produce, her maaseh yadeha?
אֶלָּא אָמַר רַב הוּנָא בְּרֵיהּ דְּרַב יְהוֹשֻׁעַ: בְּאוֹמֶרֶת ״יִקְדְּשׁוּ יָדַי לְעוֹשֵׂיהֶן״, דְּיָדַיִם הָא אִיתַנְהוּ בָּעוֹלָם.
Rather, Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said: Here the mishna is dealing with a woman who says: My hands are consecrated to the One Who made them. Therefore, the case does not involve the issue of an entity that has not yet come into the world, as her hands are already in the world.
Le’oseihem would most readily mean “to He Who Made Them”. She is declaring her hands, a substance, to be hekdesh, almost. And automatically then, anything produced by her hands would be prohibited.
Tangentially, the gemara’s response to that suggestion is wonderfully amusing: וְכִי אָמְרָה הָכִי — קָדְשָׁה? וְהָא מְשַׁעְבְּדָן יְדַיהּ לְבַעַל! “And if she said her vow like this, are they consecrated and forbidden? But aren’t her hands pledged to Baal!”
Well, in this case, baal means the husband, not the deity. :)
This, לְעוֹשֵׂיהֶן, is what we have in the manuscripts I’ve seen, such as Vatican 110:
And, if we look as Ran, Rashi, Tosafot, Rosh, Rif, Ritva, they all have that. Yet what we might think we are looking for is למעשיהן, meaning my hands vis-à-vis what they will produce.
This is Tosafot Rid’s suggestion. I don’t think it is based on any manuscript, only logic. He writes:
באומרת יקדשו ידי למעשיהן גרס כדאמרי' בספ"ק אמר רב יהודא באומר יאסר פי לדיבורי יידי למעשיהן:
He points us to the end of the first perek, Nedarim 13b:
אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: בְּאוֹמֵר ״יֵאָסֵר פִּי לְדִיבּוּרִי״, ״יָדַי לְמַעֲשֵׂיהֶם״, ״רַגְלַי לְהִילּוּכָן״.
דַּיְקָא נָמֵי, דְּקָתָנֵי ״פִּי מְדַבֵּר עִמָּךְ״, וְלָא קָתָנֵי ״שֶׁאֲנִי מְדַבֵּר עִמָּךְ״.
Rav Yehuda said: The mishna is referring to one who says: My mouth shall be forbidden with regard to my speech, or: My hands shall be forbidden with regard to their work, or: My feet should be forbidden with regard to their walking. In these cases the vow applies to a limb, which is a concrete item, and therefore it takes effect.
The Gemara comments: The language of the mishna is also precise according to this interpretation, as it teaches: For my mouth to speak with you, and it does not teach: That which I speak with you. This indicates that he imposed the vow upon his mouth and not upon the act of speaking.
I wonder if we could kvetch לְעוֹשֵׂיהֶן and dikduk to mean the same, without shifting the girsa. Just like le-diburi (or le-diburo) would mean to its speech, maybe there is some grammatical construction where oseihem can mean that which the hands create.
Meanwhile, there are three parallel and / or dependent sugyot which rely on Rav Huna bereih deRav Yehoshua’s analysis here. Even though his analysis is locally attacked. These are: Kiddushin 63a, where it is presented as הָאִיתְּמַר עֲלַהּ, that we say (on that Mishnah, local to here) what Rav Huna bereih deRav Yehoshua says. Also, Yevamot 93a, again הָא אִיתְּמַר עֲלַהּ. And finally, Ketubot 59a, where it is a parallel sugya with all its details, corresponding to what we have in Nedarim.
In each of these, it is לְעוֹשֵׂיהֶן. The only possible exception would be in Ketubot 59a, with the Bologna, AS: Fr. ebr. 507 fragmentary text.
I’ve underlined בְּאוֹמֶרֶת. It is difficult to make out the partly obliterated words. But scholars have worked on it, and so this is the text they have at Hachi Garsinan:
If there is an obscured letter (marked by question mark) then that might be a mem. Yet the word still has a vav, which wouldn’t work with למעשיהן.