Nazir 17: Vowing While in a Coffin

Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan continue their disagreement.  The rabbis discuss what these Sages actually disagree about.  It is generally understood that their disagreement focuses on whether or not a person should be flogged for breaking a vow; whether or not the nazirite's prohibition on wine and ritual impurity are rabbinic or Torah based.

The rabbis teach that Reish Lakish's opinion is overruled by a baraita.  The baraita says that one who takes the vows of a nazirite will receive forty lashes if s/he shaves, touches products of grapes, or becomes ritually tamei through contact with a corpse.  This is because forty lashes is the punishment for transgressing a negative Torah law.  The rabbis also determine that a person should be warned to not take a vow of nazirut in a cemetery.  If that person ignores this warning, s/he should receive lashes.

If one enters the cemetery in a wooden box, however, and makes the vow of nazirut while the box is closed and then leaves the cemetery, s/he does not contract ritual impurity.  If the box is opened while in the cemetery, s/he has contracted ritual impurity.  Nice example.

The rabbis also address other interruptions of one's term of nazirut.  If one is stricken with leprosy, for example, s/he continues to tally her/his days of nazirut while first quarantined and assessed.  Once s/he is determined to be leprous, the tally stops.