Nedarim 22: Avoiding Vows, Anger, Murder, and Hemmeroids

After all of these conversations about making promises, today's daf backtracks.  Not only is it ill advised to make a vow, we should be actively discouraging people from making vows.  As they discussed earlier, the rabbis know that when we vow, we create the possibility of breaking that vow.  That means that we open ourselves to the possibility of sin when we vow - there is no possibility of the sin of transgressing a vow if we do not make that vow.  Thus the rabbis discuss how to bring up the topic of dissolving vows.  There are verses from Proverbs and rabbis' own words that might remind people to avoid making vows.

Our previous Mishna says that "There the wicked cease from troubling".  Rabbi Yonatan is known to have said that "Anyone who gets angry, all kinds of Gehenna rule over him" [because anger leads to sin]. Ecclesiastes 11:10 tells us "Therefore remove vexation from our heart and put away evil from your flesh".  Evil refers to Gehenna - we know this from Proverbs 16:4: "The Lord has made everything for His own purpose and even the wicked for the day of evil".  

What will plague a person who is angry?  Hemorrhoids.  Why?  Because in Deuteronomy 28:65, we learn about a sickness: "But the Lord shall give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and languishing of soul".  Personally, I might think of another sickness that causes these symptoms - diabetes, for example?  But the rabbis consider a different direction of interpretation.

Ulla is said to have travelled to Eretz Yisrael with two people from Chozai, a place far from other Jewish communities (close to Shushan) and without Torah learning.  One of these men killed the other after an argument.  The killer asked Ulla if he had done the right thing, and Ulla replied that he had.  In fact, he said, open the place of slaughter so that your neighbour dies more quickly.  Ulla found Rabbi Yochanan and asked the same question: did I do the right thing?  Perhaps I helped him to feel good about sinning when I just wished to save my own life.  Rabbi Yochanan reassured him - you saved yourself.

Our daf ends noting that the original verse from Deuteronomy referred to time in Babylonia.   Exile to Bavel was thought to cause anger and trembling of the heart, which could lead a person to murder another person.  But how could such a thing happen in Israel?  The answer to that question will begin tomorrow's daf.