Resources for Nedarim 24

The משנה brings two types of נדרי הבאי. One type is that he saw כעולי מצרים and one is that he saw a נחש טרוף כבית הבד. The ר"ן understands that that these are two completely different types of נדרי הבאי. One type is fully מותר and is simply called exaggeration. Exaggerations aren’t lies and they are מותר even if they are done as a שבועה since the person was simply trying to get his point across. The מנחת שלמה has a fascinating הערה on this point. There is a פּסוק in דברים פּרק א׳ פּסוק כ"ח that says “ערים גדולות ובצורות בשמים” and the גמרא in חולין דף צ׳ ע"ב says that this is an example of an exaggeration. We see that even the לישנא דקרא allows for exaggeration and we don’t call that “lies”. The other type of נדרי הבאי is the נחש טרוף שקורת בית הבד. The ר"ן says that a נחש is never טרוף. It’s an obvious lie, like saying in our culture “I saw pigs fly”. Therefore, it is simply meaningless and if said as a שבועה would be considered a שבועת שוא and the person would get מלקות. However, The רא"ש and תוספות argue and say that both cases in the משנה are the same in that כעולי מצרים and כקורת בית הבד are both types of exaggerations. According to them if someone had made this כקורת בית הבד and had not actually seen anything he would get מלקות but if he just exaggerated he would not. The ר"ן brings the גמרא in שבועות דף כ"ט that mentions that נחש כקורת בית נבד as well גמל פּורח are אסור because of שבועת שוא. Our משנה left out the case of flying camels and the משנה there left out the case of עולת מצרים. The ר"ן says that according to him it makes sense since the משנה there says it’s אסור because it’s a שבועת שוא so it must be that flying camels is considered an obvious lie like נחש כקורת בית הבד and a שבועת שוא. The משנה couldn’t mention עולי מ͏צרים since that is not a lie at all and מותר. Our משנה didn’t mention flying camels because it would have simply been a repeat of כקורת בית הבד. This leaves us with the question of if that is true why did the משנה in שבועות mention two similar cases like flying camels and כקורת בית הבד.

As to the רא"ש’s פּשט, the רשב"א says that flying camels was not a normal exaggeration like our משנה’s examples so it is considered a שבועת שוא. Alternatively, one could answer that our משנה just listed two of the three cases it could have listed. Those two answers may be connected to the two גירסאות in our גמרא about שבועות. If you have the גירסא of מותרות (meaning נדרי הבאי are מותרות even when done as שבועות )then one could suggest that our משנה could have not included גמל פּורח since it is typically a lie and our משנה is talking about cases where it isn’t a lie and both נדרים and corresponding  שבועות are מותר. If you have the גירסא of אסורות then one could say that flying camels could have been mentioned in our משנה and it just listed a two of the three. As to the משנה over there that says you get מלקות for נחש כקורת בית הבד, the מנחת שלמה  suggests that the רא"ש would have to explain that it was talking about a case where he said explicitly that he wasn’t exaggerating.