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Vows and Oaths

"Do not think that I caution you only against swearing falsely. Not so! Do not take an oath even about what is true. Only then will you be able to swear - if you have the following exalted traits: awe of G-d, serving Him, clinging to Him, and swearing by His Name" (Devarim 10:21)

In order to fulfill the first condition of being in awe of G-d, it is not sufficient to fear G-d at the level of an ordinary person. One must become, in this regard, like one of the three great personalities, Avraham, Iyov, and Yosef, whom the Scripture recognizes as fearing G-d; about Avraham, it says, "Now I know that you fear G-d" (Bereishit 22:12); and about Iyov it says that he was "whole-hearted and upright, and one that feared G-d" (Iyov 1:2); and the Torah records Yosef as saying, "I fear G-d" (Bereishit 42:18).

The second requirement, to serve Him, is fulfilled only if one is occupied exclusively with serving G-d, by directing all his thoughts and actions towards the fulfillment of the mitzvot and good works.

The third prerequisite is that one cling to G-d. Clearly, this cannot be fulfilled literally, since "He is a consuming fire" (Devarim 4:24). It means, however, one should attach himself to Torah scholars. For instance, if one has a daughter, he should marry her to a man who is erudite in the Torah - a Torah Chacham; or if one has merchandise that can yield a profit, he should let a Talmid Chacham make the profit in order to enable him to continue occupying himself with Torah study. In general, one should try to bring pleasure to the Torah scholar whenever an opportunity to do so arises.

A man who has fulfilled all these three conditions, may take an oath to affirm the truth. But if a man has not attained this level, he has no right to pronounce an oath.

If a man makes a vow in order to fortify his resolve and improve his ways, that is commendable. For instance, if he is a man steeped in food and drink, and he makes a vow not to drink so much wine for a period of time, or else not to drink to inebriation, or to separate himself from other unseemly habits - there are vows made for the sake of Heaven and they are to be encouraged. It is then a mitzvah to make such a vow, since he does so in the service of G-d. Were he to remain with his evil habits, he would be brought to commit transgressions.

Our Sages indeed declare, concerning such vows: "Vows are a consraint for abstinence." Yet, even for such purposes, one should avoid making vows habitual; he should try to abstain without first uttering a vow. (Bereishit Rabbah, VaYetze)

The Fifteenth Day of Av

The fifteenth of Av was the day when the dying of the desert generation came to an end and the tribes were permitted to intermarry with one another. For this reason this day became a day of great rejoicing, the Talmud declaring, "no days were more festive for the Benei Yisrael than Yom Kippur and the fifteenth of Av."

In this regard, the Talmud asks, "It is understandable that Yom Kippur should be a day of rejoicing, since our sins are then forgiven; so were the second Tablets given on this day (Parashat Ki Tisa). But why did they rejoice on the fifteenth of Av" And it answers, "because on that day the tribes were permitted to intermarry."

There was another historical reason why this became a day of rejoicing. It was then that the tribe of Binyamin was again welcomed into the congregation of Yisrael. As it is explained at length in Parashat Shoftim, in the aftermath of the episode of the raped mistress (Shoftim 19-21), the Benei Yisrael separated themselves from the tribe of Binyamin by swearing to one another not to permit the men of Binyamin to marry any women from the other tribes. This ban lasted until the Benei Yisrael saw that the Tribe of Binyamin was shrinking and they resolved that "no tribe shall be blotted out from among Yisrael" (Shoftim 21:17). Whereupon they sought to circumvent the oath that they had taken to the effect that "Not one of us will give his daughter to Binyamin a a wife" (21:1). Such a way out was discovered on the fifteenth day of Av, and that day was turned into a festival.

As noted, moreover, that was the day on which the Benei Yisrael in the desert ceased to die. Throughout the forty years that they were in the wilderness, on the eve of the ninth of Av a call would go out for all them to go dig their graves, and every Israelite would do so lest he die without having prepared a grave for himself. That night each man would sleep in his dug-out, and when in the morning another call would go out, "Let the living separate from the dead," all who were still alive would emerge.

In the case of anyone who was going to die, a worm would emerge from his mid-section and enter his mouth, killing him - and he would be buried. The pattern was repeated year after year.

But then, at the end of the fortieth year when the call went out for them to dig graves, and subsequently that the living emerged, they all came out alive. Astonished, they wondered if perhaps they had made a mistake in the day of the month, and that night they again spent in the dug-out, and continued to do so until the fifteenth of Av. When they saw the full moon and that not a single one of them had died, they knew that they had not erred as to the day, and that the decree had been lifted. That generation of Benei Yisrael thereupon fixed the date as a festival. (Taanit, Chapter 4. See Bava Batra, Chapter 8; Eicha Rabbah; Yerushalmi, Taanit, Chapter 4; Rashbam)

The decree had lasted thirty-eight years out of the forty which they spent in the wilderness - from the second year after the Exodus, when the episode of the spies took place, until the thirty-ninth year - and altogether 600,000 died, on the average between 15,000 and 16,000 men died every year. (Ritva, Bava Batra, loc. cit.)

Not only did they cease to die on that day, turning the fifteenth of Av into a festival, but also, a direct divine communication with Moshe was then resumed. For while any of those who were meant to die in the desert were still alive, divine transmission to Moshe was not effected directly, "mouth to mouth" (Bamidbar 12:8) at any time that he disired; but rather, through a vision in the night. Since all those years the Benei Yisrael were in a state of reproach before G-d, and G-d's love for Moshe was derived entirely from the merit of the Benei Yisrael, He did not communicate with him unless it was absolutely necessary.

Therefore the Torah says, "It was at this time that all the men of war among the people ceased dying, G-d then spoke to me, saying" (Devarim 2:16, 17). (Rashi ibid)

- Me'am Lo'ez