Daily Talk
The Rambam descends into the fine print of oaths -- the precise measurements, the compound subjects, the distinction between past and future -- and in doing so reveals that the Torah takes the architecture of human speech so seriously that it measures the weight of every word against the standard of an olive.
The Weight of the Unspoken
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About This Talk
Shevuot chapters 4 through 6 examine the detailed mechanics of assertory oaths. Chapter 4 addresses oaths concerning food -- establishing that liability requires consuming at least an olive-sized portion, and exploring how a single oath can bind multiple subjects and how oaths interact with existing Torah prohibitions. Chapter 5 turns to the distinction between oaths about the past and oaths about the future, the liability for false oaths of assertion, and the complex rules governing oaths that prove partially true and partially false. Chapter 6 introduces the annulment of oaths through a sage, establishing the conditions under which a regretted oath may be dissolved, and examining compound oaths whose parts may be independently fulfilled or violated.