For the source text click/tap here: Shavuot 21
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Since an oath usually involves speech with no action, is it considered to be a lav she-ein bo ma’aseh, or, perhaps, the act of speaking is considered significant?
On our daf Rabbi Yehuda is brought quoting Rabbi Yosei HaGelili as teaching that there are three exceptions to the rule of no punishment for a lav she-ein bo ma’aseh.
The three exceptions are nishba (taking a false oath), meimar (announcing one’s intent to switch one consecrated animal for another) u’mekalel et ḥaveiro ba-shem (cursing one’s fellow while invoking the name of God).
It appears, somewhat counter-intuitively, that the Gemara does not consider speech to be an action, yet nevertheless, these types of speech are presented by the Torah as exceptions to the rule and malkot (lashes) will be given to someone who transgresses them.
In the Mishnah (19b), R’ Akiva holds that if someone takes an oath that he will not eat, he is liable for violating his oath as soon as he eats even the smallest amount even less than the volume of an olive (כזית).
We explore the dispute between Rabbi Akiva and the Sages concerning a person who swears that he will not eat, whether he breaks his oath with even minimal eating or only if he eats food the size of an olive (ke-zayit) including a general discussion concerning the definition of the act of eating, and the role of the measure of a ke-zayit in this context.
And a focus on the ethnography of eating as a ritual.