Question

Does the following line of reasoning seem to you like a proof that one does not incur liability for half a measure in an oath, against Rabbi Akiva’s reasoning? First, from the rule that one oath cannot take effect on top of another oath, we learn that if I swear not to eat pork, then the oath does not take effect, because I am already bound and sworn from Sinai. Likewise, when I swear not to eat pork, I do not explicitly say “except for half a measure,” and if you say that when a person swears he intends to prohibit upon himself even half a measure, then certainly when I swear about eating pork we are dealing with a different commandment, since half a measure was not prohibited in the same way that a full measure was prohibited. If so, it follows that even when I swear about something permitted, I am by default subtracting half a measure from the oath, for we do not find a distinction in a person’s intent between an oath regarding something forbidden and an oath regarding something permitted. And that goes against reason, because on the face of it the measures seem to be a law given to Moses at Sinai, so it is not reasonable to include them in a person’s ordinary intent. And perhaps you will say that all this is true only before they were given, but once they were given the simple assumption is that we were educated in them and that this is how we see things. And perhaps there is also a hidden assumption here that a person educated according to Torah law should conduct himself, when swearing and making vows about permitted things, in the same way that the matter would be forbidden were it actually prohibited.