Q&A: What Is Considered a Vow?
What Is Considered a Vow?
Question
Is it really true that doing something regularly 3 times is considered a vow? It always sounded absurd to me that you need annulment of vows because you did something, when you never verbally made any vow at all.
And I also saw people saying that there is no vow on an action itself, so if I vow like this: I vow that I will do such-and-such, or that I will not do such-and-such — is that considered a vow?
Answer
An action is also considered a kind of speech (at least according to the understanding that explicit formulation in vows is only meant to express firm intent. Compare Tosafot on Kiddushin 49 regarding a stipulation that is obvious on its own and therefore does not require speech).
In the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah 206:5, a dispute is brought regarding a vow phrased in the language of an oath, and vice versa. But regarding a commandment-related matter, more authorities see this as a vow (as with vows of encouragement). In any case, many halakhic decisors wrote that for these vows one may rely on the annulment of vows done on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
Discussion on Answer
It doesn't sound ridiculous to me at all. Action is like speech, so long as you express firm intent.
With all due respect, a vow requires the intent of a vow. When I go to the gym regularly, it is unthinkable that this should count as a vow. A binding vow requires intent to undertake an obligation.
Respect accepted. If it is clear to you that you did not intend to obligate yourself, then maybe there is no vow here. But in many cases, when people begin a good practice (not going to the gym), they do intend for it to become permanent.
It always sounded ridiculous to me to claim that if I did something regularly — even if I thought to myself that I was careful to do it consistently, and in fact I did, and it was even a commandment-related matter — it sounds ridiculous that I would be legally bound by a vow, since I never made a vow. And if I had wanted to make a vow, I could have.