Our Parshah opens with the subject of vows and vowing. A vow is a promise, normally to G-d, to do something or refrain from doing something. As such it is to be taken very seriously indeed. The first lines of our Parshah warn us not to profane our word by breaking it. Yet the rest of this section seems to undermine this lesson, dealing with ways of getting out of a vow. Either a father or husband can annul a vow, as can a Sage or a Beit Din. Indeed the annulment of vows has become part of the ritual of both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. How are we to explain this paradox; either our word is sacred and inviolable or it is not. The fact is, that the Torah doesn't really approve of vows. In the same section of Deuteronomy that it warns us against breaking our word, it reminds us that if we don’t vow at all it will not be held against us. G-d does not need our vows. It is possible to do good or to show gratitude to G-d, without making rash promises. Indeed, in the case of the Nazirite vow, the Torah seems to indicate that the person has sinned by making such a promise. It is possible to surmise that the Torah thinks that a person making a vow may have a psychological problem, a spiritual deficiency that causes them to want to promise something not required of them. For this reason, the Torah requires the person who later regrets their vow to go to a Sage to have it annulled. The Sage can only do this by examining the motivations of the person who made the vow, seeking an opening to declare that if the person had realised the ramifications of his words, they would not have vowed in the first place. This is in some ways similar to a person going to a professional for counselling. Though he may come presenting one problem, the counsellor seeks the deeper motivations and problems that are causing them to seek help. We can now also understand while the annulment of vows occupies such a prominent place in the liturgy of the High Holidays. This is a period of repentance and introspection. By seeking to have our vows annulled, we are not only repenting for our rash statements but examining the problematic motivations that caused us to make them. We can therefore see that the possibility of annulling vows is not in contradiction to the Torah’s concern with the power of speech but an essential part of it. By causing us to thoroughly examine why we speak the way we do, we learn how to use our power of speech better in the future.

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