If a man makes a vow to Hashem or an oath to prohibit something to himself, he may not profane his word. He shall do all his mouth said. (Bamidbar 30:3)

When a person makes a vow, he is to fulfill that vow. For example, if a person vows that a certain type of food is forbidden to him, even though according to Jewish law the food is actually permitted, he is not allowed to eat of that food. This is an extra stringency he has taken upon himself and he must fulfill what he said he would do.

Our Sages learn that there is something called Hataras Nedarim. If a person realizes at a later point something that he did not realize at the time of the vow, he can annul the vow. This can ONLY be done by going to a competent Rabbi who is well versed in the laws of vows and cannot be done by an individual himself. There are times when a vow cannot be annulled even though a person might think he can annul it. Therefore, a person should always be very careful with his words and be careful not to state anything he is unable to fulfill.

This past Shabbos, for the first time in approximately 15 years, I read from the Torah. I did one aliyah which was about 25-30 verses so it took about 5 minutes to read it on Shabbos morning. The preparations for this aliyah, though, took over 3 hours. Afterwards, I thought about this and had an amazing insight. Why did I do so much practice for something that was so short? The reason is because I did not want to make an error. Torah reading is very important and every word must be spoken correctly.
But when a person reads from the Torah, there are two people who stand at the Bima. They are there to correct the reader in case he makes a mistake on one of the words and then the reader can say the word again. So, I practiced for 3 hours for a 5 minute part. I did it so I would not make mistakes, but if I made a mistake, I still had a way to save myself.

Vows can be annulled. Torah reading can be corrected. But there are many words we speak that cannot be annulled or corrected. After they are spoken, we cannot take them back. These are the words we speak everyday with our friends, family, co-workers, and anyone else we come in contact with. How very, very careful we need to be when we speak these words! These words can be extremely dangerous, but they cannot be taken back.

The Torah warns us to be cautious when taking a vow. Much preparation is done by the person who reads from the Torah. We should be just as careful with every word we say. Of course, we are not going to be able to prepare our words for 3 hours before every conversation we have, but we do need to take a few moments to truly think about what we are about to say.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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