Neder (vow) not to speak

Question

If one makes a neder (vow) not to speak, how is it able to be undone?

Surely he can't do hataras nedarim (annulment of vows) since he can't speak!

Answer 1

Shulchan Aruch Yoreah Deah Siman 213:1 says:

נדרים אין חלין על דבר שאין בו ממש כיצד אמר קונם שאני מדבר עמך שאני עושה לך שאני מהלך לך שאני ישן עמך אינו נדר וכן אם אמר דיבורי ועשייתי והליכתי אסורים עליך ושינה אסורה עלי אינו נדר ומיהו מדרבנן צריך שאלה (פי' לשאול על נדרו ולמצוא פתח להתירו)

"Vows do not apply to intangible substances. For example, if one says: "Konam that I speak to you!" or "serve you" or "go for you" or "sleep with you" - this is no vow. So too, if one phrases it this way: my speech, my servitude, or my going is forbidden to you, or sleep is forbidden to me - this is no vow. However, on a rabbinic level one should have these annulled."

This means that with regards to Nedarim that are not tangible, for example in our case the person makes a neder to not speak, that is not tangible, and only mederabbanan we would need to התרת נדרים through a שאילה which means to find out how to be מתיר the neder.

1. The first option is that if we are dealing with a women who makes a neder to not speak, according to Rebbi Akiva Eiger in Yoreah Deah Siman 228:16 he says that a man can be a shaliach for a women and matir the neder by using the principle of אשתו כגופו, so then, in that case, a woman wouldn't need to talk at all to be matir the neder since he husband does it for her.

2. However if the man made the neder to not speak, then since in Yoreah Deah Siman 228:14 it says, קודם שיתירו לו צריך שיפרט להם הנדר והסיבה שבשבילה נדר ואם לא פרט אין התרתן התרה ומיהו כשיפרוט לאחד מהמתירין סגי, Prior to annulment, [one] must state the vow explicitly and the reason the vow was taken. If the vow was not stated, the nullification is not [considered] a nullification. However, if one states the vow to one [of the people] that are nullifying the vow, then it suffices. So the question is if the person who made the neder can write down the reason for the neder or not? I think that it works because we pasken like Rav Pappa in Gittin 35b who says we need to לְפָרֵט אֶת הַנֶּדֶר, to detail and spell out the neder because מילתא דאיסורא, maybe because the neder was on something prohibited where we can not matir it, so if the goal of לְפָרֵט אֶת הַנֶּדֶר is merely to just to receive information if the neder was concerning something prohibited writing that down would accomplish the same goal, therefore the man just needs to write down what his neder is and the purpose of it and then the Beit Din does there thing. (I still need to check if writing down works but it seems right logically).