פירוש על ויקרא 22:21

לפלא נדר means, expressing it by speech (not expressing it mentally,‎ בלב).

After the Torah has warned that the burnt offering, עולה, is of such a high rank of such sacred items, קדשי קדשיםthat only unblemished male animals may be used for such offerings, and that this requirement pertains only to cattle and sheep or goats, i.e. conditions which are not applicable to bird offerings, (compare Kidushin 16) it continues with ואיש כי יקריב 'זבח שלמים לה, to inform us that although this kind of meat offering is of a lower ranking sanctity, קדשים קלים and the Torah does not insist that such an animal must be male, in order to confer G’d’s goodwill on the donor, it must still be a perfect, unblemished animal of its species. We know from Leviticus 3,1 that such offerings are acceptable also if a female animal is offered. Verse 22 explains that it is simply not acceptable to offer a blemished animal to G’d as a sacrifice. An additional rule why blemished animals are not acceptable are the words ואשה לא תתנו מהם על המזבח לה'. The Torah informs us with these words that even if the blemish in the animal designated as the sacrifice originated only after it had been sanctified, the parts which are normally burnt on the altar, i.e. certain fat parts and membranes over the kidneys, because it simply is not acceptable that even if the parts designated for the altar are unblemished, anything which before getting to this stage had had a disqualifying blemish disqualifies the whole as it is looked upon with dismay by G’d.

לפלא נדר או לנדבה, “to fulfill a promised vow or making a voluntary offering.” Nachmanides writes: “it appears to me that seeing that the Torah uses the expression לפלא נדר או נדבה, that both here and in other situations where this expression is used it refers to people who when making such a vow they felt that they were under extreme stress which prompted them to make this “vow.” (Compare Leviticus 27,2, and Numbers 6,2, for instance) The vow goes something like this: “If Hashem will perform some kind of miracle, פלא so that I will be extricated from the predicament I find myself in at this time, I promise to do such and such as a thanksgiving offering.” The whole situation is analogous to Yaakov having made a vow after his dream with the ladder, and his being penniless on the way to get a wife for himself. The basic difference in the formula of a vow called נדר and one called נדבה, is that the נדר is a personal obligation that has to be seen through, i.e. if the item vowed has been lost or stolen before it was paid, the person who vowed it has to make restitution, seeing he had said “I accept the obligation on myself to do or give such and such.” The person vowing a נדבה, on the other hand, declared a certain item as holy for G’d, and once he had declared it as such, if something happened to it, it is no longer his responsibility to make restitution. Seeing that in the case of the נדר the party vowing it does not make the selection at once, the Torah applies more stringent rules to the state of physical perfection used for such an animal. [There are, of course, numerous other distinctions between the two kinds of vows, but they do not concern our verse. Ed.]