Musar for Bava Metzia 132:11
אלא אפותיקי דקאמר רב פפא מאי היא דאמר ליה לא יהא לך פרעון אלא מזו
But, said R. Papa, if he is particular about his land, it [his offer to the creditor] is certainly binding.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Rashi: if he is particular not to sell any land, even for its full value, he is obviously not anxious to retain the mortgaged estate, as otherwise he would have sold off some other field. (Presumably this assumption is made because he could not have obtained on a mortgage the same money as by a sale in the open market) Tosaf.: If, when borrowing, he was insistent that the mortgage should be on that particular field, he evidently anticipated the possibility of non-redemption, and was reconciled to it. ');"><sup>11</sup></span>
Shenei Luchot HaBerit
Jacob prefaced his vow with the words: אם יהיה אלוקים עמדי, If the Lord will be with me, etc." He concluded it by saying that if his request would be granted: והיה ה' לי לאלוקים, "then the Lord will be my G–d." How could Jacob have dared to use the word אם, "if," which suggests that he made his loyalty to G–d dependent on G–d fulfilling his requests? We have a halachic ruling in Baba Metzia 66 that if someone purchases something by prefacing his remarks with the conditional word אם, such a purchase is invalid, seeing he had not truly committed himself. Even though the Maharam rules that in matters of vows and oaths conditional vows are legally binding, why did Jacob use an expression involving him in possibly legally binding vows? ...
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