Intention in Mitzvot – Lesson 7

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Oh, one second, I’ll get to that maybe in just a bit. One possibility: if we understand that the obligation to have intention is a rabbinic law, then how can it invalidate the commandment? After all, the dispute whether commandments require intention or not is only about whether it’s indispensable, right? Meaning, ideally of course you need to intend. The dispute is whether it’s indispensable. Now if it’s a rabbinic law, why should that invalidate the commandment? How do you explain the view that commandments require intention according to the Imrei Binah? The Imrei Binah says the intention is required only rabbinically—so how can you say that it invalidates the commandment? You did the commandment without intention, so the rabbinic requirement wasn’t fulfilled, but the commandment itself you did. So here—not terrible—there is Tosafot in Sukkah on page 4, I think page 4, that says yes: there was an incident with the elders of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai who went to visit Rabbi Yohanan ben HaHoranit in his sukkah, and they saw that he was sitting inside the sukkah while his table was inside the house. They said to him: if you sat like that, you never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life. Why? Tosafot asks there: it’s still at least some kind of commandment. “You never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life”? So Tosafot asks: why? After all, having the table in the house is only a decree. A large sukkah—as opposed to a small sukkah—in a large sukkah, the sukkah itself has the proper minimum size, it’s valid, the table is outside, and the issue is just a decree lest he be drawn after his table. Therefore one shouldn’t sit in the sukkah with his table in the house. So Tosafot asks: why say “you never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life”? He did fulfill the commandment of sukkah; he only violated a rabbinic rule. Tosafot says that if you don’t fulfill the commandment according to the definitions of the rabbis, then you also haven’t fulfilled the Torah-level commandment. And the Ran disagrees with that; later there in Sukkah the Ran disagrees with this Tosafot. But there is such a Tosafot. There’s also maybe Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Magen Avraham: what happens if someone blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah that fell on the Sabbath? Did he fulfill the commandment of shofar? Right? So simply speaking, it seems—Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in his notes to Chagigah I think—Rabbi Akiva Eiger argues yes, that he did fulfill a commandment. So in short, for our purposes, what I want to say is that even if he didn’t intend, and intention is only a rabbinic requirement according to the Imrei Binah, still it could be that if you didn’t do it in the way the sages established to do it, then you also haven’t fulfilled the Torah-level obligation. The sages can nullify your fulfillment of the commandment. But still, in short, all of this is forced. In the Imrei Binah itself, he brings there and ties it to Nachmanides. Nachmanides, on positive commandment 5 in Maimonides’ list of commandments—Maimonides writes, “and to serve Him,” this is the commandment of prayer. Maimonides’ position is that the commandment of prayer is Torah-level. Nachmanides says it’s rabbinic. Okay, meaning the details are certainly rabbinic even according to Maimonides, but the obligation to pray, the fundamental obligation to pray, is Torah-level—I may have mentioned this. And Maimonides learns it from “and to serve Him.” What is service of the heart? This is prayer. Nachmanides says—and he brings several proofs that this is not correct—that the obligation to pray is a rabbinic law. So what does “and to serve Him with all your heart” mean? Nachmanides says: “And the main meaning of the verse ‘and to serve Him with all your heart’ is a positive commandment that all our service of the blessed God should be with all our heart, that is, with complete and desirable intention for His sake, and with no evil thought; that we should not do the commandments without intention, or in doubt as to whether they may perhaps have some benefit.” So the Imrei Binah says: apparently from here, according to Nachmanides at least, there is a Torah source for the rule that commandments require intention: “and to serve Him with all your heart.” Maimonides, who doesn’t count this as a commandment—there maybe it’s a rabbinic law, says the Imrei Binah. Okay, I’m not entirely sure that what Nachmanides writes here is the rule that commandments require intention, even according to Nachmanides himself. I think he means to say “with no evil thought.” He means that if you do it for reasons—you know that in learning Torah for its own sake there’s a contradiction between two passages. Tosafot asks about this contradiction. In one place it says, “it would have been better had his placenta been turned over on his face”; in another place, “from doing it not for its own sake one comes to do it for its own sake.” Okay, so Tosafot says it depends what kind of “not for its own sake.” If “not for its own sake” means not for the sake of the commandment, then “from not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake.” But if it’s in order to boast, or to provoke, or from negative motives, then “it would have been better had his placenta been turned over on his face.” There we don’t say “from not for its own sake one comes to for its own sake.” Here the feeling is—what is “evil thought”? It seems to me he doesn’t mean to say I need the intention in order to fulfill my obligation, but rather that the commandment should be done from worthy motives, not for the sake of having them publicize me in the newspaper as some outstanding commandment-doer. Okay? That’s not the rule that commandments require intention. That may be more connected to the rule of “for its own sake” than to the rule that commandments require intention. We talked about that at the beginning. So I’m not entirely sure whether from Nachmanides here one can bring a source for the rule that commandments require intention, even if you follow Nachmanides and not Maimonides. Okay, I don’t know, because he says: “that is, with complete and desirable intention for His sake and with no evil thought.” The question is what “desirable intention complete for His sake” means—does that come to exclude evil thought? If someone blows the shofar just for music, that’s not evil thought. You’re allowed to sing, right? That’s not evil thought. At the moment you don’t want to fulfill your obligation; you’ll do it later. There’s nothing bad here. So the question is whether “evil thought”—does “desirable and complete intention” come to exclude evil thought, and if so then blowing for music is also fine. No, not necessarily—that’s what I’m saying. Since he says “with proper intention, desirable and complete for His sake, and with no evil thought,” that’s the question. Is “for His sake” one law, and “with no evil thought” a second law, or does “for His sake” mean specifically as opposed to evil thought? Meaning: don’t do it from bad motives, from motives of showing off to everyone what a great shofar blower you are—I don’t know exactly what. But if you blow it for music, fine—that’s already the question whether commandments require intention or not; that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m coming to exclude bad motives. There are two expressions here in Nachmanides, and the question is how to understand the relation between them. Right? “That we should not do the commandments without intention or in doubt as to whether they may perhaps have some benefit.” If you already say “without intention,” why do you need to add “in doubt as to whether they may perhaps have some benefit”? Obviously, if you hold that commandments require intention, then this whole matter is already included in that; this whole issue too will depend on the dispute whether commandments require intention or not. What will the one who says commandments do not require intention do with positive commandment 5? Nachmanides doesn’t write that it depends on the dispute whether commandments require intention or not. Therefore I’m not sure this Nachmanides is a source for the rule that commandments require intention, and therefore even according to Nachmanides I wouldn’t conclude from here that it’s a rabbinic law.

[Speaker B] If you read it plainly, without overanalyzing. I’m reading it with overanalyzing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because there are extra words here. Fine, it’s a writing style. Read the words. What does “with no evil thought” mean? If you want to fulfill your obligation, do you need to tell me not to do it for the sake of evil thought? Why do you care about bad thoughts? Even someone who blows for music doesn’t fulfill his obligation.

[Speaker B] He says no.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so why do you need to tell me yes? And if he blows in order—I don’t know—to deafen your ears, then he hasn’t fulfilled his obligation? Even if he simply blows not in order to fulfill his obligation, just blows for music, he hasn’t fulfilled his obligation. Why do you need—why do you need to add: and if he has bad thoughts and is doing it from bad motives? Obviously he has to do it for the sake of the commandment.

[Speaker B] No, he’s explaining to you what complete intention means—that he shouldn’t have even bad thoughts.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Intentions are all thoughts. No, it’s even thoughts—our whole discussion is about thoughts. So forget bad thoughts; just say intention for the sake of Heaven, period. Not bad thoughts. Even neutral thoughts—someone who blows for music, that too is forbidden, he also hasn’t fulfilled his obligation. Why do you need to bring in bad thoughts?

[Speaker B] But say he blew in the synagogue with all the proper intention, but he also wanted to show off to his wife?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “With all the proper intention”—well then he did it with the right intention, not for showing off.

[Speaker B] So that people should appreciate him—that’s not good.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, so you’re saying that he had the intention to fulfill his obligation, but together with that he also had some desire to show off. Okay, maybe, I don’t know, could be, could be. What? No, learning not for its own sake really means he doesn’t intend to learn for its own sake; here he’s saying no, he intended it for the sake of the commandment, only together with that he also wants to show off. Okay, could be, could be. Fine, I didn’t understand. Is this a commandment counted according to Nachmanides? No—the Imrei Binah says: if there is no source, it’s rabbinic. I already noted that earlier, that the only source he found is positive commandment 5. Positive commandment 5 Maimonides doesn’t count; he counts something else, so apparently it’s rabbinic. I also disagree with that—I said earlier, even if there’s no source I don’t agree that it’s rabbinic—but that’s the discussion in the Imrei Binah. Okay, fine, in any case that’s the claim. But in the Mishnah Berurah, and in the simple straightforward understanding, all the medieval authorities and later authorities—it’s obvious this is a Torah-level law, nobody even imagines saying otherwise. Right, if you said commandments do not require intention, then the count of the commandments needs fixing. So which commandment does he put into the 613 in place of this one? What happens if a person is in doubt whether he intended or not? So I said earlier that according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s explanation this is a double doubt, right? A doubt whether intention is required at all, and a doubt whether he intended or not. It could be that if I say intention is some sort of enhancement in the fulfillment of the commandment, then there is room to say maybe he has to repeat it even if it’s a double doubt. What does it mean “has to repeat it”? He has to repeat it not in order to fulfill the obligation of the commandment—the commandment he fulfilled even without it—but to do it in fulfillment of the obligation of intention. You know, at the beginning of chapter 2 of Kiddushin the Talmud says that if someone betroths a woman through an agent, then it is not the best kind of betrothal, because “it is more of a commandment for him than through his agent.” It’s a commandment to do commandments yourself and not through an agent, even though a person’s agent is like himself; halakhically he fulfilled his obligation. The Ra’avad in several places—the responsa of the Rivash bring him—the Ra’avad says that if someone betrothed a woman through an agent, he should go back and betroth her again. What? The betrothal certainly took effect; okay, it wasn’t done in the optimal way, fine, but the betrothal took effect. So why betroth her again? Ideally now? Meaning, the woman is already betrothed—what are you betrothing her again for? Fine, there is some assumption there apparently that if you do the commandment in an incomplete way, then your intention is that you would prefer to do that commandment in the fullest possible way. Especially since betrothal probably isn’t even a commandment, so all this is even more difficult. But for our purposes, what I want to say—and this is a well-known Rabbi Chaim on etrog—yes, he says that if you have a beautiful etrog of doubtful validity and an etrog that is definitely valid but not beautiful, which do you take first? You want to do a beautiful commandment. You take the definitely valid one first? No, the beautiful one first. Why? If you take the valid one first, then you’ve fulfilled your obligation, so what’s the point of taking the beautiful one afterward? You already fulfilled the commandment. The commandment is what needs beautifying; you can’t beautify it after you already fulfilled it. So you take the beautiful one—you don’t know whether it’s valid—then, because of the doubt and to make sure you fulfilled your obligation, afterward you also take the valid one. Okay. The truth is there are Talmudic passages against this, no matter; Beit HaLevi also writes this and Rabbi Chaim also writes this. But there are Talmudic passages about two animals, one lean and one fat, where he offered the lean one and then found the fat one, and offered the fat one—that’s considered that the fat one preceded. There’s a long discussion about this in the Sha’agat Aryeh and elsewhere. In short, there are places where you can see that even if you do the commandment again in a beautified way, even though you already fulfilled your obligation, still you do it again in a beautified way. There is some notion that apparently they’ll replace the commandment for you. Instead of the first commandment, the second commandment is the one that will count for you. The commandment is the first one, but still it’s considered beautified because you did it together with the commandment.

[Speaker B] Maybe with the second one you’re doing a commandment and maybe not—fine, at worst not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you go with the beautiful one that is doubtful—

[Speaker B] Right, so you did your commandment now, but you’re not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] sure that you fulfilled your obligation.

[Speaker B] Yes, your intention…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? The intention is completely full. I don’t know whether I fulfilled my obligation, but my intention is full—I’m doing it in order to fulfill my obligation. Whether I succeeded or not, just to be safe I’ll do the second one too.

[Speaker B] Fine, but then it’s like…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? With that same intention—I want to fulfill my obligation; maybe I didn’t succeed, but I’m doing it.

[Speaker B] But from the outset you know you can’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if I don’t know? Say I don’t know. The etrog was completely invalid—not doubtful, completely invalid—and I intended to fulfill my obligation. I still intended to fulfill my obligation. It didn’t help me because I didn’t do the commandment, right, but I intended to fulfill my obligation.

[Speaker B] Will my intention count?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, of course not. I have the intention to fulfill my obligation—what’s the problem?

[Speaker B] Not fully; it doesn’t rest on the commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean not fully? It’s completely full, only it may be that I didn’t succeed because I didn’t do the commandment, that’s all. What? There’s a bit of discussion among the later authorities about this—what happens if… what about making a condition regarding commandments, like the condition of the Avnei Nezer, you know, regarding eating the afikoman. Because there are two opinions whether you can eat afikoman until midnight—you need to eat it by midnight, and then after midnight you can eat because the rule that after the afikoman one doesn’t eat no longer applies, because the end time for afikoman is midnight, and then you can eat. Or the time for afikoman extends after midnight, and then the afikoman should be eaten after midnight, and you have no issue of not eating. So what the Avnei Nezer says is: make a condition. Eat the afikoman before midnight and stipulate: if afikoman is only until midnight, then this will be my afikoman. And if afikoman is after midnight, then this will just be ordinary matzah that I’m eating, and the afikoman I’ll eat afterward; my final piece of matzah will be the afikoman. And later authorities discuss this at length; it’s a bit similar to your reasoning: can one do such a thing? Can you make conditions on a commandment act, as in setting aside terumah or something like that? But the question is whether you can fulfill commandments through such conditions of this kind, or whether you need to know when and how you’re doing the commandment. I don’t know if it’s specifically a matter of intention, but you need to know that you’re doing the commandment in order to fulfill it. What? There? And afterward you go to a prayer quorum, as it were, for the morning prayer after the proper time—same thing, same question. So I’m saying that here too there would be room to say that you need—commandments require intention. Intention: if you did it without intention, do it again. But do it again not in the sense that you didn’t fulfill the commandment obligation, but in the sense that you did it in an un-beautified way, without intention—so do it again in a beautified way. You understand, of course, that you don’t have to repeat it in the sense that you didn’t fulfill the commandment obligation, but you do repeat it in order to gain the intention, the beautified commandment, or something like that. More than that—maybe I’ll open one more parenthesis here—for example regarding tekhelet in tzitzit. Right? The Mishnah in Menachot says that the tekhelet does not invalidate the white strands, and the white strands do not invalidate the tekhelet, right? And people think tekhelet is voluntary. Tekhelet is a positive obligatory commandment; you are obligated to put tekhelet on tzitzit. It doesn’t invalidate the white strands, meaning if you didn’t put on tekhelet, you fulfilled the commandment of the white strands, but you neglected the commandment of tekhelet. And this is a positive obligatory commandment; it is not voluntary. The question whether something is indispensable and the question whether it is itself obligatory are two entirely different things. Now here too, with intention, one could say: intention does not invalidate the commandment, but you missed the intention. Meaning, and in order to gain the intention, do it again. Then that means there needs to be… there is a commandment of intention. It’s not a detail within the commandment of blowing shofar; rather, there is a commandment of intention that accompanies the fulfillment of all other commandments. The simple understanding is of course not like that; the simple understanding is that it’s a detail within the commandment of shofar. Meaning, if the detail is not indispensable, then fine—you fulfilled the commandment of shofar, there is no reason to do it again. I don’t know, maybe in terms of beautification, even if it’s a detail, it could still be possible. In any event, in the language of the Shulchan Arukh this doesn’t enter at all; I don’t understand all these funny explanations. The Shulchan Arukh says: “Some say commandments do not require intention, and some say they do require intention, and so the law is.” It sounds—what is this? Not doubt and not anything. More than that—yes, the Biur Halakhah already notes this—that in the Shulchan Arukh this simply doesn’t fit. Here: the Biur Halakhah brings, the Mishnah Berurah in section 8 brings in the name of the Pri Megadim: “And if one did not intend to fulfill his obligation in performing the commandment, he did not fulfill it on the Torah level, and he must return and perform it, and even if he is in doubt whether he intended—if it is a Torah-level commandment, the doubt…” And even if he is in doubt whether he intended, if it is a Torah-level commandment, the doubt is ruled stringently. So wrote the Pri Megadim. “And it seems to me that he should not recite a blessing over the commandment, because in any event there are several opinions regarding the blessing, even if it is certain that he did not intend the first time.” Fine. So basically what he’s saying is that if it’s a Torah-level commandment, the doubt is ruled stringently—but if the intention is rabbinic, then a doubt about intention should be ruled leniently; the commandment itself is stringent, especially if intention invalidates the commandment. And this too means that, simply speaking—aside from Tosafot in Sukkah—but simply speaking, this means the intention too is Torah-level. That is, the intention in Torah-level commandments is also Torah-level. What? What? Where? Where? Right? Where do you see rabbinic? “If he is in doubt whether he intended, if it is a Torah-level commandment, the doubt is ruled stringently.” Why ruled stringently? After all, intention is rabbinic. Even in a Torah-level commandment the obligation to intend is rabbinic. No—maybe intention is Torah-level? Then a doubt whether you intended or not is a Torah-level doubt. Okay? Fine. In any event, therefore I think the simpler view is that the Magen Avraham apparently understands—the imaginary Radbaz or the Magen Avraham apparently understands—that the rabbis simply did not institute intention. It’s not because of the laws of doubt. For Torah-level commandments, commandments require intention, according to the view that commandments require intention—and the Shulchan Arukh rules that way—and nevertheless for rabbinic commandments one does not need to intend, because the rabbis did not institute intention, or at least intention does not invalidate. Okay? That’s the claim. Now the question is why. If it’s because of the laws of doubt, then I understand why; then there really is no difference between Torah-level and rabbinic except that Torah-level doubt is ruled stringently and rabbinic doubt leniently. But if the explanation based on doubt doesn’t work, as I just said, then what does? Why really make a distinction between Torah-level and rabbinic? It seems to me that here one needs to understand a bit the meaning of rabbinic law. In rabbinic law—or let’s start this way—in Torah-level law there are two components, two dimensions, to every commandment and every transgression. I spoke about this in the afternoon class, I think on Tuesday. One dimension is the dimension of obedience and rebellion against the command; the second dimension is the essence, what the commandment is meant to achieve or what the transgression is meant to prevent. Okay? What? No, the Magen Avraham. Yes. But why does he say that? What…? So in Torah law there are both essence and command. Now they ask on Maimonides regarding doubtful rabbinic law: Maimonides says that the force of rabbinic law is grounded in “do not turn aside.” Nachmanides disagrees with him. But Maimonides says it is grounded in “do not turn aside.” If so, Nachmanides asks: why in a doubtful rabbinic case do we rule leniently? After all, it’s a doubt concerning the prohibition of “do not turn aside,” a Torah-level doubt should be ruled stringently. And there are all kinds of explanations about this. One of the explanations in Shema’ata—you can also see it in Sha’arei Yosher, and in Be’ur Shmuel on the Shema’ata—they say something, in somewhat different formulations, but roughly like this. Their claim is that in rabbinic commandments there is only command and no essence. Why? Let’s say I come to eat poultry with milk. If poultry with milk had some kind of spiritual damage in it, the Torah would have prohibited it. The Torah does not prohibit it; it only prohibits meat with milk. Poultry with milk is a rabbinic law. So basically there is no essential problem in eating poultry with milk; it is not an object of prohibition. That’s what all the later authorities say, that rabbinic prohibitions are prohibitions on the person and not prohibitions in the object, because eating poultry with milk has no essential problem. So what is there? There is an obligation to obey the sages. The Torah said “do not turn aside,” the sages said not to eat poultry with milk; there is an obligation to obey the sages, therefore one does not eat poultry with milk. Okay? So what do we see? That in eating poultry with milk there is only the dimension of command without the dimension of essence. So the fact that the source is the Torah law of “do not turn aside” is fine, but the question is why in a doubtful Torah-law case are we stringent? Is it because of the essence or because of the command? In an ordinary Torah-level doubt, let’s say there is doubt whether something is pork or kosher meat. Well, if I eat pork, two things happen: first, I rebelled against the command; second, there is some kind of spiritual damage. Okay? Now I’m in doubt; I don’t know whether it is pork or not. A Torah-level doubt is ruled stringently; the prohibition of pork is a stringent prohibition, its doubt is ruled stringently, right? Why? Is that because of the command or because of the essence? I claim it’s because of… because the essence is there; after all, there is concern that you’ll eat pork. Right, from the perspective of the command there is no clear command here; it’s not as though you are definitely rebelling against the command because you don’t know whether it is pork or not. Okay? But practically, if in fact it was pork, then the damage will happen, right? And from such damage you need to beware. Fine? Therefore a Torah-level doubt is ruled stringently. According to this, it follows that in doubtful rabbinic law, although its basis is the Torah-level “do not turn aside,” there you have only the command, not the essence. So what happens when you’re in doubt? If you’re in doubt, doubtful rebellion is not rebellion. You don’t know that there is a command—maybe there is, maybe not—that isn’t called rebellion. Rebellion is when you know there is a command and you go against it. So there is no rebellion here. And as for essence—there is none at all in rabbinic prohibitions. So in doubtful rabbinic law, we rule leniently. Okay? So what do we see here? That the difference between rabbinic prohibitions and Torah prohibitions is that in rabbinic prohibitions there is only command without essence. Basically rabbinic prohibitions are obligations of obedience. That’s all. In Torah prohibitions there is also the obligation of obedience, but also the damage or benefit caused by the act itself. You can also see this in the well-known Netivot, section 234, what you hinted at earlier. Netivot says there that if someone violates a rabbinic prohibition unintentionally, he does not need to repent. Why? An unintentional rabbinic prohibition is not a prohibition. What is his proof? There is a Talmudic passage in Eruvin, I think, that if one sees his teacher about to violate a prohibition, then if it’s a Torah prohibition, first “we raise an objection and then act.” First you have to stop him and say, “Our teacher taught us otherwise,” maybe he made a mistake, got confused, didn’t notice, I don’t know—and you need to stop him so he won’t violate the prohibition. But if it’s a rabbinic prohibition, then first “we act and then raise an objection.” Let him do it, and afterward ask him only in order to know. What do you mean? A rabbinic prohibition one doesn’t need to guard against? Why not prevent your teacher from violating a rabbinic prohibition? So he says: because if he is violating it unintentionally, it is not a prohibition. An unintentional rabbinic prohibition is not a prohibition. What is the idea behind this? The idea is what we heard earlier. As with doubt, so too with unintentional acts. With unintentional acts it’s even stronger. What happens in an unintentional act? In an unintentional act I don’t know that there is a command, so here there is no rebellion at all. In doubt, maybe it’s pork and maybe not, maybe it’s poultry with milk and maybe it’s soy with milk. I don’t know. So I’m in doubt whether there is a command here or not, and even about that the later authorities say this is not rebellion. In an unintentional act I don’t even know there is any command at all. I’m simply sure it’s soy and not poultry. Okay? I didn’t know. So the dimension of disobedience does not exist at all in an unintentional act. Only in Torah law, even if you acted unintentionally, there is still the problem that in the end you did the act and the consequences occur. But in rabbinic law there isn’t that. So if you violated rabbinic law unintentionally, there is nothing. Because the essence doesn’t exist at all, even intentionally; and the obedience element in an unintentional act also doesn’t exist. Okay, what does that mean? Basically it means there is a difference between Torah commandments and rabbinic commandments. Rabbinic commandments are not really commandments in the full sense of the word. Even according to Maimonides, who grounds them in “do not turn aside.” They are not commandments in the usual sense, first of all even on the formal level. If you violated the prohibition of poultry with milk, you violated a prohibition. You did not fail to fulfill a commandment. The prohibition of “do not turn aside.” If you did not read the Megillah on Purim, did you neglect a rabbinic positive commandment? No—you violated the prohibition of “do not turn aside.”

[Speaker B] Negative commandments don’t require intentions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbinic commandments are basically prohibitions. Everything I do is only in order not to violate a prohibition. So if everything I do is only in order not to violate a prohibition, then clearly I don’t need intention. When I avoid violating prohibitions, I don’t need intention. Right, clearly I don’t need intention. Negative commandments don’t require intention, only positive ones. No, keeping the Sabbath also has both a positive and a negative commandment. But in the aspect that is a prohibition, certainly you don’t need intention. You don’t need the rule that commandments require intention in order not to eat pork. If you didn’t eat pork not with the intention of avoiding transgression, do you thereby have a transgression? No transgression. I think I once told the story about the barber in Bnei Brak. I once went in there for a haircut, and there was a sign on the wall: everyone here should intend to fulfill the obligation of five commandments. What is this? “Do not round off the corners of your head,” “do not withhold a laborer’s wages overnight,” of course pay the barber, and so on. I don’t know what intentions in negative commandments are; I never heard of such a thing, intentions in negative commandments. That’s a Bnei Brak invention. Maybe in the Ari there’s some hint of it, but there is no such thing in Jewish law. Fine, in any event, so first of all on the most formal and simple level, that’s a simple difference between rabbinic and Torah law. All rabbinic commandments, fundamentally, are really prohibitions and not commandments. And with prohibitions you don’t need to intend, right? That’s one point. Second, one could even say—go ahead, don’t be embarrassed—yes, if in Torah law there is also some benefit from the commandment, spiritual or otherwise, beyond the command itself, and that’s exactly where I need intention. Why? Because it could be that I’m doing it for the benefit and not because of the command. I need intention in order to show that I’m doing it because of the command, because there there is a reason one might otherwise do it. But in rabbinic commandments there is no benefit, nothing; there is only responding to the command. So why am I doing it if not because of the command? Then I don’t need intention, because obviously I’m doing it for the command—that’s a kind of presumptive “for its own sake.” We opened the discussion with this in the first class, right? So it’s this sort of presumptive “for its own sake,” and therefore no intention is needed. I remind you of what we saw in Nachmanides—where did I mention Nachmanides? Yes, here: “that we should not do the commandments without intention or in doubt as to whether they may perhaps have some benefit.” What does that mean? Say someone asks you: why do you keep commandments? “Because it repairs the worlds.” You have nullified the positive commandment of “and to serve Him with all your heart.” Because you are doing it for the benefit; you need to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded. There are lofty intentions here, right? So no—if you do it for that, you’ve nullified the positive commandment of “and to serve Him with all your heart.” And that’s what I’m saying here too. If in Torah law you do it because of the benefit, then indeed it’s not a commandment as it should be; therefore we require that commandments need intention. But in rabbinic law there is no benefit. Why do it? Only because the sages commanded. Fine—so what intention do you need? If I’m doing it, obviously I’m doing it because the sages commanded. There’s no other interpretation. That’s a second possibility. Fine, there is room to discuss this; there are rabbinic commandments that do have essence and not only command. But fine. No, you do it because of the benefit? “Commandments require intention”—he’s not talking about doubt. Commandments require intention. Don’t do commandments as though because they have benefit in them. Yes, right? No, you shouldn’t do them for the benefit, that doesn’t seem right to me. Fine, but I think beyond that there’s something else here. I mentioned this at the beginning—remember the red traffic light? As long as there wasn’t legislation, even though common sense says not to run a red light—assuming that with red you stop and with green you drive, an optimistic assumption—even if there’s no law, common sense still says not to do it. But there is no offense here until it is legislated. Okay? I said more than that: in civil law, unlike Jewish law—I didn’t say that here, I said it in the afternoon I think—yes, in civil law the legislator doesn’t care why you obey the law or violate the law. If you obeyed the law, everything is fine; he has no problem with you. If you violated the law, he has a problem with you. It doesn’t matter whether you intended to fulfill your obligation; if you paid taxes not in order to fulfill your duty to the legislator, the legislator couldn’t care less. Meaning, pay the taxes you owe and go home. I don’t care what your intentions are. What? Never mind, but he doesn’t care. Whatever the explanation may be, all good—it could be that that’s the explanation, I don’t think it is, but it could be—but whatever the explanation, bottom line he doesn’t care, right? It’s not important to him. Okay? Why? Because the legislator wants the result. You don’t serve the legislator. The legislator wants to regulate life; he wants the result. Why should he care why you do it? Okay? Now, in Torah commandments, they don’t want only the result. If all they wanted was the result, the Holy One, blessed be He, would have programmed us to do what is needed, and everything would be fine. He wants us to serve Him, He wants us to obey Him. No, not the essence—the opposite: the essence is the result. He wants us to obey the command, to decide to do it because there is a command. The legislation here is substantive. Not only is legislation needed, but I also need to intend to do it because of my obligation to the legislation, to the command. That matters to Jewish law; it doesn’t matter to the legislator. What I want to claim is that rabbinic commandments are like laws. A human being established them, right? That’s how it is. What they want is the result. If the result was achieved, everything is fine. They don’t care—you do not serve the rabbis. Why do you need to intend to fulfill the command of the rabbis? You need to do what they told you because it solves various problems for them. That’s all. But the intention that is part of the service of God—“to serve Him,” what Nachmanides writes here—that is when you are serving the Holy One, blessed be He. In rabbinic law it is simply a legal system. You need to do it because that’s the law. But it doesn’t matter why you do it or don’t do it, as long as you do what should be done and don’t do what shouldn’t. What? In that case too, maybe even in a case of mere involuntary involvement it would count, unless in such a case it’s not considered that you did it at all. Here, we were talking also about whether intention is required. Fine, so maybe that’s the difference between rabbinic and Torah law in the Magen Avraham; there are several suggestions. Okay, so that’s it regarding intention in rabbinic commandments. As for “do not add,” let’s try to get to that. In the Talmud here—I won’t go into all the details, but briefly—the Talmud says: Abaye said to him, “If so, then one who sleeps on the eighth day in the sukkah should receive lashes?” Why? Why should he receive lashes? Because if commandments do not require intention, according to Rava, right, then one who sleeps in the sukkah on the eighth day certainly does not intend it as a commandment, but if commandments don’t require intention, then he violates “do not add.” So he should receive lashes because he violates “do not add.” The assumption of course is that if commandments don’t require intention then “do not add” also doesn’t require intention; if commandments do require intention then “do not add” also requires intention. That’s in the subtext, okay? He said to him: I say one violates commandments by adding to them only in their proper time. When you add a commandment during the time of Sukkot itself, then you violate “do not add.” But let’s say you add another wall to the sukkah beyond the four needed—I don’t know—you add something extra during the time of Sukkot itself, then you violate “do not add”; after the time of Sukkot—

[Speaker B] You don’t violate it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t violate “do not add.”

[Speaker B] And therefore one who sleeps on the eighth day is not lashed.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But he—

[Speaker B] knows that it’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the commandment of sukkah, and it can’t be that he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t intend. They told him: don’t sit in the sukkah on the eighth day, because that’s “do not add.”

[Speaker B] He certainly knows it’s “do not add”; you have to say he knows. So then what? So what if he knows and it’s not a commandment?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so he knows—so what? I don’t understand.

[Speaker B] And he knows—you can’t say—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that he didn’t think about it. No, not that he didn’t think about it—he didn’t want to fulfill an obligation. He knows he is sleeping in the sukkah. We’re not talking about involuntary action. We’re talking about intention, not involuntary action. Rav Shemen bar Abba raised an objection: from where do we know that a priest who goes up to the platform should not say, “Since the Torah gave me permission to bless Israel, I’ll add one blessing of my own,” such as etc.? The verse says, “Do not add to the matter.” But here, once he has already blessed them, his time has passed. He already blessed Israel; now he adds another blessing, that is already after the proper time, he has already said the blessing. So the Talmud says: and here, where he does violate—what are we dealing with? A case where he had not yet finished. He inserted it in the middle, between the three blessings of the priests he inserted one. But wasn’t it taught: he finished? Meaning he finished one blessing; he finished one, added one, and then there are still two left. But wasn’t it taught: he finished all his blessings? The answer: here, since if another congregation happened to come along, he would go back and bless again, all day is still considered his time. You can’t say the time for the priestly blessing has passed, because the time for the priestly blessing is all day. If another congregation comes, he will have to bless them, even though he already blessed this congregation. Okay, never mind—there are long discussions about this among the medieval and later authorities, and how exactly to define the time of a commandment, and also this whole matter of blood applications that are given in one placement, all of that I’m not getting into now because we don’t have much time. And “do not add”?

[Speaker B] Ah, and “do not add”—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] he is forbidden

[Speaker B] to add. Why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rava said—so this is difficult for Rava. Why doesn’t one receive lashes for one who fulfills it on the eighth day? Rava said: to fulfill does not require intention; to transgress does require intention. Meaning, you don’t need intention—commandments do not require intention—in order to fulfill your obligation, but in order to violate “do not add” you do need intention. The connection you made above between the intention to add and the intention to fulfill an obligation is not correct. I hold that commandments do not require intention in order to fulfill, but in order to violate “do not add” you need intention. And what about the blood applications according to Rabbi Yehoshua—that again is with the blood applications we skipped—where to transgress does not require intention? A further answer: rather, Rava said, to fulfill does not require intention; to transgress during its proper time does not require intention; after its proper time it does require intention. In the blood applications too, he doesn’t intend to add there. Fine? He says because it is during its proper time. Therefore after its proper time you need to intend, and sleeping in the sukkah on the eighth day is already after its proper time. There, if he doesn’t intend, he does not receive lashes. Okay, what comes out in the end? What comes out in the end is that according to Rava, who holds commandments do not require intention, in order to violate “do not add” it depends. If it is during the proper time, then one transgresses even without intention, but if it is after the proper time, then one needs intention in order to transgress. What would the law be—this is all within Rava’s position that commandments do not require intention. What would the law be according to the position that commandments do require intention? Somehow, for some reason, the later authorities here just coarsely ignore this point. Apparently, he wouldn’t receive lashes in any case; even during its proper time he wouldn’t receive lashes. All the answers Rava gives here—what Rava says here is according to his own view that commandments do not require intention. Right? But according to the view that commandments do require intention, we can remain with the basic identification. What is the basic identification? That if a commandment requires intention, then likewise “do not add” also requires intention—whether during its proper time or after its proper time, it makes no difference. Okay? All the answers Rava gives here are only according to his own view that commandments do not require intention. Okay? Now, what is the intention being spoken about? If we identify the requirement that commandments need intention with the intention for “do not add,” then it seems that in “do not add” too we are talking about the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. The same intention being discussed in the rule that commandments require intention, right? Otherwise what is the connection between these two discussions? Why do you assume that if Rava says commandments do not require intention, then “do not add” also doesn’t require intention? What’s the connection? Obviously the point is that the intention discussed in “do not add” is the same intention discussed in fulfilling one’s obligation. And you need to intend to fulfill your obligation of sleeping in the sukkah on the eighth day in order to violate “do not add.” Meaning, to say yes, I intend this as a commandment. After all, some people already noted here—I saw that this was noted—that if he intends it as a commandment, then he’s mistaken, so how can he receive lashes? He thinks it’s—he thinks it really is a commandment. Otherwise what does it mean that he intends to fulfill it? If he intends to fulfill it, then he thinks it’s a commandment. If he thinks it’s a commandment, then how can he receive lashes? At most he is an unintentional violator of “do not add.” So how can you say he receives lashes? But if he intends to fulfill his obligation… I’m somewhat torn on this issue. Is it possible that someone is just wicked, yes? He intends to fulfill his obligation on the eighth day in order to violate “do not add.” A bit, a bit like—

[Speaker B] someone trying to make some kind of point. It’s a bit strange.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because what does “intending to fulfill one’s obligation” mean? He knows there is no obligation. What does it mean to intend to fulfill it? I’ve decided that I want to add a commandment because it’s a prohibition, and now I intend to fulfill the obligation of the non-existent command of the Holy One, blessed be He, to sleep in the sukkah on the eighth day. People know—this reminds me of the story about Adam the priest. Do you know the story about Adam the priest? He—he—he wanted to repent on his deathbed, this enlightened guy, right? A wicked person. From the stories of the Enlightenment. So he wanted to repent on his deathbed—do you know why? In order to refute the saying of the sages that “even at the entrance to Gehinnom, the wicked do not repent.” Fine, that’s roughly the same kind of thing here. Okay? So how can you intend to fulfill an obligation deliberately, meaning when you know there is no obligation? For example, Sabbath on Sunday. He wants—

[Speaker B] to stage some kind of attack. He wants to make kiddush on Sunday. Okay. So the rabbis—he claims that the Holy—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One, blessed be He—what did the Holy One, blessed be He, command?

[Speaker B] The Holy One, blessed be He, commanded the Sabbath day. He comes and argues against the general command and says—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the Sabbath is Sunday; you’re mistaken. Even though the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t command that—or are you saying they’re mistaken?

[Speaker B] No, you’re mistaken, so he thinks the Holy—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —blessed be He commanded Sunday. Good, so he’s acting in error. Why would he get lashes? No, he wants to provoke them.

[Speaker B] He wants to show that it’s not just provocation. If he thinks they’re right, then he only wants to provoke. Make up your mind: what does he really think? What did the Holy One, blessed be He, really command, in his view? Fine—you don’t know when the Sabbath is, but your counting is wrong; this Sabbath—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that’s not important, so he’s still acting in error.

[Speaker B] What difference does it make? Not in error—he’s doing it deliberately.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Deliberately, he says your count is wrong. Yes. So then he thinks their count is wrong, so he’s acting in error. What do you want from him? Why flog him? He thinks they’re mistaken. He’s confusing the community. There’s no flogging for confusing the community. There’s flogging for violating the observance of the Sabbath—well, not for observance of the Sabbath either; there’s stoning. Or for “do not add.” For “do not add” there are lashes. Yes. But for confusing the public there are no lashes. Again: if you’re talking about the fact that he’s confusing the public, then that’s confusing the public. “Do not add” is a defined halakhic prohibition. If he adds even though he knows the Holy One, blessed be He, did not command it, that’s deliberate violation of “do not add.” But then it’s not clear how he can intend to fulfill an obligation.

[Speaker B] He’s pretending to intend to fulfill an obligation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So he’s pretending, so he doesn’t actually intend to fulfill an obligation. Right? Good, exactly, yes. Anyway, it’s interesting—some would say the answer is still yes even in such a case; maybe I’ll get to that at the end. There’s a distinction here at the end that may touch on this. So on the face of it, from the Talmudic passage itself it seems that the intention being discussed here is the same intention as intending to fulfill one’s obligation, right? That’s why the Gemara links it: according to Rava, who says commandments do not require intention, then apparently “do not add” also does not require intention. Someone who says commandments do require intention also says that with regard to “do not add” intention is needed. Why, really? Because it’s obvious that if you didn’t do it with intention, then you simply didn’t perform an additional commandment. After all, in his view, without doing it with intention you did not perform a commandment, according to the one who says commandments require intention. So if now you slept in the sukkah on the eighth day and did not intend to fulfill an obligation, then had that been a commandment you would not have fulfilled your obligation, right? It wouldn’t have been a commandment. So then you didn’t perform an extra commandment, and therefore there’s no “do not add” here either. That’s not a special intention of “do not add.” According to this view, the intention—also in order to violate “do not add,” you have to add, and if you did not intend, then you didn’t add a commandment, because without intention it isn’t a commandment in the view that commandments require intention. So according to the view that the intention in “do not add” is really the same intention as fulfilling one’s obligation, then apparently this is not really an intention specific to “do not add” at all; it follows simply from the definition of the commandment. It counts as a commandment only if you intend, and so regarding “do not add” too, only if you intended did you add a commandment, and only then would you get lashes. This is not an additional requirement from the laws of “do not add”; it just follows from the law that commandments require intention. No, he doesn’t need to intend the prohibition; he needs to intend the commandment. The commandment is what he needs to intend. He’s performing a positive commandment; he’s sleeping in the sukkah. Sleeping in the sukkah is a positive commandment. He intends that through this sleep in the sukkah he is fulfilling his obligation. He does not intend to add to the commandments; rather, he intends to sleep in the sukkah on the eighth day and fulfill God’s commandment. That’s what I asked earlier. So the simple understanding in the Gemara is that there is an identity between the two intentions. And in general, the intention under discussion in “do not add” is not an intention from the category of “do not add”; it is the intention required because commandments require intention. Otherwise you simply didn’t add a commandment. I pointed out that according to this, it’s not so clear how you can violate this deliberately and receive lashes. After all, if you truly think so, then you’re acting in error; and if you don’t really think so, then you did not violate “do not add,” because there is no intention. So either way—how can he get lashes? So I don’t know, maybe some kind of “Priest man,” someone who decided that the Holy One, blessed be He, commands me some sort of subjective command—I don’t know—to observe Sunday, and I intend to fulfill my obligation against all the idiots who think it’s only on the Sabbath, and I do—some strange type like that. No, that’s a rebellious elder; again, he’s acting in error. That’s a rebellious elder, and he really thinks he’s right. Here it’s someone where that’s the law. I’m not sure about what I’m saying here, but according to those who identify the intentions, that’s what you have to say for them: that he intends it based on some kind of revelation? Yes, something like that, let’s say. So what follows from this? Why according to Rava, with commandments after their proper time, when you violate “do not add” after the proper time, is intention needed? After all, in the conclusion, even according to Rava, who says commandments do not require intention, “do not add” does require intention—when? If you do it after the proper time. Why? If there is no special law of intention in “do not add,” no separate intention, and it all comes from the rule that commandments require intention—so what? Then there are no intentions from the category of “do not add”; there are intentions because commandments require intention. And according to your view, that isn’t required anyway. So what difference does it make whether it’s within the proper time or after the proper time? Right? That’s obvious. In other words, here it’s obvious that you need intention, because if you didn’t intend the act as a commandment, then in what sense did you add? If I drink raspberry syrup on the eighth day of Sukkot, did I violate “do not add”? I did something extra that the Torah did not command. Not in the sukkah—on my yacht. I’m drinking raspberry juice on my yacht. “Do not add”? The Torah didn’t command that; it only commanded me to sleep in the sukkah for seven days. It didn’t command me to drink raspberry syrup on the eighth day and on a yacht. Right? So you have to define this act as a commandment in order to bring it into this framework of “do not add.” Therefore intention is needed. What intention is needed? One could deliberate: is it intention to fulfill an obligation, or is it the intention of “do not add”? I intend to add this commandment as another commandment. I do not intend to fulfill an obligation; I know this does not fulfill the obligation of the seven days. I intend to add another commandment too. I too, like the Holy One, blessed be He, can add a commandment. Fulfill an obligation of what? No, no intention is needed, because Rava says commandments do not require intention, but “do not add” outside its proper time does require intention. I asked what kind of intention is needed, and why. What happens according to the one who says commandments do require intention? According to the one who says commandments do require intention, then obviously intention is always needed, right? Both in its proper time and not in its proper time, by virtue of the rule that commandments require intention, not by virtue of “do not add.” But if the additional intention required according to that opinion—or at least according to the one who says commandments do not require intention—could be an intention to add. Not intention to fulfill an obligation. Intention to fulfill an obligation is not required; rather, it is an intention to add. So in the end there are really two ways to understand the intention required regarding “do not add”: is it intention to add, or is it intention to fulfill one’s obligation? And according to the Gemara’s initial approach, the point of departure of the Gemara, which links the issue of intention in “do not add” to the issue of whether commandments require intention, it seems that according to the one who says commandments do require intention, intention is also needed for “do not add.” What intention? Intention to fulfill one’s obligation. And all the later answers are only according to Rava’s view. The one who says commandments require intention remains with the initial conception; nothing changes. And according to Rava, who says commandments do not require intention, then according to his view you cannot say that “do not add” requires the intention of fulfilling one’s obligation, because after all, even for commandments themselves that isn’t needed. So what is needed? Intention to add. When? Only when it’s after the proper time. If it’s within the proper time, you performed the commandment again—so what? But if it’s after the proper time, then you need intention to add. Or you could say that you need intention to fulfill an obligation, and that too will turn the act into a commandment. Even according to Rava, you can say that. In order to turn the act into a commandment, he intends to fulfill an obligation. If the intention is really an intention to add, there would even be room to formulate this more radically and say that the prohibition of “do not add” is in general a prohibition on intention, not a prohibition on the act. There is no prohibition on sleeping in the sukkah on the eighth day. It is only because you are adding—in other words, the essence of the prohibition is the intention, not the act. Of course, if it doesn’t come to practical expression, mere intention cannot be defined as a prohibition. But the practical performance is only a condition. The definition of the transgression is a definition in thought. When you add another one—for you there are 614 commandments and not 613 commandments, or an additional detail, whatever it may be, in a commandment or something like that—because adding another commandment is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether that counts as “do not add,” but adding another detail to a commandment, like sleeping on the eighth day or something like that, then it could be that the very thought that there is another detail which is a commandment that the Torah did not command—that itself is the prohibition. It’s just that if you did not actualize it in practice, the condition was not fulfilled; you can’t—it has no significance, it’s just matters of the heart. But basically the prohibition itself is a prohibition in thought. Now look at the Shulchan Arukh. What? That’s a different question—why is that relevant to us? No, I don’t know whether there is a prohibition of “do not add” with rabbinic commandments; I don’t think so. I don’t recall a source about that at the moment. He says that it’s a rabbinic rule, not a Torah-level rule. I don’t think there is. For example, there’s the Beit Yosef with fish—the case where some Sephardim are strict about fish with milk because of some mistake in the Beit Yosef, where he wrote such a thing there. Fine. “One should not add,” says the Shulchan Arukh in section 651, “another species to the four species because of ‘do not add.’” Yes, if I now take five species, adding another species besides the four, then it is forbidden to add because of “do not add.” The Tur introduces the issue of intentions here, in the same place, section 651: “And one should not reduce from them”—from the four species—“nor add another species to them, even if he does not bind it together with them, if he holds it in his hand together with them for the sake of the commandment of lulav, there is ‘do not add.’” And the Meiri—the Beit Yosef himself comments on this: why only if he does it for the sake of the commandment of lulav? After all, “do not add” does not require intention when we are talking about its proper time. And if I do it at the time of performing the commandment, that is not after its proper time. So the Beit Yosef says: “What he wrote, that when one adds another species, if he holds it in his hand together with them not for the sake of the commandment of lulav, he does not violate it—that is difficult, for we conclude at the end of that chapter, in our sugya here, that to violate it in its proper time does not require intention.” The Magen Avraham says this. Yes, in the Tur it says: “The Beit Yosef asked this, but he did not see what Rabbenu Yerucham wrote in Netiv 3: that this is only according to the one who says commandments do not require intention; but according to us, who hold that they do require intention, as I wrote in section 60, one does not violate unless he intends.” Yes. The one who says commandments require intention remains with the initial conception I mentioned in the Gemara. He remains with the initial conception that “do not add” too requires intention—not apparently because of the laws of “do not add,” but because commandments require intention. And the Tur and the Rosh and the Shulchan Arukh rule that commandments require intention. The whole discussion in our Gemara, which proceeds according to Rava, who holds that commandments do not require intention, is not relevant. Okay? What did the Beit Yosef think? He himself rules that commandments require intention. Apparently he understood that this distinction that the Gemara makes in Rava is correct in the conclusion even according to the opinion that commandments require intention, and not only according to Rava. Okay? Notice what the Tur writes. In the Tur it says what kind of intention is being discussed. Right? You see? “If he holds it in his hand together with them for the sake of the commandment of lulav”—not the intention of “do not add,” but intention to fulfill an obligation. Right? That fits very well with the Tur’s conception, that we follow the view of the one who says commandments require intention; therefore the intention in “do not add” is not an intention to add, but an intention to fulfill one’s obligation. That is the intention under discussion. So it is clear that according to the one who says commandments require intention,

[Speaker B] intention is needed; here too he needs intention. And that’s what the Magen Avraham explains in the view of the Tur. What does the Beit Yosef hold, when afterward the Shulchan Arukh rules the same way? He says that whether there is intention or no intention, if you added another species, then you violated “do not add.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] What is he saying? That he added another species, right? He added another species to one of the four species, so he violated “do not add.” He changed what they said, so he also did not fulfill his obligation—whether according to Rava or not, whether intention was required or not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He didn’t fulfill it? Why? I don’t understand.

[Speaker B] Why didn’t he fulfill it? He performed the commandment properly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? He performed it with the four species; he also added a fifth species. He took the four species—what’s the problem? He took four species, so what if he also took something else? If I dance while taking the four species, does that mean I didn’t fulfill my obligation? The fact that I did something else means I didn’t take four species? I did the commandment the way I was told. I did, yes, I did it the way I was told, I just also did something else alongside it. I also danced, or I took an extra species. I did something extra—so what? According to the Beit Yosef, he apparently understood that the intention under discussion is an intention to add; it is not the intention of the commandment. And if the intention under discussion is intention to add, not intention of the commandment, then the whole discussion of intention in “do not add” is not connected at all to the question whether commandments require intention or not. And then everything Rava says about what kind of intention is needed in order to add is also true according to the view that commandments do require intention. At the beginning the Gemara identified them—that’s probably how he read the Gemara. At first the Gemara identified them and said that the intention under discussion in “do not add” is the intention to fulfill one’s obligation, just like in the issue of whether commandments require intention. But afterward, in the conclusion, when Rava explained it to you—no, no, what are you talking about? It’s a different intention; it’s intention to add. Ah, if that’s the intention under discussion, then forget it—that’s unrelated. Whether according to the one who says commandments do not require intention, or according to the one who says commandments do require intention, you do not need intention to fulfill one’s obligation in the case of “do not add.” You’re not fulfilling your obligation anyway, whatever you may intend about fulfilling your obligation. What you need is to intend to add. That’s the intention you need. And then when? Only when it’s after the proper time—exactly like Rava, no difference. Exactly like Rava. Why didn’t he fulfill it? He did fulfill it; he just also violated “do not add.” Or you could say it’s a commandment that comes through a transgression—after all, he gets confused—but on the face of it he performed the commandment, and at the same time he violated “do not add.” What? Fine, no, this isn’t about the Sages; it’s Torah-level. The four species are Torah-level. But the question whether “do not add” invalidates the commandment or whether “do not add” is merely an additional prohibition alongside the commandment—that is something you could discuss, but it’s something entirely different. It doesn’t relate to what I’m talking about here. In any case, for our purposes, the dispute between the Tur and the Beit Yosef—or the Mechaber—is exactly on this question: is the intention under discussion in “do not add” the intention to fulfill one’s obligation, or is it intention to add? Now according to Rava it is pretty clear that it is intention to add, because for him there is no intention to fulfill one’s obligation. But after all, both of them rule that commandments require intention. And within the view of the one who says commandments require intention, they disagree about how to learn the Gemara according to that view. Does he think that the intention in “do not add” is intention to fulfill one’s obligation? That is how the Tur learned it; the Tur writes it explicitly. And the Beit Yosef apparently understood that we are dealing here with intention to add, not intention to fulfill one’s obligation, because there is no obligation—we said already, what does it mean, intention to fulfill an obligation? Especially if he is acting deliberately, and so on. Now the Eliyah Rabbah asks there: “This requires further study, for the Rosh wrote in chapter ‘The Stolen Lulav’ that if one added another species for decoration, there is no issue of ‘do not add,’ since he intended only for decoration. And even though in its proper time one does not require intention for ‘do not add,’ that is only in an unspecified case; but if he intended for decoration, he does not violate.” What does the Rosh say? First of all, the Rosh rules that commandments require intention. But he still says that in its proper time you do not need to intend, right? The opposite intention will still interfere, but in its proper time you do not need to intend. Meaning, he is basically not following the Tur, his son, right? The Tur usually follows the Rosh. Here the Rosh rules that commandments require intention. So he says—he does not rule that commandments do not require intention; he rules that commandments do require intention. And nevertheless, for “do not add” in its proper time, intention is not needed. But here, since he intended it for decoration, he did not violate “do not add,” fine? Because that is an opposite intention, so he did not violate “do not add,” an opposite intention that fixes things here, an opposite intention by virtue of which he did not violate “do not add.” Okay? So the Eliyah Rabbah asks: but the Rosh holds that commandments require intention! The Rosh rules that commandments require intention. What does the Magen Avraham say? That we follow Rabbenu Yerucham. And Rabbenu Yerucham said that according to the one who says commandments require intention, then clearly intention is needed in order to add. But here the Rosh says commandments require intention, and nevertheless rules that in its proper time intention is not needed. After its proper time it is needed, like Rava, but he holds that the one who says commandments require intention agrees with Rava regarding the definition of “do not add.” Like the Shulchan Arukh, actually. Well, an opposite intention disqualifies it. But if it is just unspecified, then that’s fine, and he violates “do not add” in its proper time. Fine, his intention is that he’s a transgressor—you can all relax, he’s a transgressor. So it comes out here like the Shulchan Arukh, not like the Tur. Right? It’s a bit strange, because the Rosh—the Tur is the son of the Rosh and usually follows the Rosh’s approach. So this is a little odd. Wait, what? No, you have to add that condition: is intention needed in order to violate “do not add” in its proper time? According to the Tur, yes; according to the Beit Yosef, no. Okay, I really don’t have time now to get into the sugya in Eruvin. Either I’ll do it at the beginning of the next class, or I’ll send it to you in the summary and then you can read it there—or just read it in the summary. Okay. Thank you very much.