Intention in Mitzvot – Lesson 6

Table of Contents

• Contrary intention in the words of Rashbam and Ran
• Havdalah in the synagogue and Ran’s claim about the intention of the one reciting
• A fundamental difficulty: blowing the shofar as music versus beginning with wine and ending with beer
• The dispute of Ra’ah, Rabbeinu Yonah, Orchot Chayim, and Beit Yosef 589
• The sharpening of Shulchan Arukh HaRav and Tosafot: “I do not intend to fulfill” versus “I intend not to fulfill”
• A proposed resolution: intending a different commandment is more severe than intending an ordinary non-commanded act
• Intention in speech and blessings: is speech without intention considered speech
• Agency and “one who hears is like one who answers” as an even harder case than doing the act oneself
• A logical discussion of “wants” and “doesn’t want” and the parallel to positive commandments and prohibitions
• Maimonides’ view: matzah, shofar, and the absence of contradiction according to the proposed reading
• Shulchan Arukh, Magen Avraham, and the question of “since he derived benefit” regarding matzah
• The commandment of shofar in Maimonides: “to hear the blast of the shofar” and still the need for the rule of “one who hears is like one who answers”
• Purim: Tikkunei Zohar, Amalek, and “it was turned around”
• A note on sirens: fear versus discipline and Kant’s categorical imperative

Summary

General Overview

The text presents a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) on the question of intention in fulfilling commandments, and in particular whether contrary intention prevents fulfillment even according to the view that commandments do not require intention. This is discussed through Ran and Rashbam in tractate Rosh Hashanah, and through the implications for the case of Havdalah after hearing it in the synagogue. The text criticizes the vague definition of contrary intention, distinguishes between “he did not intend to fulfill” and “he intended not to fulfill,” and tries to explain why someone who blows the shofar as music is not a case of contrary intention even though he is not aiming at the commandment, whereas “he began with wine and ended with beer” is understood by some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) as contrary intention, or at least as intention for a different commandment. Later, the text brings the dispute of Ra’ah and Beit Yosef, cites the sharpening of Shulchan Arukh HaRav and Tosafot that a commandment is negated only “against his will,” and discusses implications for one who hears is like one who answers, for agency, and for Maimonides’ view regarding the apparent contradiction between matzah and shofar. It also includes aggadic remarks about Purim and a moral discussion of discipline during a siren.

Contrary Intention in the Words of Rashbam and Ran

Rashbam, as cited by Ran, states that even though commandments do not require intention, that is only in an ordinary unstated case; but if one deliberately intends not to fulfill, he does not fulfill. Rashbam proves this from the doubt in the laws of blessings, “he began with wine and ended with beer”: if commandments did not require intention, one should have been able to resolve the case by saying he fulfilled his obligation. From here Rashbam concludes that when there is intention not to fulfill, there is no fulfillment of the obligation. Rashbam understands that intending to begin on wine and then discovering that it is beer is not merely absence of intention, but contrary intention, because the person intended to fulfill himself with a different blessing, not with the one in front of him.

Havdalah in the Synagogue and Ran’s Claim About the Intention of the One Reciting

Rashbam explains the custom of making Havdalah again at home despite having heard Havdalah in the synagogue by saying that the members of the household intended not to fulfill their obligation in the synagogue. Ran disagrees with the proof from Havdalah and argues that even without accepting Rashbam’s novelty, one can still say they did not fulfill their obligation, because the one reciting Havdalah in the synagogue is acting as their agent and does not intend to make people fulfill their obligation against their will; rather, he intends only for whoever wishes to listen and fulfill his obligation. Ran formulates this as a problem in the intention of the one reciting within the framework of one who hears is like one who answers, so that if there is no intention to fulfill the obligation for someone who does not want it, there is no fulfillment.

A Fundamental Difficulty: Blowing the Shofar as Music Versus Beginning with Wine and Ending with Beer

The text sharpens the point that if every intention for some other purpose is defined as contrary intention, then there is almost never a case of a mere “plain” act, because a person always performs an act for some purpose. The text argues that the necessary distinction is between a person who does not intend to fulfill his obligation, as in someone who blows the shofar as music, and a person who actually intends not to fulfill his obligation. From this it follows that blowing the shofar as music is not contrary intention, because it contains no resistance to fulfillment, only absence of intention to fulfill. The text then asks: if so, “he began with wine and ended with beer” is not contrary intention either, because the person certainly wants to fulfill his obligation; he simply made a mistake in identifying the drink.

The Dispute of Ra’ah, Rabbeinu Yonah, Orchot Chayim, and Beit Yosef 589

The text notes that in Beit Yosef, section 589, a dispute is brought in which Ra’ah disagrees with Rashbam, and even holds that if a person screams that he does not want to fulfill that commandment, he has nevertheless fulfilled it. The text quotes that Rabbeinu Yonah and Orchot Chayim are also cited there, presenting different sides, including an explicit formulation that contrary intention means a situation where a person cries out, “he does not want to fulfill.” Ra’ah strengthens his position with proofs in his commentary to tractate Pesachim regarding the case, “The Persians forced him and he ate matzah.” Beit Yosef concludes that since Rabbeinu Yonah cites the words of Rabbeinu Shmuel, it implies that he agrees with him, “and since that is so, we do not concern ourselves here with the words of Ra’ah.”

The Sharpening of Shulchan Arukh HaRav and Tosafot: “I Do Not Intend to Fulfill” Versus “I Intend Not to Fulfill”

The text cites Shulchan Arukh HaRav, section 589 paragraph 12, who draws a sharp distinction between the thought, “I am not intending to fulfill my obligation with this counting,” which does not negate fulfillment because commandments do not require intention, and the thought, “I intend not to fulfill with it,” which is contrary intention that does negate fulfillment. The text quotes Tosafot in tractate Sukkah, who understand “against his will he does not fulfill,” and interpret contrary intention as opposition to fulfilling, not merely the absence of intention. The text notes that many later authorities (Acharonim) commented on Shulchan Arukh HaRav, but presents this distinction as a logical necessity in order for blowing the shofar as music to remain a case of commandments not requiring intention and not automatically become contrary intention.

A Proposed Resolution: Intending a Different Commandment Is More Severe Than Intending an Ordinary Non-Commanded Act

The text proposes resolving the case of “he began with wine and ended with beer” by saying that intention for a different commandment is worse than intention for an ordinary act, and therefore acquires the status of contrary intention, or something parallel to it halakhically. The text compares this to Rashi’s idea at the beginning of tractate Beitzah regarding “preparation,” that only an important meal creates preparation, whereas an ordinary secular meal does not receive the status of preparation. Similarly, an ordinary act does not form a competing “channel of intention” against a commandment. The text brings another analogy from tractate Zevachim: “its own kind invalidates it; what is not its own kind does not invalidate it,” meaning that intention for a different type of offering is more destructive than intention for something not of the same category. It parallels this to the difference between intending a different commandment and intending an ordinary action such as singing.

Intention in Speech and Blessings: Is Speech Without Intention Considered Speech?

The text raises the possibility that in a commandment fulfilled through speech, a special intention is required so that the movement of the lips will count as speech and not merely “lip movement.” It cites the discussion in tractate Bava Metzia about “he muzzled it with his voice,” and Rif on the idea of “a minor act.” The text rejects applying this to the case of “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,” because the intention for the meaning of the first words is certainly present; the problem is only whether it was said with wine in mind or beer in mind, not a lack of understanding of the speech itself. The text leaves open the possibility that there is still a doubt about what exactly is included in the intention of the blessing in relation to what follows, but it does not accept that this removes the issue from the general question of intention in commandments.

Agency and “One Who Hears Is Like One Who Answers” as an Even Harder Zone Than Doing the Act Oneself

The text emphasizes that when a person fulfills his obligation through someone else, the difficulty is sometimes greater than when he performs the act himself. It brings analogies from kiddushin, “it is more of a commandment for a person to do it himself than through his agent,” from the law of “there is no agent for a transgression,” and from the Chazon Ish on the sale of land during the Sabbatical year and the claim that when it is done by an agent in the context of a transgression, then “a person’s agent is like himself” does not apply and therefore the sale is invalid. The text integrates this into Ran’s explanation of Havdalah: when I oppose fulfilling my obligation and another person is supposed to fulfill it for me, it stands to reason that the one reciting does not intend to fulfill it for me against my will, and therefore there is no fulfillment under the rule of one who hears is like one who answers.

A Logical Discussion of “Wants” and “Doesn’t Want” and the Parallel to Positive Commandments and Prohibitions

The text uses the logical distinction that the operators “wants” and “not” are not commutative in order to explain why “does not want to fulfill” is not equivalent to “wants not to fulfill.” It bases this on the distinction of Shulchan Arukh HaRav between absence of intention and contrary intention. The text then broadens the discussion to the question of what defines positive commandments as opposed to prohibitions, and argues that prohibitions point to a negative state from which one must refrain, whereas positive commandments point to a positive state in which one ought to be, even when in practice this involves inaction, such as resting or fasting. The text argues that consequences such as lashes, extracting money, and the additional fifth are results of this distinction rather than its definition, and adds the claim that civil law is built mainly on “prohibitions” in this sense, because it does not reward proper conduct but rather punishes deviation.

Maimonides’ View: Matzah, Shofar, and the Absence of Contradiction According to the Proposed Reading

The text presents the well-known apparent contradiction in Maimonides between the laws of chametz and matzah, “if he ate matzah without intention, for example if gentiles or bandits forced him to eat, he has fulfilled his obligation,” and the laws of shofar, which require that “the hearer and the one sounding must intend.” The text argues that there is no contradiction, because Maimonides holds that commandments do not require intention, and what is required regarding shofar is the intention of the hearer and the one sounding because of the rule of one who hears is like one who answers when one person fulfills the obligation for others. The text claims that Maimonides does not state a law that one who sounds the shofar for himself without intention did not fulfill his obligation, because there is no need for intention to fulfill, only for the conditions needed when fulfilling the obligation for others.

Shulchan Arukh, Magen Avraham, and the Question of “Since He Derived Benefit” Regarding Matzah

The text notes that Shulchan Arukh in section 589 copies Maimonides’ wording about matzah: “if gentiles or bandits forced him to eat, he has fulfilled his obligation.” But this clashes with his ruling in section 60 that commandments do require intention. The text presents a solution found within Shulchan Arukh and its commentators, especially Magen Avraham, who single out commandments of eating because “since he derived benefit,” even without intention he fulfills his obligation with matzah. The text attacks this explanation as difficult, because “since he derived benefit” is familiar from prohibitions as a way to exempt someone acting unintentionally, and it is not clear how that can substitute for the lack of intention to fulfill. It also cites Rabbi Akiva Eiger, who suggests that absence of intention to fulfill is interpreted as a problem of acting unintentionally.

The Commandment of Shofar in Maimonides: “To Hear the Blast of the Shofar” and Still the Need for the Rule of “One Who Hears Is Like One Who Answers”

The text emphasizes that Maimonides defines the commandment as “to hear the blast of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah,” and adds elsewhere, “if he sounded a stolen shofar, he has fulfilled his obligation, because the commandment is only in hearing the sound… and sound is not subject to theft.” The text asks: if the commandment is hearing, and commandments do not require intention, why is the intention of the hearer and the one sounding still required? It cites a possible solution found in the Chazon Ish, who distinguishes between the essence of the commandment, which is hearing, and the requirements that define what counts as “a blast of commandment” whose hearing constitutes fulfillment. The text compares this to the law of “you shall make, and not from what is already made” in sukkah, where even though the commandment is to sit, there are conditions governing how the sukkah is made so that sitting in it will count as sitting for the sake of the commandment.

Purim: Tikkunei Zohar, Amalek, and “It Was Turned Around”

The text states that Purim is a day of tremendous revelation of the Divine countenance, and cites Tikkunei Zohar that Yom Kippur is “like Purim,” meaning that Purim is the source and root, while Yom Kippur only resembles it. The text explains that on Yom Kippur purification comes through separation from materiality, whereas on Purim purification takes place within materiality, transforming materiality itself into the Holy of Holies. The text expounds “the Scroll of Esther” as the revelation of hiddenness, Amalek as the force that creates doubt (“Amalek” having the numerical value of “doubt”) and as that which cools off faith, as in “who happened upon you on the way,” and Purim as the revelation that “everything is the hand of God” in the secret of “it was turned around.” It attributes the victory to unity—“Go gather all the Jews”—whose power can nullify the force of division and doubt.

A Note on Sirens: Fear Versus Discipline and Kant’s Categorical Imperative

The text argues that there is no point in being afraid, because the chance of being harmed is absolutely zero, but precisely for that reason “you have to get up and go to a protected space,” so that a situation does not arise in which the public as a whole makes private calculations and someone gets hurt. The text formulates this through “Kant’s categorical imperative” as a rational justification for public discipline, and distinguishes between lack of fear and the obligation to obey instructions. The text adds a value judgment that it is preferable not to die at all, and rejects formulations that settle for preferring “to die with the blanket over one’s head” as a substitute for practical caution.

Okay, let’s begin. Last time we started with the novel idea brought by the medieval authorities (Rishonim) in the name of Rashbam regarding opposite intention. The claim is that even if commandments do not require intention, when a person has an opposite intention, then he does not fulfill his obligation according to everyone. We saw this in the words of the Ran in our passage in tractate Rosh Hashanah. I’ll start again from here because I want to keep moving forward. “Rabbeinu Shmuel wrote that even though we say commandments do not require intention, that is only when it is done without specific intention, but if one intends not to fulfill, he does not fulfill. For if you do not say so, you will have difficulty with what was asked in the first chapter of Berakhot: where he took a cup of beer in his hand and thought it was wine, and he began with wine”—Rashi explains: with wine in mind—that is, he began the blessing “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,” assuming he would conclude “who creates the fruit of the vine” over wine, “and he concluded over beer,” meaning suddenly he saw that he had beer in his hand, so he made the blessing “by whose word all things come to be.” “What is the law? Do we follow the opening or the conclusion?” And the problem was not resolved. The Talmud asks—or Rashbam asks—why was it not resolved? Let us conclude that he fulfilled his obligation, because commandments do not require intention. If commandments do not require intention, then what difference does it make that he began with wine in mind and concluded with beer in mind? He said the words. And if no intention is needed, then no intention is needed. Rather, learn from this that even though commandments do not require intention, if one intends not to fulfill, he has not fulfilled. Now this is a point—there’s a subtle point here, maybe I already mentioned it, I don’t remember. Here he does intend to fulfill. He intends to fulfill with wine, not with beer. Rashbam’s assumption is that such an intention counts as intending not to fulfill, because I intended to fulfill a different commandment. But more than that: not only does he see this situation as an absence of intention to fulfill, he sees it as something worse—as opposite intention. So that’s what he answers here. Why don’t we resolve it? After all, commandments do not require intention. So he says: this is not just a simple lack of intention, where according to the one who says commandments do not require intention it should have worked. This is opposite intention. “Rather, learn from this that even though commandments do not require intention, if one intends not to fulfill, he has not fulfilled.” And there, after all, he intended not to fulfill with beer but with wine. So he sees this as opposite intention. “And based on this the Rabbi of blessed memory wrote that this is why the custom arose to recite havdalah at home, even though everyone in the household had heard havdalah in the synagogue, because they intended not to fulfill there.” He intended not to fulfill in the synagogue, and therefore he did not fulfill havdalah there, so he can recite havdalah—he also has to recite havdalah at home. What? Apparently they didn’t recite kiddush in the synagogue then; they recited kiddush only at home. Fine. If you do it in prayer then it’s simpler, that you’re not doing it as kiddush in order to fulfill your obligation with it. And that too—you could say the same thing there. “And I say that since we require the intention of the one making it heard to make it heard, for another reason there is a commandment to do it”—that’s already the Ran. The Ran disagrees with Rashbam and argues that there is no proof from havdalah. Even if you don’t accept Rashbam and you say that opposite intention does not help uproot the commandment according to the one who says commandments do not require intention—even so, in havdalah opposite intention would still work. Why? Because we must say regarding this person passing through the synagogue that we are dealing with a prayer leader whose mind is on the whole congregation, and certainly his intention is only to make it heard to those who want to hear, but to make them hear in order to fulfill their obligation against their will he did not intend, for he is only their agent. In other words, even where—even if you say that my own opposite intention does not help so that I myself will not fulfill my obligation, if someone else is fulfilling my obligation for me and I don’t want to fulfill it, then very plausibly he did not intend to fulfill it for me. He does not want to fulfill a person’s obligation against his will. In that situation there is a problem of “the listener is like the speaker.” If he does not intend to fulfill someone’s obligation, then there I will not fulfill. Yes, this is somewhat similar to what you can often find in the halakhic decisors—already among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), and even more among later authorities (Acharonim)—that when you perform a commandment through an agent, sometimes it is harder to fulfill your obligation than when you do it yourself. For example, regarding betrothal it says, “It is more of a commandment for him than through his agent,” that he should betroth the woman himself. Fine? What happens when he does it through an agent? There are those who want to claim that if he did it through an agent it would not help. Why? Because… they say this here too, but for example, to betroth her against her will. To betroth a woman against her will. “They hung him and he betrothed”—never mind, she said she wants it, it may actually work—but through an agent, no. Why not? Because with an agent there is the issue of an agent for a transgression. Once the agent is sent to perform a transgression, then even if I myself, had I done it, the betrothal would have been valid, since I’m doing it through an agent, then this is an agent for a transgression, and there is no agency for a transgression. Once he is not really an agent, then it won’t work at all. Or something along those lines is argued by the Chazon Ish regarding the sale of land in the Sabbatical year. The claim is that it is forbidden to sell—“do not show them favor”—it is forbidden to sell land in the Land of Israel to a non-Jew. And therefore the claim is that the sale itself is ineffective. Now what does it mean ineffective? Even if it is forbidden, if I sold it, it still works. True, but since the sale of the lands is done through an agent, once the agent does it as a transgression, then the rule “a person’s agent is like himself” does not apply here, because this is an agent for a transgression; there is no agency for a transgression. Once that is so, then not only is there a transgression involved, the sale does not even take effect, because there was no valid agent here who performed this thing. What? Yes, an interesting argument. In any case, the claim is that sometimes when you… What? Could he? That would be fine; according to him it would be a transgression, but the sale would still work. And since in practice it is not done that way, the claim is that the sale in fact is not even effective, not merely that it involves a transgression. In other words, many times when you try to fulfill your obligation through someone else—“the listener is like the speaker,” or through an agent, or something like that—something that if you did it yourself maybe would not be ideal but would still work, when done through the agent or the one fulfilling it for you it will not work at all. In this case—and this is only by analogy—because here the one making it heard does not intend to fulfill someone’s obligation against his will if the other person does not want to fulfill. So even if, by itself, my opposite intention would not uproot the commandment from me, if I want someone else to fulfill my obligation for me, there, when I have opposite intention, it could be that I really do not fulfill my obligation. And I said that from here it follows that the Ran probably disagrees with Rashba. In other words, the Ran argues that opposite intention does not work. There, in havdalah—even the Ran would agree that it works, meaning it works to uproot the commandment, because there you want to fulfill through someone else. That is basically the claim. Yes, to make the blessing. There is a commandment to bless, yes. This is not the commandment of kiddush; the commandment of kiddush you can do with beer or with wine. The problem is that you are mistaken about what you are holding, and therefore it is clear that this is intention regarding the commandment of blessings, not intention regarding the commandment of kiddush. What’s the difference? There is a question—and I still hope we’ll discuss it—what happens with rabbinic commandments: do they require intention or not? But at the moment the assumption is yes. In other words, Rashba’s assumption is yes. The commandment of blessings is rabbinic. Kiddush over wine is a question, a dispute between the commentator and Tosafot in Nazir. So what? Between blessing over beer and in fact he blessed over wine, and in fact he blessed over beer… okay, but not to bless over beer, rather to bless over wine. I already noted this in the previous class. Right, there is an intention here to bless, to fulfill one’s obligation, and to bless all right—but over beer, not over wine. I also noted it today, I repeated it today too, that there really is some assumption of Rashba here that such a thing is not merely called lack of intention, but is even considered opposite intention. That is not a simple assumption, yes, but that is what he assumes here. So I noted this, and I ended last time with that point, that even if the Ran says that regarding havdalah there is no proof—meaning regarding havdalah he can agree that you do not fulfill your obligation if you have opposite intention—the Ran says, yes, but still regarding the basic law of opposite intention I disagree with Rashba. In other words, opposite intention does not uproot the commandment. Still, he did not answer Rashbam’s proof from the Talmudic discussion of beer and wine. He rejected the conclusion from havdalah, but regarding the blessing over beer and wine, what does he say there? If opposite intention really does not uproot fulfillment of the commandment, there it is not talking about someone else; it is talking about someone blessing for himself. Well then, if it is not the opposite, excellent. So why did he not fulfill? After all, according to the one who says commandments do not require intention—so I say, fine, you can disagree with Rashba that opposite intention helps uproot. You can disagree with Rashba that what is called there opposite intention is even opposite intention at all—it is not opposite intention, as you said. Everything is fine. But Rashbam’s question still stands. So why, according to the one who says commandments do not require intention, did he not fulfill there? Why is it left unresolved? So I said, I said that maybe that itself is the problem: whether commandments require intention or not—that is why it was not resolved. So according to the one who says commandments do not require intention, he really did fulfill, and according to the one who says commandments do require intention, he did not fulfill, and the fact that it was left unresolved means the question whether commandments require intention or not. Fine, but that leaves out the main point. In other words, it should have said: the unresolved issue is whether commandments require intention. That is not what the Talmud seems to imply. So that question still remains open, and we’ll get to it in a moment. There’s another note. What? As far as I remember, the Ran does not address this there. There’s another remark that needs discussion here; I think someone mentioned it in the previous class. Here, when we’re speaking about blessings, this is not just the ordinary law of whether commandments require intention, right? A blessing is a commandment performed through speech. And we already discussed in the first class that a commandment performed through speech may require some kind of intention over and above the general law of whether commandments require intention. Right? Because unless you intend what you are saying, you didn’t really speak, you merely moved your lips. I said that speech is a cognitive act; it is not a physical act of lip movement. Right, “muzzling with one’s voice”—there is a Talmud in Bava Metzia 90, regarding why we do not derive a prohibition lacking an act from the prohibition of muzzling. The Talmud asks there about muzzling with one’s voice—I prevent the animal from eating by calling out, shouting, not by physically muzzling it. So the question is whether that counts as an act or not; after all, lashes are for a prohibition involving an act. So the Rif says that this is a minor act; in short, lip movement is a minor act. But there, this is lip movement that does not really express something; it is not speech—it is a shout that stops the animal. Here we are talking about lip movement that speaks. Speech is certainly not speech if you do not intend it. So perhaps there was room to say that this does not belong at all to the discussion of whether commandments require intention. The Talmud’s doubt is whether, when you spoke this blessing and did not intend beer but wine, perhaps this is not even called speech. And then even according to the one who says commandments do not require intention, it would not help—it is not called speech. Not because of Rashbam’s law of opposite intention, but because speech without intention is not speech. And then maybe that would explain why the Talmud says this is unresolved even according to the one who says commandments do not require intention and even if one disagrees with Rashbam that opposite intention helps. But it is hard to say that here, because when I say, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,” there is nothing there that belongs specifically to beer or wine, right? I intended what I said: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe.” I only intended to continue with wine, and that turned out not to be correct because in the end I continued with beer. So this is only intention of the sort involved in whether commandments require intention; it is not intention in the sense of intending the meaning of the words. Because the meaning of the words was intended here. I intended to say “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,” I absolutely intended it. That is perfectly proper intention. I just did not intend to say it with beer in mind but with wine in mind. That is not… what? I didn’t understand. The doubt here is not about the essence of the blessing? What does “the essence of the blessing” mean? The essence of the blessing is “Blessed are You, Lord,” and if he did not intend that, it would not help because the essential part was not done with proper intention. Fine, you can say whatever you want there about what exactly the doubt was. The question is only why there is any room for doubt at all, after all commandments require intention—sorry, commandments do not require intention. I’m saying I’m not even entering the question what exactly the doubt there was. I’m asking: how can you neutralize this from the issue of commandments not requiring intention? So what I’m saying is that one suggestion was: okay, this is a commandment through speech. A commandment through speech, according to everyone, requires intention, even according to the one who says commandments do not require intention. So I say that here the intention needed to turn lip movement into speech was present. You cannot say that that intention was absent; it was there. Because in the first stage, when I said “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,” that is the part common to all blessings, I intended the words that I said. You cannot say that I did not speak here. True, I didn’t know what the continuation would be—so what? Who said that the continuation is needed at all? So it may be that the doubt really is what you are saying here—never mind—whether the intention required in the first part includes what I intend to continue with or not. It’s a question of what is included in the intention of blessings. But you cannot say that I did not speak at all. If I hadn’t been aware that I was dealing with blessings at all and didn’t know what “Blessed are You, Lord” means—as if I’d said it in Turkish—then you could say this has nothing to do with whether commandments require intention; if you do not understand the meaning of the words, do not intend their meaning, then this is not speech at all. But here I do intend the meaning of the words, I understood the meaning of the words, everything is fine. The words that I actually said, I intended them. Therefore I do not think you can bring in here the special intention specific to commandments of speech. We’ll see later that there are commentators who do want to argue that, but I think it is not plausible in this context. Now there is a responsum of Rabbi Yosef Fain on the matter of Isaac’s blessing to Jacob and Esau and why he does not feel it, and the Talmud says that what comes out of his mouth has slipped from him and therefore lacks the agency of the person. Therefore what is the question—I didn’t understand. If a person blessed “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe,” and instead of saying “who creates the fruit of the vine” he said “who creates the fruit of the vine” over what was before him that already… no, he didn’t say that. He said “by whose word all things come to be,” but when he blessed the first part of the blessing he thought it would be wine, but in the end he concluded the blessing correctly. And that was a statement, so a statement is a correct statement. That is the Talmud’s doubt. The Talmud’s doubt is whether one needs to intend the continuation, or whether once you said it, you said it. But the question is why, if commandments do not require intention, there is any room for that doubt at all. That is the discussion Rashbam raises. Okay. So that is one remark regarding the intention involved in speech, and I think a special intention just because this is speech is not relevant to the Talmud’s discussion there. A second remark—I think I also already mentioned this—regarding one who blows the shofar for music. If that is opposite intention according to Rashbam—that is, someone who intends with wine in mind—then why is one who blows for music not opposite intention? But he is not intending not to blow. Okay, here too he is not intending not to bless; he intends to bless for beer and not for wine. Clearly that is even better. What—if this counts as opposite intention, I don’t know what plain unspecified action is that would not count as opposite intention. After all, every time you do something you do it for some purpose. I spoke about moving a utensil whose primary function is permitted, not for any need at all. Right? A person doesn’t just do things with no intention whatsoever. He always has something for which he did the act. It’s just not the commandment. Okay. But according to Rashbam such a thing is always opposite intention. So when was the opinion that commandments do not require intention ever said? If by opposite intention you say that certainly it does not work, and only about intention in the ordinary unspecified case do I disagree—Rava, yes, who says commandments do not require intention—what situation is he talking about? There is no example like that. Every example will always be opposite intention. There is something very strange here. Already when we learned the discussion of one who blows for music, I pointed out there that if Rava ties one who blows for music to opposite intention—doesn’t tie it, sorry, but rather to commandments not requiring intention—that means that from his perspective one who blows for music is not opposite intention, even though he did not intend the commandment but intended something else. So what is called opposite intention? Let’s see. Opposite intention means—opposite intention means that he intends not to fulfill. In one who blows… just a second… in one who blows for music, he does not intend not to fulfill. He simply does not intend to fulfill. He intends music. If he explicitly intended not to fulfill—I want not to fulfill—yes, like in havdalah, as the Ran says: if I don’t want to fulfill, don’t fulfill my obligation against my will. But if I want music and you intend to fulfill my obligation, why not? What difference does it make to me also to fulfill my obligation? So that would not be called opposite intention. Opposite intention is when I specifically do not want to fulfill. Okay, that is the point. Now if that is really so, then in the case of beer and wine this is not opposite intention. Did I intend not to fulfill? I simply—on the contrary—certainly intended to fulfill, I was just confused; I thought I had wine and it turned out to be beer. Okay. What? What if I intended wine and not beer? Then there are two things: I intended this and did not intend that. Why? Why is that different from blowing for music? In speech there is one intention—or if I intend music, then why in one who blows for music is it not like that? I intended music, so by definition I intended not to fulfill. It would have to be—everything requires intention, every act requires intention—what didn’t I understand? No, because when I do an act, I can do an act without specific intention. According to the one who says commandments do not require intention, why would speech be different? In speech you have to intend the speech—not what? Not intend the speech? Once again you’re bringing me back to the special intention unique to speech—it doesn’t belong here. He intended the speech when he said “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe.” He intended every word he said. No, he intended something else. Meaning, he says the continuation is going to be something else—but the words he said, he intended. Therefore I rejected that possibility earlier. In other words, a special intention because we are dealing here with speech is, in my opinion, irrelevant to the situation we have here. So simply speaking, anyone speaking about opposite intention must mean an intention not to fulfill the obligation, not just the absence of intention to fulfill the obligation. The absence of intention to fulfill the obligation is exactly what “commandments do not require intention” means; that is the regular case. That is the unspecified case, where you do something for another purpose, but not because you have some special desire not to fulfill your obligation. You are not doing it in order to fulfill your obligation, but for something else. And opposite intention according to this is only when you specifically intend not to fulfill your obligation. Right? This must be so; you cannot say otherwise. Otherwise one who blows for music is opposite intention. Now if that is the understanding in Rashbam, then how can it be that beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer is called opposite intention? Did he intend not to fulfill? If you had asked him, “Tell me, if it turns out to be beer, do you not want to fulfill?” Of course not. He simply did not know; he thought it was wine, so he blessed with wine in mind. There was no positive intention not to fulfill; on the contrary, it is much better than that. Simply speaking, if you had asked him, clearly he would have said: of course I want to fulfill. Not only do I not mind, I want to fulfill. I just don’t know—I thought it was wine and it turned out to be beer. Okay? That’s all. So it really looks very strange, this business of connecting it to opposite intention. So in truth, among the halakhic decisors, I’ll leave this open for now. Among the halakhic decisors there really is a dispute. In Beit Yosef, siman 589, I corresponded with you about this on WhatsApp, he brings there that Ra’ah disagrees with Rashbam. I said that simply speaking it also seems that the Ran disagrees with Rashbam. Even though regarding the Ran one could say that he only rejects the proof; he says the practical implication regarding havdalah can be said even without Rashbam. That doesn’t mean he disagrees with Rashbam; he only says: don’t tell me that because of Rashbam’s reasoning you get the implication regarding havdalah. No—the implication regarding havdalah can be said even according to Ra’ah. What does the Ran himself think—does he disagree with Rashbam or not? That remains open. Yes? Ra’ah explicitly disagrees with him; he says: “That is only in the unspecified case, but if one intends not to fulfill, he does not fulfill.” Up to there. “And Rabbeinu Yonah also wrote the opinion of Rabbeinu Shmuel at the end of the first chapter of Berakhot, regarding one who began with wine in mind and ended with beer in mind. And he further wrote there: that even according to the one who holds that commandments do not require intention, that is only in a matter involving an act, but in a commandment dependent only on speech, certainly intention is required, because the statement is in the heart, and when he does not intend in the statement and performs no act, it is as though he did nothing at all of the commandment.” Again, I disagree. In other words, that is not right. This is speech, and the intention of the speech was there in the case of beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind. “And in Orchot Chaim it is written: one who performs a commandment and does not want to fulfill at that time has not fulfilled.” Yes, so wrote the French Rabbis and Rashba of blessed memory and Ra’ah. Sorry—and Ra’ah says: “Even if he shouts that he does not want to fulfill that commandment, he has fulfilled.” Here too it explicitly says that opposite intention is someone who shouts and says, “I do not want to fulfill.” Not one who blows for music, or one who began with wine in mind and ended with beer in mind. All those are not opposite intention. But Ra’ah really says explicitly: I disagree with Rashbam. Even if someone shouts and says, “I do not want to fulfill,” he still fulfills. Still, the Ran’s comment remains valid. In other words, if someone else is fulfilling his obligation for him and you shout that you do not want to fulfill, there it is likely that you did not fulfill, because why would he intend to fulfill your obligation against your will? Fine. But in terms of opposite intention as such, Ra’ah says: opposite intention does not uproot the commandment. “And he strengthened this reasoning with proofs in his commentary on Pesachim regarding one whom the Persians forced to eat matzah.” Interesting. He says that “one whom the Persians forced” counts as opposite intention. It is like someone who shouts and says, “I do not want to fulfill.” Why? On the contrary. In the case of “the Persians forced him,” you have to explain to me why this is even called ordinary unspecified action. I would say that he intended to fulfill in the fullest sense. Not only is this not opposite intention—I claim there was actual intention here. So what if the Persians forced him? Are we dealing with a wicked person who specifically does not want to fulfill and they force him against his will? Why? They forced him to eat. Besides, if you ask him: “Do you want to fulfill?”—why not? “Yes, I want to fulfill. I just didn’t happen to plan it now or whatever, and the Persians forced me to eat.” Who said you can make this forced reading that we are speaking of some resistant person who does not want to fulfill his obligation? Strange, that is a strange forced reading. If this is matzah unfit for eating, then he did not fulfill his obligation. Then he did not fulfill his obligation regardless of whether commandments require intention; he simply did not eat matzah—it is like matzah… That is another direction, but that is not what we are talking about here. But I’m saying: the question is whether that is even the case in “the Persians forced him,” aside from what I’m about to tell you now. But you bring me a proof from “the Persians forced him.” “The Persians forced him” is not opposite intention. Ra’ah says: I’ll show you that opposite intention does not help, that opposite intention does not uproot the commandment. What’s the proof? “The Persians forced him.” What kind of proof is that? “The Persians forced him”—that is opposite intention? Of course not. Why did the Talmud leave things unspecified in all places, on this commandment too? The Talmud did not say “provided that not…” It does not need to say it, obviously, because according to Rashbam, with opposite intention you do not fulfill. It need not say it. Obviously in every place we are talking where there was no opposite intention. What kind of proof is that against Rashbam? Fine, if you would say that according to your own reading—that is how you read the Talmud—and then bring a proof against Rashbam? What kind of proof is that? Yes, why not distinguish between personal opposite intention and opposite intention through an agent? The Ran makes the distinction. The Ran, regarding tefillin, says: I make straps to have marks on my arms, not for the commandment of tefillin—and this is not merely enough, it is ordinary, it is like blowing for music. He adds and says: I also do not want to fulfill. I do not want to fulfill; I only want the marks on my arms, I do not want to fulfill. That is called opposite intention. Otherwise, blowing for music would also be opposite intention, and blowing for music is not opposite intention. Blowing for music is exactly the case about which the dispute is whether commandments require intention or not. So I’m saying, even when someone puts them on him by force, who says he does not want to fulfill? It may be that he does want to fulfill, only right now he did not plan it and someone put them on him by force. In order to bring proofs against Rashbam from “the Persians forced him,” you have to assume a lot. You have to assume that we are talking about a situation where he does not want to fulfill and resists, and the Persians force him. Why assume such a thing? Yes, if they have an atomic bomb, go stand against them. “And I already wrote that Rabbi Rabbeinu Yonah brought the words of Rabbeinu Shmuel, implying that he agrees with him. And since that is so, we do not take account of the words of Ra’ah in this matter.” In other words, in the end Beit Yosef rules in practice in accordance with Rashbam. But Ra’ah disagrees with it; in short, this is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about opposite intention. I said that regarding the Ran there is room to hesitate whether he is only saying there is no proof for the havdalah point, or whether he actually wants to argue against Rashbam and thereby neutralize havdalah. In short, what comes out here is a kind of unproductive ambiguity. Kissinger spoke about constructive ambiguity. I’m speaking about unconstructive ambiguity. What is opposite intention? The simple conception I would have said is: opposite intention means I specifically intend not to fulfill. I do not want to fulfill. I declare and say: I do not want to fulfill. Okay? But somehow, from all these medieval authorities (Rishonim), it somewhat appears that at least some of them understand that even one who blows for music is opposite intention, and anyone who has some other intention is called opposite intention. That is what they say about “the Persians forced him,” or that is Ra’ah’s proof against Rashbam. And Rashbam’s own proof from beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind—there too it seems that opposite intention is simply some other intention. Not that you need specifically to intend not to fulfill. Look, for example, at the Shulchan Arukh HaRav there in siman 589, in that same place, section 12. He says: “And even if he did not count with them at all, but merely heard counting from an individual or from the public who counted”—we are speaking of the counting of the Omer—“and they did not at all intend to fulfill his obligation, and he too did not intend to fulfill his obligation by this hearing, but heard it casually, he should not recite a blessing when he counts at night, because the listener is like the speaker. And even if he was thinking, ‘I do not intend to fulfill my obligation with this counting,’ that is of no consequence, for we say that commandments do not require intention at all, unless he thinks: ‘I intend not to fulfill my obligation with it.’” You see the distinction? If he says “I intend”—that is, “I do not intend to fulfill my obligation with this counting”—he has fulfilled. He has fulfilled. It will not help him. If he says, “No, I do not want to fulfill my obligation,” you need not merely to fail to want positively—you need to positively not want to fulfill. He is the person who made the distinction in perhaps the sharpest form that I know. Do you understand? If he thinks—notice this—if he explicitly thinks “I do not intend to fulfill my obligation with this counting,” then according to Rava he has fulfilled. He thinks “I do not intend to fulfill,” not merely that he is just blowing for music, but he even thinks: no, no, I’m blowing for music and not in order to fulfill my obligation. You have fulfilled your obligation; it won’t help you. Only if he says, “No, no, I do not want to fulfill my obligation”—not that I’m not thinking of fulfilling my obligation, but that I strongly oppose fulfilling my obligation—that is opposite intention, and only that is being discussed. What is his proof? From one who blows for music. Because in one who blows for music, he is indeed thinking not to fulfill his obligation; he is blowing for music, not in order to fulfill his obligation. Yes, but he is not thinking that he does not want to fulfill. That thought is absent. You must say this if you are speaking of opposite intention, because you constantly have to explain to me why one who blows for music is not opposite intention. Okay? So that is what the Shulchan Arukh HaRav says. Many later authorities (Acharonim) commented on him as though they do not understand what he wants, and that is simply what he says. You cannot say otherwise. The fact is that one can, because Ra’ah and Rashbam do say otherwise, but in terms of logic it is clear that he is right. And Tosafot really writes: “And even if he took it in the usual manner of growth”—we are speaking about the four species—“it is possible that he intends not to fulfill with it until after the blessing. Even though we say at the end of Rosh Hashanah that commandments do not require intention, nevertheless against his will he does not fulfill.” What does “against his will” mean? One who blows for music is not against his will. One who blows for music did not say that he does not want to fulfill; he simply is not doing it in order to fulfill. Tosafot understands that opposite intention means against his will—in other words, he shouts and says, “I do not want to fulfill.” Exactly like the Shulchan Arukh HaRav, right? What? But if he intended thinking it was wine and it turned out to be beer? Right. Right. According to Ra’ah it would not matter; according to Rashbam it would. Fine? Now in short, we are still left with the question about beginning with wine in mind. Why really, according to Rashbam, is beginning with wine in mind called opposite intention, if—as we saw in Tosafot in Sukkah and in the Shulchan Arukh HaRav—it is clear that you need actually not to want to fulfill, to want not to fulfill. Okay? That is what you need. So why is beginning with wine in mind opposite intention? Never mind. Let him think, but he has to think: I do not want to fulfill. I want not to fulfill, sorry—not that I do not want to fulfill, but that I want not to fulfill. Why? Why? How is that different from one who blows for music? To accept—not to say “by whose word all things come to be”—he fulfills with wine; he wants specifically to say “who creates the fruit of the vine.” He does not know it is wine. What do you mean? Leave aside the case itself—his intention is specifically to say the blessing. Right, and the other one’s intention is specifically music. What is the difference? Look, it could be—someone mentioned this earlier—it could be, I think I saw this idea in Rabbi Moshe Weiss; I gave you a link to his article. It could be that the problem here is that we are dealing with a commandment. In other words, if in blowing for music you are involved with a commandment and you intend some ordinary non-sacred action—music—that does not uproot the intention to fulfill according to Rava. Okay? Because commandments do not require intention. But if you intend another commandment, it could be that this is worse than intending some ordinary alternative act. Because intending another commandment basically means my intention has been drained off in that direction. One who blows for music—so okay, I am doing it without intention, because ordinary unspecified acts are not called intention; they are simply an absence of intention. Because ordinary acts, daily acts, simple acts—these are not called intention at all; they do not belong to the world of intentions. So that is called unspecified. But when your alternative is a commandment—and a commandment does belong to the world of intentions, even according to Rava. After all, one should intend; it’s only that according to Rava the intention is not indispensable. You certainly should intend. So then it really means that you took your intention and redirected it to another channel, the channel of a commandment. That does not work. Something like this reasoning appears at the beginning of tractate Beitzah. The Talmud discusses an egg laid on a Jewish holiday. And one of the possibilities it raises, according to Rabbah, is “preparation according to Rabbah.” What does that mean? That we are dealing with a Jewish holiday adjacent to the Sabbath, and the egg was laid on the Jewish holiday and you want to eat it on the Sabbath. So you cannot eat it on the Sabbath because it was laid on the Jewish holiday, and a Jewish holiday does not prepare for the Sabbath. Okay? In other words, when the egg was laid on the Jewish holiday, that was as if its preparation for being eaten on the Sabbath, and preparation on a Jewish holiday is not valid preparation. So Rashi says: then why is it permitted to eat eggs on Sunday? We should have had to refrain from eating eggs on Sunday, because every egg laid on Sunday was in fact prepared on the Sabbath—it finished on the Sabbath and was laid on Sunday—and then it comes out that the Sabbath prepared for Sunday. Okay? Right, and according to Rabbah, preparation by Heaven is also called preparation. So why is it allowed to eat the egg on Sunday? It underwent preparation on the Sabbath. So Rashi says that a meal on Sunday is not a holiday meal; it is just ordinary eating—you’re just eating—it is not a meal in the technical sense. For that there is no preparation. In other words, when the egg finished on the Sabbath and you use it at your Sunday meal—when can you say that the completion of the egg yesterday counts as preparation? If what I do today is a meal in the significant sense; preparations are made for significant meals. But if you are just having a meal, that does not undergo preparation. You simply arrange things so you’ll have what to eat, but that is not called preparation; it has no significance of preparation. The meal has to be an important meal in order for the actions leading up to it to count as preparation. When you eat a meal on Sunday, that is not a significant meal, so the preparations made for it on the Sabbath are not preparations. Preparations exist only for something important. Okay, that is what Rashi says. By contrast, if Sunday is a Jewish holiday, then Sunday’s meal is really a significant meal, so preparations for it are preparations. And if that happened on the Sabbath, then preparation done on the Sabbath is problematic. Now something like that reasoning I want to say here. If you are blowing for music, then your alternative is not another commandment; it is just an ordinary action, you are doing an action. That action is not an alternative intention, because it does not belong to the world of intentions—it is not a commandment-act. So that is not called opposite intention; it is simply called absence of intention. And on the other hand, commandments do not require intention, so even if the intention is absent, if there was no intention, you have still fulfilled your obligation. But if you take that intention and direct it solely to another commandment, not to this commandment, then that is opposite intention. That is not absence of intention. You did not remove the intention and leave things unspecified; you intended, but intended something else. That is called opposite intention. Must he cancel it verbally, with his lips, as it were? What? Must he cancel it with his lips, I’m not… No, with his lips is a different discussion. But he must intend the correct commandment. Whether this has to be verbalized or not is a separate question—whether intention for commandments has to be expressed verbally or not. What? If he intended, or he said, “I am thinking not to fulfill”? No, “I am thinking that I do not want to fulfill.” He does not have to say it; it is enough that he thinks it. Everything I have said until now does not necessarily mean he has to say he does not want to fulfill; he needs to think that he does not want to fulfill. Whether he has to say it out loud is another issue; I discussed it in one of the classes. What? Yes, there is no other explanation. No, because since it is an ordinary Sunday and not a Jewish holiday, the meal you eat that day is just a meal; it is not a significant meal. Preparations are only for significant meals. If there were a meal of commandment on Sunday with the egg, according to this Rashi perhaps it really would be forbidden, since ordinary meals do not have preparation but significant meals do. So everything that happened on the preceding Sabbath in relation to this event—if the event is a significant meal, then what happened on the Sabbath was preparation, and that is forbidden. If the event is just a meal, then no—ordinary meals do not have preparation. So something like this, I think, must be said here, and I think one has to say it. Otherwise there is no difference between one who blows for music and one who began with beer in mind. Rabbeinu Yonah and Rashbam and anyone who brings proof from beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind, and sees that as opposite intention even though one who blows for music is not opposite intention—you have to say that it is because we are dealing here with a commandment. And if you intend an alternative commandment, that is called opposite intention. If you intend another commandment, then it is considered as though you intended not to fulfill. Yes, that is not called failing to intend to fulfill. No, in one who blows for music, you did not intend not to fulfill, you simply did not intend to fulfill. Because in beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind, that is not true: he did not intend to fulfill—not that he intended not to fulfill. Only if you say that the alternative is a commandment does it turn the ordinary unspecified state into something negative. And that difference is because in a commandment there are intentions. When your intention is elsewhere, that means: I do not want this intention, I want that one. If you blow for music, you do not have another intention—simply you do not have the commandment-intention, because music is not a commandment, so it has no intention in that sense. What you wanted to do… no, no. Intention here means the halakhic significance of what you wanted to do. That is exactly the point. Intention is not a factual question of what was in your head, but whether what was in your head qualifies as intention. So if you were engaged with a commandment, then it qualifies as intention. Once you had intention directed there, you cannot say that you had intention here as well—that is opposite intention. If you blow for music, music is an act like eating on Sunday. So that is not called having another intention; it is not that this intention was absent and there was another one—that is not opposite intention. This distinction—I did it last year in one of the series, I no longer remember in what context. What is the difference between positive commandments and prohibitions? Usually people think the difference is practical. A prohibition tells you to refrain, as it were, not to do something, and a positive commandment tells you to do something. Of course that is not true. There are prohibitions that tell you to do something, and positive commandments that tell you to refrain. For example, the positive commandment to rest on the Sabbath, or the positive commandment to fast on Yom Kippur, not to eat. Those are positive commandments, yet what they tell you is not to do, to refrain. So why are they positive commandments? That’s a prohibition—what difference does it make how it is written in the Torah? In practice, in terms of content, it is a prohibition, not a positive commandment. And similarly, for example, “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.” That is a prohibition, right? What does that prohibition tell you? That if you see your friend drowning in the river, save him. That prohibition requires you to do something, not merely not to do. So why is it a prohibition? Why is it not a positive commandment? The fact that it is written in the Torah in the language “do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood” is only wording. But when you examine the content of the commandment, apparently it is a positive commandment, not a prohibition. What is the difference? What is the definition of a prohibition as opposed to a positive commandment? In short, that is my question. What is the difference? So simple a question that no one deals with it. There is an article by Aharon Shemesh, of blessed memory—he taught Talmud here, and he died relatively young. Today I can call that young. He once wrote an article in Tarbiz. He asked this question and said that you have to say that the difference between a prohibition and a positive commandment is simply the wording in the Torah. When it says “beware,” “lest,” and “do not,” then it is a prohibition; if it is written in active language, then it is a positive commandment. Well, that of course does not answer the question; that is an academic answer. You have characterized the difference between prohibition and positive commandment. Clearly the question is why the Torah formulates it with “beware,” “lest,” and “do not,” and does not formulate it as a positive commandment. After all, something stands behind that. There has to be some substantive difference between positive commandment and prohibition, of which the linguistic expression in the Torah is “beware/lest/do not” versus an active command. But the language cannot be the constitutive thing. The language expresses some difference between prohibition and positive commandment. And I am asking what that difference is. No—the fact that one requires intention is already a consequence. But I am asking what the difference is between prohibition and positive commandment. Can you tell me what the difference is? The difference is that for a prohibition one must spend all one’s money, whereas for a positive commandment only up to one-fifth; or that for a prohibition there are lashes and for a positive commandment there are no lashes. Fine—that is all consequence. Because this is a prohibition and this is a positive commandment, there are all kinds of implications. But I’m asking what defines the difference between prohibition and positive commandment. Why is this a prohibition and that a positive commandment? The consequences won’t help here; they are a result. I’m asking what the difference is. Do you know what the difference is? I’ll tell you what the difference is. The difference is that a prohibition points to a state that is negative. And when I am not in that negative state, I have not done anything positive—I have only avoided being in the negative state. A positive commandment tells me: you should be in that state because it is positive. If you were not there, you did not do something negative—you simply were not in a positive state. And note: this has nothing at all to do with whether you do it by action or by refraining. Suppose the Torah tells me to rest on the Sabbath. I asked why that is not a prohibition, because in the end what is required of me is not to do labor. Right, there is also a parallel prohibition, but why is the positive commandment not a prohibition? So Maimonides, in the sixth root, says that when there is a duplication between a prohibition and a positive commandment, as in the Sabbath for example, then the prohibition is counted among the prohibitions and the positive commandment among the positive commandments. This is unlike the ninth root, where when there is duplication one counts only one—duplication among prohibitions or duplication among positive commandments. Now people don’t notice this, but in Maimonides there are two novelties: first, that one counts two commandments, and second, that the positive commandment is counted among the positive commandments and the prohibition among the prohibitions. That is not trivial. Because one might have said that I would count even the positive commandment among the prohibitions. Because what is this positive commandment? This positive commandment—to rest—simply tells me once again not to do labor. So okay, I understand the novelty that it must be counted separately, but still I would have counted two prohibitions. Why count it among the positive commandments? Maimonides introduces a double novelty: the positive commandment is counted among the positives and the prohibition among the prohibitions. Why? Because the positive commandment to rest on the Sabbath does not overlap in content with the prohibition of doing labor. The prohibition of doing labor says that doing labor is a negative state. If you rest and do no labor, you have not done anything positive; you have only avoided being in a negative state. But the positive commandment to rest tells you: if you are not doing labor, it is not only that you are avoiding a negative state. You are in a positive state; the state of rest is in itself a positive state, not merely an escape from the negative state of labor, but itself a positive state. That is why there is a positive commandment. What? The prohibition means that doing labor is a negative state. It is not only that you are not in the positive state; you are in a negative state. Now one can also understand why one is lashed for a prohibition. Why is one lashed for a prohibition? Because for not being in a positive state, you are not a righteous person—but they do not flog you for that. Maybe you simply do not receive reward. That is why reward exists only for positive commandments and not for refraining from a prohibition. Someone righteous deserves reward; someone wicked deserves punishment. Someone who is not wicked does not deserve punishment, but he also does not deserve reward—he is merely not wicked. Okay? Likewise, one must spend all one’s money to avoid a prohibition. Why? Because one must spend all one’s money in order not to be in a negative state. You need not spend all your money in order to be in a positive state; for a positive state, spend up to one-fifth; beyond that you are not obligated. Maybe it is even forbidden: the enactment of Usha, one who spends should not spend more than one-fifth. So all these implications of the difference between prohibition and positive commandment are rooted in a real difference that exists between them. And the difference is the question what the Torah is pointing to. Is the Torah pointing to a positive state that it wants you to be in—that is a positive commandment—or is it pointing to a negative state that it wants you not to be in—and that is a prohibition? Now listen, note what the difference is—and here I come to why this matters for us. Exactly—and in a positive state, right. And non-presence in a positive state does not justify punishment. By the way, according to this it comes out—and I once discussed this with Aharon Shemesh, a professor of law at Hebrew University—I asked him whether there are positive commandments in secular law. He said, of course: paying taxes, serving in the army. I told him that in my opinion they are all prohibitions. In law there are only prohibitions, no positive commandments. Why? If you do not pay, you deserve punishment. No one gives you a prize for paying taxes. Right? If you do not pay taxes, you get punished. So the fact that the style or requirement demands a positive action from you does not mean it is a positive commandment. The action is simply avoiding being in a negative state, because the omission is negative. Failure to pay taxes is negative. Law deals only with acts only in negative definitions. Law does not deal… Positive commandments exist only in Torah. In law there are no positive commandments; in law there are only prohibitions. There are prohibitions that require action, and prohibitions that require refraining, but they are all prohibitions. There are no positive commandments in law; positive commandments exist only in Jewish law. No, that is another question—that is already the question what the substance of the positive commandment is. But from my point of view, the positive commandment is not to do labor, to rest from labor—that is a positive commandment. Rest is a positive act. Not that doing labor is a negative act—that is the prohibition. From the perspective of the positive commandment… So what does this mean? It basically means that if the Torah had said, “Put on tefillin,” and if the Torah had said, “I do not want you to be without tefillin,” would that have been a positive commandment or a prohibition? A prohibition, right? Why? Because to be without tefillin is a negative state. To be with tefillin is not positive; it is only escape from a negative state. And the Torah does not say it that way. The Torah says, “I want you to be with tefillin—bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be frontlets between your eyes.” So that is a positive commandment. Right? Now note what this means. It means that the sentence “Put on tefillin” and the sentence “I do not want you to be without tefillin” are not logically equivalent. One is a positive commandment and the other is a prohibition. Now what is this? Double negation. Usually a double negation is logically equivalent. Right? How can it be that two claims that are logically equivalent differ in content—one is a positive commandment and one is a prohibition? These are claims that are logically equivalent. So you formulated it this way, you formulated it in another wording that is logically equivalent to the first wording—how can it be that in this wording it is a positive commandment and in that wording it is a prohibition? Okay? This really sharpens the question I have against Aharon Shemesh. You cannot hang everything on wording. Because I can give you two formulations that are logically equivalent, and one will be a positive commandment and the other will be a prohibition. But if they are logically equivalent, then there cannot be any difference between them. They are not logically equivalent. How do I know? Do you really think this is logically equivalent? “I do not want you to be without tefillin”—is that logically equivalent to “I want you to be with tefillin”? Obviously not. Obviously not. Anyone who thinks it is logically equivalent is assuming that desire and negation commute. There are two logical operators—that is, “I want that…” x is one operator, “not x” is another operator, the negation operator, right? Now are those two operators commutative? To say “I do not want x” or “I want not-x”—is that the same thing? I switched the positions of the “not” and the “want.” Obviously not, right? “I want not-x” is not the same thing. It is not true that “I want x” is the same thing. “Not” and “want” are non-commutative operators. This is a mistake in logic. Therefore “I do not want not…” —“I do not want not-x”—is not the same thing as “I want not-not-x,” or “I want x.” “Not-not” is double negation. It is not the same thing. Right? Now “I do not want not” is a prohibition. “I want not-not” is a positive commandment. “Want not-not” cancels out, so “want not-not-x” is actually “want x,” right? That is a positive commandment. “I do not want not-x” is a prohibition. And they are not logically equivalent. It is a mistake in logic. This is exactly what I am saying here. If I want to fulfill the commandment, that is intention. If I do not have the desire to fulfill a commandment, that does not mean I have a desire not to fulfill a commandment. This is the distinction of the Shulchan Arukh HaRav. “Not wanting to fulfill a commandment” is not the same thing as “wanting not to fulfill a commandment,” or not to fulfill one’s obligation. Obviously. This is the distinction the Shulchan Arukh HaRav makes, and this is Rashbam’s distinction. And this sharpens the question: so why in the case of beer and wine is this opposite intention? And then I said: because this is a commandment. And if it is a commandment, then when you intend another commandment, that is like intending not to fulfill with the first commandment. Because you empty out your intention in the direction of the second commandment. Not that you say, okay, I don’t care, I’m blowing for music. No. I’m saying the basic distinction is one of formulation. Once you are speaking about commandments, when both alternatives are commandments, then even though from the perspective of wording it looks like an unspecified case or not opposite intention, in essence it is opposite intention. Halakhically it is opposite intention, because you take your intention and incline it toward another commandment instead of this one. And in one who blows for music, you are not taking the intention and redirecting it elsewhere; you are saying, I don’t care, I have no intention. It is an ordinary act, like the meal on Sunday—an ordinary meal on Sunday. Fine? So that is basically the meaning of opposite intention. In the counting of the Omer he is not… that is a question. No—if he does not intend to fulfill but simply intends something else, then it is like one who blows… If he says he intends not to fulfill, then there is no problem; that has nothing to do with commandments. Intending not to fulfill never helps. But if I do not intend to fulfill, then that is an unspecified case; according to Rava it does help. But if I do not intend to fulfill and the alternative is another commandment, then even according to Rava it does not help. A formulation where I say, “I do not intend to fulfill with this commandment but rather intend another commandment”—right, that is the distinction the Shulchan Arukh HaRav makes, obviously. I am only saying that if the alternative is another commandment, then even with a formulation where ordinarily you would still fulfill your obligation—“I do not intend to fulfill,” not “I intend not to fulfill,” I just do not intend to fulfill—what do you intend? If it is blowing for music, then basically nothing; music is nothing, it is an ordinary action. If I intend another commandment, then even if I said “I do not intend to fulfill,” not “I intend not to fulfill,” it is like intending not to fulfill. That is basically the claim. And in the Talmud in Zevachim, in several places you see: “its own kind ruins it; not its own kind does not ruin it.” When you have intention while offering a sacrifice for the sake of another sacrifice—an elevation offering for the sake of a peace offering, Passover offerings for the sake of a guilt offering, and so on. So there is… no, that is… something else. I mean all sacrifices slaughtered not for their proper sake do not count for the owners as fulfillment of their obligation—the opening Mishnah in Zevachim, we talked about that. But I am speaking when he intends another sacrifice, not merely that he does not intend it for its own proper sake, but for another sacrifice. So the Talmud says if it is of its own kind, from the same type of sacrifice, that ruins it. It is like opposite intention. But if it is not of its own kind, if it is something else altogether, then that is not called opposite intention; it is absence of intention. This is exactly this reasoning. Okay? And if it is commandment-intention, then it is like opposite intention regarding the other commandment. Because it is of the same kind—it too is commandment-intention, just a different commandment. If it is something else—one who blows for music—then it does not ruin it, it does not destroy the first intention. It only says there is no intention, fine, not opposite intention. Okay? You find these ideas in a number of places, and it seems to me that here one must say it, otherwise nothing means anything. What Rashbam says about beer and wine. Now there is only a note there—this is brought, I think, by Rabbi Moshe Weiss himself after he gives this reasoning of the alternative commandment. He says: then what do we do with “he was reading in the Torah and the time of the recitation arrived; if he directed his heart he fulfilled, and if not he did not fulfill”? He was reading in the Torah and the time of the recitation of Shema arrived. He recited the verses of Shema. The time of Shema arrived. If he directed his heart he fulfilled, and if not he did not fulfill. He says: here too this is a commandment. He was reading in the Torah and intended either the commandment of Torah study or the commandment of reciting Shema. Now supposedly here this is opposite intention, right? So if it says “if he directed his heart he fulfilled, and if not he did not fulfill,” and from there in our discussion they proved that commandments require intention—not true. Even Rava agrees that “if he directed his heart he fulfilled, and if not he did not fulfill.” Why? Because he is occupied with another commandment. So even according to Rava, here he does not fulfill his obligation. So what is the proof from this that commandments require intention? The law is true even according to Rava, so this is not a difficulty for Rava. Rather, it is a difficulty for the Talmud: what are you proving from here against Rava? There is no proof; even Rava agrees with this law. It seems to me that here one can resolve it, and he leaves it with “requires further examination.” It seems to me that here… What? Maybe blessing? Okay, so what? Blessing too is a commandment through speech. So what? Technically then, yes, it is a commandment through speech. But the act of the commandment… and blessing—what? Is blessing an act? The blessing was beginning with beer in mind and ending with wine in mind. No, no, no. If in its essence you must intend in reciting Shema, then you are simply saying that ordinary recitation of Shema is exceptional—not specifically because it is a commandment through speech, but because reciting Shema is acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven or something like that, and it is not really just the utterance. Fine, then that takes us completely outside our discussion. Then what are you proving from Rava that commandments do not require intention? It is unrelated to the issue altogether; it is specific to reciting Shema. What is happening? There is some… but here too? Here I do not hear. Discipline obligates. Fine. “Rava said: the law is that one who blows the shofar for music fulfills; one who is merely occupied with it does not fulfill. What is the implication? One who blows for music fulfills; evidently commandments do not require intention. But wasn’t it taught: if the listener intended but the blower did not intend, if the blower intended but the listener did not intend—the obligation is not fulfilled until both listener and blower intend. Is this a refutation of Rava? It is a refutation. And Rava? He would say: we are dealing with one obligated in the matter and fulfilling the obligation of others. What does it mean when it says ‘until both listener and blower intend’? It means this: in one who needs to fulfill the obligation of others. Really? But did not Rava say that commandments require intention? It is not difficult: this is for fulfilling, and that is for transgressing. And Rava follows his own reasoning, for Rava said: commandments require intention. Evidently Rava holds commandments require intention. So what does ‘one who blows for music fulfills’ mean? It means that even though he did not intend to fulfill, since he intended music, he fulfilled.” Rashi: “one who blows for music”—for the sound of the melody. “One who is occupied”—for example, when one merely scares it away. Tosafot on “one who blows for music”: “One who blows for music fulfills, and it asks from the baraita that says until both listener and blower intend. And if you say: why does it not ask from that teaching of ‘he was reading in the Torah,’ which we brought above and from which it sounds like intention is required? One can say that that can be explained where he is occupied with another commandment, as we wrote. But here, with what is he occupied? Blowing for music is not a commandment.” “And Rava said: one who blows in order to violate ‘do not add’—this works according to the one who says commandments do not require intention, he has transgressed; according to the one who says commandments require intention, he has not transgressed. Rava said: to fulfill one’s obligation requires intention; to transgress ‘do not add’ does not require intention.” The Talmud asks: “But wasn’t it taught: one who intends to transgress has not transgressed unless he intended to fulfill?” Rather Rava said: it is not difficult; this is in its proper time, and that is not in its proper time. In its proper time, to transgress does not require intention; not in its proper time, to transgress does require intention. Rava follows his own reasoning, for Rava said: commandments require intention.” The Ran explains: whenever one performs the act of the commandment in its proper time, it is as if he is adding to the commandment itself, and therefore he transgresses it even without intention for the commandment. But not in its proper time, since there is no commandment-time here, the act itself is not considered a commandment-act unless he intends it that way. And this is Rava’s distinction between its proper time and not in its proper time. “Commandments require intention” is with regard to fulfilling one’s obligation. But regarding “do not add,” if it is in its proper time, he transgresses even without intention. Fine, let’s continue. Purim is a day of very great illumination of the divine countenance. As is known from the Tikkunei Zohar, Yom Kippur is “like Purim.” That is, Purim is the source and root, and Yom Kippur is only similar to it. And this is a great wonder: how can a day of eating, drinking, and becoming intoxicated be greater than Yom Kippur? Rather, on Yom Kippur purification comes through withdrawal from matter, but on Purim purification is within matter. To transform matter itself into the Holy of Holies. The scroll is called Megillat Esther. “Megillah” from the language of revelation, and “Esther” from the language of concealment. To reveal the concealed. Amalek is the one who creates the concealment. Amalek has the numerical value of “doubt.” “Who happened upon you on the way”—he cools faith. He says everything is chance. On Purim we merit to see that everything is the hand of God. Even when it seems that Haman rules, even when it seems that everything is lost, the Holy One, blessed be He, turns everything around. And this is the secret of “and it was turned around.” Faith transforms reality. And in order to merit this, we need unity. “Go, gather all the Jews.” When there is unity among the Jewish people, the power of Amalek, which is the power of division and doubt, is nullified on its own. May we merit a happy and illuminating Purim for all the Jewish people. Just one remark that seems important to me, because I too have this defect of rational thinking, and apparently there is no real danger and no real reason to get up from the chair in a siren situation, and the chance of being harmed is simply absolutely zero. But precisely because of that I want to argue: one has to get up and go to a protected space. Exactly. Meaning, if everyone makes the calculation that there is really no risk that I will be harmed, then someone will be harmed. And this is Kant’s categorical imperative, and one could talk about that at length. I wrote about it too. Yes, if you want I’ll send it to you; I wrote posts about it and detailed things, but that is an important point. It has the practical implication that there is absolutely no reason to be afraid. The chance of being harmed is zero, there is no illusion here. But therefore one need not be afraid at all, while still needing to be disciplined, and those are two completely different things. Okay? Maybe there are people here who have already gotten here. We’ll talk about it at the end. Yes, right, those are irrational people, they’re afraid. There is nothing to fear; the risk is zero. But one must obey. “One must be concerned.” Here this is a simple rational consequentialist calculation. Better to die with the blanket over your head—everything is fine. Okay, that may be better for her, but it is not better for us. For us it is better not to, you know—it is like the saying, I think, from Rabbi Kook that people often quote. I once heard it in the name of some Vizhnitz rebbe or other: “Better to fail through baseless love than through baseless hatred.” And I always think it is better not to fail in either one; that is best of all. So the idea that it is better to die with the blanket over your head—that may be true, but best of all is not to die at all, not with the blanket over your head and not without the blanket over your head. Right? Yes. There was some ambivalence here with those 150. Okay. In any event, in short, it is better not to die at all. No, no—I am speaking here now about the north; that is a question of a direct anti-tank missile. There is nothing to discuss there; that is obvious. In Kiryat Shmona too, by the way—but a direct anti-tank missile is something else. In Kiryat Shmona they fire at an entire city. What is the chance it will hit you? Zero. The chance is negligible, really there is nothing to fear at all. The fear is simply irrational. Fine, in any event one has to be careful, one has to be careful because of the categorical imperative. Fine, let’s move to Maimonides’ approach. One more remark regarding Ra’ah. There is also a difficulty with Ra’ah: how exactly, if you hold that opposite intention does not help and disagree with Rashbam, what do you do with Rashbam’s proof from the Talmud in Berakhot? Beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind. What? Ra’ah. Regarding the Ran, I said it is open whether he disagrees with Rashbam or not, but Ra’ah disagrees with Rashbam. And the question is how he will explain the discussion in Berakhot about beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind. And it may be that according to Ra’ah he wants to create three levels. In other words, there is blowing for music, which for him is fine; and opposite intention, which is also fine because he disagrees with Rashbam; but intention for another commandment is worse than opposite intention. And there—and this is what he will claim—in the Berakhot passage, even though in general opposite intention is not relevant, meaning it does not interfere, intention for another commandment is worse than opposite intention. This is basically like acting without awareness, one might say. Because we already said that according to everyone, one who is merely occupied with something does not fulfill his obligation, even according to the one who says commandments do not require intention. And the claim is that if you are involved in another commandment altogether, and in the course of that, incidentally, as it were, it happened that you also performed this commandment, then that counts as acting without awareness, and perhaps this is worse even according to Ra’ah. So the same distinction I made in Rashbam’s view—why according to Rashbam beginning with wine in mind and ending with beer in mind counts as opposite intention and is not like blowing for music because this is a commandment—the same distinction I also say in Ra’ah’s view, who disagrees with him. And Ra’ah says opposite intention does not ruin the commandment, but intention for another commandment is even worse. Okay? You are not involved in the commandment at all—what does that mean? Like someone who hears the sound of the shofar and thinks it is the braying of a donkey. Right, exactly. Then with respect to this commandment he is merely occupied; he is not engaged in it at all. It is like someone walking down the street and tearing off a branch—he does not notice at all that he tore off a branch; he is occupied with something else. Someone who hears the sound of the shofar and thinks it is the braying of a donkey heard the sound of the shofar, but it is considered merely incidental occupation. He is not in the context of the commandment at all. Okay. Fine. Now Maimonides’ approach, which we touched on a bit—I lingered today, so there is a contradiction. On the one hand, in the laws of leaven and matzah, Maimonides writes as follows: “If one ate matzah without intention, for example if gentiles or bandits forced him to eat, he has fulfilled his obligation. If he ate an olive’s bulk of matzah while he was in a fit,” and so on. So what does this mean? It says: if the Persians forced him to eat matzah, he fulfilled. So apparently commandments do not require intention. That is what Rava says, after all; from there he learns that commandments do not require intention. In the laws of shofar: “One who is occupied in blowing the shofar in order to practice has not fulfilled his obligation, and likewise one who hears from one so occupied has not fulfilled. If the listener intended to fulfill his obligation but the blower did not intend to fulfill it for him, or if the blower intended to fulfill it for him but the listener did not intend to fulfill, he has not fulfilled his obligation until both listener and blower intend.” From here many medieval and later authorities point out that there is a contradiction in Maimonides. In the first law it says commandments do not require intention, like Rava, and here he rules like Rabbi Zeira that commandments do require intention. You need the intention of listener and blower, so commandments do require intention. Again. Wait, wait—those are resolutions, in a moment—but first of all, there is apparently a contradiction in Maimonides. So, as I said last time, there is no contradiction at all. I do not understand what they want from him. There is no contradiction at all. This is the plain straightforward reading of the Talmud; it is not a resolution. Those who think otherwise need resolutions. The straightforward reading of the Talmud is that Rabbi Zeira agrees that commandments do not require intention. Maimonides rules like Rabbi Zeira: commandments do not require intention, and therefore if the Persians forced him to eat matzah he fulfilled; Rabbi Zeira agrees to that too. Not because he enjoyed it, but because intention is not needed. Why with shofar do you need the intention of listener and blower? Because of “the listener is like the speaker.” Maimonides does not bring at all the case that one who blows the shofar without intending to fulfill has not fulfilled his obligation. What law does he bring here? Someone who hears from someone else, and there is a lack of intention on the part of the listener or the blower—he has not fulfilled. Why do you not first bring the main law, that one needs to intend in the blowing of the shofar to fulfill one’s obligation? He does not bring that at all. Because the straightforward reading—I do not understand everyone’s complications. Exactly. And this is what Rabbi Zeira himself—again, the straightforward reading of the Talmud in Rabbi Zeira himself is like this: commandments do not require intention, but one still needs the intention of listener and blower because of “the listener is like the speaker.” And that is what Maimonides rules. He rules like Rabbi Zeira. That is all. Now, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) did not all learn Rabbi Zeira this way; some of them learned Rabbi Zeira otherwise, and they argued that Rabbi Zeira holds that commandments require intention, like the Baal HaMaor. While he himself rules that commandments do not require intention, they say Rabbi Zeira says commandments require intention. Why? The Ran as well. I said why—apparently because they understand that the intention of listener and blower is required only where commandments require intention. If commandments did not require intention, then we would not need listener-and-blower intention either, and maybe it is really the same intention—I gave two possibilities in the previous class. So what? That is in the baraita at the end, but that is not Rabbi Zeira himself. The baraita really does imply that commandments require intention, but when you ask against Rabbi Zeira, you are asking only from the law of “the listener is like the speaker,” and that he will answer. So when Maimonides brings Rabbi Zeira in the straightforward way, what is the difficulty? Maimonides brings Rabbi Zeira, not the baraita at the end. And Rabbi Zeira holds that commandments do not require intention; one only needs listener-and-blower intention, that is all. Nothing else is needed. Now, intention to fulfill your obligation and intention of mine to fulfill yours—what good does my blowing do to fulfill your obligation? Why should I care? Yes, intention is not needed when you yourself perform the commandment, but here I am the one doing the commandment. Someone else is doing it. So how do you fulfill? Why how do you fulfill? But I performed the commandment, not you. How is my commandment credited to you? If I shook a lulav—commandments do not require intention—and I shook a lulav, did you perform the commandment? I shook the lulav. Ah, so you are making assumptions about the nature of the commandment—we’ll see that shortly. You assume that the commandment is to hear, and then we do not need here the law of “the listener is like the speaker.” Fine, but Maimonides says no, we do need here the law of “the listener is like the speaker.” We’ll soon see what that means. So first of all, that is the plain reading in Maimonides. Okay. Therefore there is no contradiction at all in Maimonides. Clearly this is what he rules, and I do not think one needs to get entangled here in any way. In the Shulchan Arukh, siman 589, he copies Maimonides’ words. Or maybe I only just began—so the Ran and the Baal HaMaor and all those who read Rabbi Zeira as saying that commandments require intention—fine, I understand how they read Rabbi Zeira; I explained how they read Rabbi Zeira. But to turn that into a difficulty against Maimonides or a contradiction in Maimonides—that is absurd. After all, the simple meaning of Rabbi Zeira is certainly not like them, but like Maimonides says, which is exactly what Maimonides writes. So why are you asking him questions? Fine, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who learn otherwise—I can with some effort explain how they nevertheless managed to read Rabbi Zeira that way. But Maimonides, who brings Rabbi Zeira straightforwardly, has no contradiction at all, and that is how one learns it, and everything is fine. That closes the matter. In Shulchan Arukh, siman 589, he copies Maimonides’ words. He says: “If one ate matzah without intention, for example if gentiles or bandits forced him to eat, he has fulfilled his obligation, provided he knows that tonight is Passover and that he is obligated to eat matzah. But if he thought it was an ordinary weekday, or that this was not matzah, he has not fulfilled, because that is merely incidental occupation.” So what does he say? Like Maimonides, right? If gentiles or bandits forced him to eat, he fulfilled his obligation. Does that mean commandments do not require intention, or do require intention—what does that mean? What I said about Maimonides. The Talmud does not say “because of bodily pleasure.” The Talmud says there was an initial thought in Rava, and some of the medieval authorities explain that the initial thought is bodily pleasure, but that too is rejected; that is only an initial thought. Apparently commandments do not require intention. He too copies Maimonides: commandments do not require intention. But that cannot be, because in Shulchan Arukh, siman 60—with that I opened the series—he says that commandments do require intention in practice. He brings both opinions and says that in practice commandments do require intention. So here that already creates a problem, because here he copies Maimonides. In Maimonides himself, commandments do not require intention and everything is fine, and what he says about listener and blower is only because of “the listener is like the speaker.” But the Shulchan Arukh, who copies Maimonides word for word—there one cannot explain that commandments do not require intention, because he himself rules in siman 60 that commandments do require intention. So here the possibility opens up to say that according to his own view, commandments do require intention, and with matzah it is because he enjoyed it, therefore he fulfilled. If the Persians forced him, he still enjoyed it. Ah, in the Talmud that is only an initial thought that was rejected? In the Talmud that is only an initial thought rejected? Not true. In the Talmud it is an initial thought according to Rava, where Rava says commandments do not require intention. We had an initial thought to say yes, but maybe with matzah it is like this and with shofar it is like that—then it teaches us that not so. But according to the view that commandments do require intention, what do we say? Then with shofar you need listener and blower; you need intention because shofar requires intention. And with matzah, Shmuel’s father says that if the Persians forced him to eat matzah he fulfilled. Why? Because of that very initial thought that was rejected according to Rava. According to the one who says commandments require intention, that initial thought remains as the conclusion. In Rava’s own view it is an initial thought that is rejected. And if the Shulchan Arukh rules like Rabbi Zeira—never mind—he rules that commandments require intention, so what is the problem? Then why, if the Persians forced him to eat matzah, did he fulfill? That same initial thought that appeared in Rava’s view and was rejected there remains the conclusion here: because he enjoyed it. Okay, so note: the Shulchan Arukh copies Maimonides, but the explanation in the Shulchan Arukh is not Maimonides’ explanation. In Maimonides he fulfilled because commandments do not require intention, and in the Shulchan Arukh he fulfilled because he enjoyed it. Of course the Shulchan Arukh also did not read Maimonides that way, but in my opinion he was mistaken. That is, Maimonides says commandments do not require intention. The Shulchan Arukh thinks he is copying Maimonides according to his own understanding too, because he read Maimonides as saying commandments do require intention, as we saw in Beit Yosef. Fine? But I do not think that is right. He copies Maimonides, and he can state his own view differently—that is fine, I can reconcile that—but that is not Maimonides’ view. Maimonides says commandments do not require intention. The commentaries too get tangled up in these things because it is so strange. When I read the Talmud, I just read it straight. I say: Rabbi Zeira clearly is not dealing with whether commandments require intention. Right, almost everyone. Right. Rabbi Zeira is made strange and implausible. It is only because they are captive to some odd reading of the Talmud, where Rabbi Zeira holds commandments require intention. As I said, the plain reading of the Talmud is not like that at all. More than that, the plain reading of the Talmud has nothing to do at all with bodily pleasure; even the initial thought according to Rava is not about bodily pleasure. It is related to the reasoning of the Bach—that perhaps “a memorial of a blast” is a special law in shofar, and there intention is needed according to everyone. That is the straightforward reading—I don’t know, almost all the medieval authorities here go in some direction that to me seems forced. Fine, once you went there, you went there. But what do you want from those who did not go in that direction? You ask them questions. What does this have to do with intention? We’ll get to that in a second. Or we’ll get to it or we won’t, we’ll see. The Magen Avraham says: “without intention—even though commandments require intention.” Magen Avraham himself comments on the Shulchan Arukh: after all, the Shulchan Arukh writes that without intention one fulfills, but the Shulchan Arukh also says that commandments require intention, as he wrote in siman 60, section 4—that is the Shulchan Arukh we saw. So he says: “matters of eating are different, for he ate and enjoyed it thereby.” And what is the reason? Even if he knew it was matzah, etc. Okay, let’s leave it, never mind; I won’t begin dealing with it now because we need to finish. But the Magen Avraham basically says “because he enjoyed it,” fine? Why? Because regarding the Shulchan Arukh he is also right; you have to say that, because the Shulchan Arukh himself rules that commandments require intention. But it has nothing to do with Maimonides. Maimonides, who writes the very same law, says it because commandments do not require intention. He rules like Rava or like Rabbi Zeira—it doesn’t matter; they do not disagree on this issue. Fine? He goes on and says: and what is the reason that even if he knew it was matzah and did not want to eat it and they forced him to eat, he fulfilled? Fine—because he enjoyed it. Fine? But if there is a problem of intention here, then that is not true. Why should bodily pleasure help? Bodily pleasure helps solve a problem of incidental occupation, but who says that bodily pleasure helps solve the problem of lack of intention? That initial thought is itself difficult, and to say it as the conclusion is even harder. The initial thought is that with matzah one fulfills because he enjoyed it. We talked about how “because he enjoyed it” is said in prohibitions: one who inadvertently engages in forbidden fats or sexual prohibitions is liable, because he enjoyed it. In prohibitions I can understand this, because all that is lacking is the connection between me and the act, the commandment-act or transgression-act. “Because he enjoyed it” says: your body enjoyed it, so it is connected to you. But when you are speaking about the lack of intention—the intention to fulfill—then why should bodily pleasure be a substitute for intention to fulfill? So what if he enjoyed it? Does that mean he intended to fulfill? What does one have to do with the other? So indeed Rabbi Akiva Eiger says that apparently it comes out that the intention to fulfill is part of the law of incidental occupation. That is what I explained in Rashi’s view: that the intention to fulfill is part of the law of incidental occupation. If you do not intend to fulfill, then the problem is not that there is a missing intention to fulfill, but that you are merely occupied and the act is not connected to you at all. Because I spoke there about the idea that intention is part of the commandment-act. I said that according to Rashi, in an extreme formulation, there is really only one positive commandment in the Torah. Not 613 commandments. One positive commandment: to obey the voice of the Holy One, blessed be He. That is the positive commandment. There are many things that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded, and in each one you have to observe it because there is a commandment to obey the voice of the Holy One, blessed be He. So if you do not intend to fulfill, then you are not engaged in obeying the voice of the Holy One, blessed be He at all; you are merely occupied. So bodily pleasure solves the problem. And all this is homiletics that one can say with difficulty, but certainly not turn into questions against others. Fine, look afterward in the summary I’ll send. Look afterward at the Biur Halakhah. Maybe I’ll just say one sentence in order nevertheless to close the picture. Look, this is also connected to these days—Rosh Hashanah in two days. The big question still remains, even in Maimonides’ view, that Maimonides apparently holds that the commandment is hearing. Look at Maimonides, chapter 1, law 1: “It is a positive commandment of the Torah to hear the blast of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.” Right? The commandment is to hear the blast of the shofar, as it says: “It shall be a day of blasting for you.” Fine, then nothing is clear. So why does he require listener-and-blower intention? If the commandment is—what you asked earlier—if the commandment is to hear, and commandments do not require intention, then why do you need intention because of “the listener is like the speaker”? There is a commandment to hear, and I heard—what is the problem? If the commandment is to blow, and he blew, and I want to fulfill my obligation, then we need the law of “the listener is like the speaker,” so that his blowing counts for me as if I did it. Then there is “the listener is like the speaker,” and maybe there are also intentions needed in order for the law of “the listener is like the speaker” to take effect. But if the commandment is only hearing, then all that remains is only the issue of whether commandments require intention. There is no law here of “the listener is like the speaker.” There is no law of “the listener is like the speaker” at all. Consequently there is nothing to discuss whether “the listener is like the speaker” requires the corresponding intentions or takes effect without them. I do not care—whether you say this or that, we do not need here the law of “the listener is like the speaker.” You see the same thing in law 3 in Maimonides, chapter 1, law 3: “One should not blow with a shofar of idolatry ab initio, but if he blew with it he fulfilled; and with one from an idolatrous city, if he blew with it he did not fulfill. If he blew with a stolen shofar, he fulfilled, for the commandment is only in hearing the sound. Even though he did not touch it or lift it, the listener fulfilled, and with regard to sound there is no law of theft.” Sound is something that has no tangible substance; there is no theft law in it. You do not touch the shofar, you only need to hear. Fine, he blew—so he blew with a stolen shofar. But I heard the sound, and there is no theft law regarding sound, so this is not a commandment that comes through a transgression. Everything is fine. But once again, the principle is that the commandment is hearing. What? Yes. Just the plain meaning of the measured amount. The plain meaning of the measured amount. So from these two laws you see that according to Maimonides the commandment is hearing. So look in the summary I’ll send. In the Chazon Ish there is a long discussion of this. Two passages from the Chazon Ish will be there in the summary. One of them discusses the law of “the listener is like the speaker”—to what extent you really need the intentions of both sides, and so on. The second passage discusses shofar blowing. He says that even though the commandment is hearing, you still need the law of “the listener is like the speaker.” Why? Because in various contexts we find laws governing the blower even though the commandment is hearing. Why are there laws on the blower? Because what you need to hear is a blast—a commandment-blast. The commandment is hearing. But you need to hear a shofar blast. Now what is a shofar blast? Exactly. Now it could be that there are rules or definitions or requirements regarding the blowing in order for it to be a blast such that hearing it is the commandment. And maybe because of that you need the intentions. Right. No, he says that all the laws of “the listener is like the speaker” exist with shofar too, even though in essence he is not really fulfilling your obligation for you; you are merely hearing. But you need to hear a blast, and nevertheless in practice the relationship between you is like the relationship of “the listener is like the speaker.” That is what the Chazon Ish argues. Okay? By way of analogy, for example, there is a commandment to sit in a sukkah. Right? But there is no commandment to build a sukkah. So what is “make it and not from what is already made”? Suppose the sukkah came into being by itself, yes? Someone hollowed out a haystack. “Make it and not from what is already made.” Fine, so it came into being from what was already made. So what? The commandment is to sit in the sukkah, not to make a sukkah. I sat in a sukkah. Why should I care how the sukkah was made? Did you sit in the air? Exactly. Because the commandment is to sit in a sukkah, and now you need to define what a sukkah is. A sukkah is only a sukkah that was made. A sukkah that came into being by itself, not by a human being, is not a sukkah. So you cannot sit in it. Even though the commandment is sitting in the sukkah and not building it, there can still be requirements concerning the building of the sukkah. If you did not build it properly, then it is not a sukkah such that sitting in it is the commandment. The same thing I want to claim: the commandment is to hear the sounding of the shofar. Still, that does not mean there cannot be requirements defining what a shofar sounding is such that hearing it is the commandment. Okay—two different things. Therefore, even though the commandment is hearing, there are still requirements on the blowing. Intention of listener and blower, “the listener is like the speaker.” No, but he says that only—that you’ll see there in the Chazon Ish. Chazon Ish—good question. The Chazon Ish argues no, that is only for “the listener is like the speaker,” even though the blower by himself, if he were fulfilling for himself, might not need those intentions. The interesting question is when the blower is fulfilling his own obligation: is that considered a case where there is listener and blower, or in that case it is the same person? And then all the things required are required exactly as when there is a separate blower and listener. He mentions the Torah-level law that if someone shaves his own head in the prohibited fashion, regarding rounding the head, whether he transgresses both as the one who shaves and as the one being shaved. In that case too it is the same person. But there is still one who shaves and one who is shaved, and there is a prohibition on this and a prohibition on that. So similarly, the Chazon Ish has a parallel discussion here too regarding one who blows for himself. And he argues that this applies only when one is listener and blower for others, and the blower by himself, if he were making it heard for himself, might not have needed this. But you’ll see that already in the pages from the Chazon Ish that I’ll send. Okay. That’s it—thank you very much.