Q&A: He Intended to Perform a Commandment
He Intended to Perform a Commandment
Question
The Talmud says: if someone intended to perform a commandment but was prevented by circumstances beyond his control and did not perform it, Scripture credits him as if he had performed it.
If so, how can a religious court compel someone to fulfill a positive commandment?
After all, it is possible that he is in fact thinking about performing some commandment that he is unable to do—that is, he is prevented from doing it against his will—but he does intend to do it, and therefore it is as if he is doing it; so automatically he should be exempt from the other positive commandment that the religious court is trying to force him to fulfill. Whoever can answer this is a true genius.
Answer
I didn’t understand the question (maybe I’m not enough of a true genius). This is nonsense that doesn’t require a genius—and certainly not a true one—to resolve. Here are several possibilities for you to choose from:
- A religious court compels fulfillment of a positive commandment because the assumption is that at this moment he is not thinking about another commandment. Why assume that precisely now he is? And if he really is thinking about one, let him say so.
- Even if he is thinking about one, why would that prevent compulsion? One who is actively engaged in a commandment is exempt from another commandment—not one who is thinking about a commandment.
- And finally, if someone intended to perform a commandment and did not perform it, Scripture credits him as if he had performed it, but that does not mean there is actual fulfillment of a positive commandment here. It is "as if."
Discussion on Answer
I would like to write, “according to its sharpness, so its error,” but unfortunately all I see here is error.
Let me add a fourth possibility for you, and leave you to stew in it:
4. According to most medieval authorities (Rishonim), when it is possible to fulfill both, there is no exemption.
The whole allowance regarding thinking about a commandment is only because he is preoccupied with how to fulfill it in practical terms, like a bridegroom and travelers during Sukkot; but here, where there is nothing practical, there is automatically no exemption of one who is engaged in a commandment.
And besides, the Rabbi already wrote to you that most medieval authorities (Rishonim) hold that there is no “engaged in a commandment” exemption in a case like this where he could do both.
And by the way, about the “as if”:
The spiritual supervisor in my yeshiva used to say, jokingly, that all the “as if” commandments atone for all the “as if” sins.
A true genius knows how to understand that the answers are not sufficient. Unless heresy has been thrown into him, so as to take the words of the Sages away from their plain meaning and turn everything into mockery; Heaven forbid, I am neither among them nor among their crowd.
1. And if he says that right now he wants to fulfill the commandment of honoring parents, but unfortunately his father is not in the area, so he is prevented from fulfilling it—then the religious court will not compel him to fulfill a positive commandment? Certainly we have never heard such a thing. By the way, he could also violate prohibitions, because the positive commandment (which he is actually doing now, since he is prevented) overrides the prohibition.
2. One who thinks about the commandment is like one engaged in it—that is exactly the point. Unless one decides that the Sages were just throwing words into the air without meaning.
3. That is answer no. 2 in different words. The meaning is that in actual fact he did not do it, because the tangible cannot be denied, but from the standpoint of Jewish law he did do it.