Q&A: Intention in Commandments
Intention in Commandments
Question
Hello and blessings to the honored gaon, may he live long. We would be grateful if you would address this question: In Kiddushin (39b) it says: if his father said to him, “Go up to the loft and bring me fledglings,” and he went up to the loft, sent away the mother, and took the young, and on his way back he fell and died—where is this one’s good, and where is this one’s long life, etc.? And perhaps he was contemplating a sin; an evil thought the Holy One, blessed be He, does not combine with an action, etc.; see there. The point is that there is no case here in which he actually honors his father or mother, and thus he would not be fulfilling the commandment of honoring them by this.
However, we find that according to Tosafot (Sukkah 42a) and the Rosh (there, siman 33, s.v. “and one must be precise”), even according to the view that commandments do not require intention, if one explicitly intends not to fulfill his obligation, he does not fulfill the commandment. [Unlike the interpretation of the Ra’ah, cited in Beit Yosef, siman 589, who holds that even if he cries out that he does not want to fulfill his obligation, he nevertheless does fulfill it.]
According to the views of Tosafot and the Rosh, this requires clarification: why don’t we answer that perhaps this man explicitly intended not to fulfill the commandment of honoring his father, and therefore he is not included in the promise of “so that your days may be long”?
Answer
This has nothing to do with the discussion of whether commandments require intention. First, there are several views that for commandments between man and God there is no need for intention (and the Minchat Chinukh discusses whether honoring parents is between man and God or between man and fellow man, with practical ramifications for repentance without having appeased the other person). But in our case there is no need for any of that.
The point is that even according to the views that opposite intention negates the commandment, reward is given for the goodness of the act, not for the formal fulfillment of the commandment. Is it possible that a moral act that is not a formal commandment, and was not done for the sake of a commandment but simply in order to do good, receives no reward? See Maimonides at the end of chapter 8 of Laws of Kings in the accurate version: “but rather from among their wise men.”
However, according to my approach it follows that the Torah’s promise of long life is given for the act of honoring parents, not for the commandment of honoring parents. According to this, it is a bit difficult why in the Talmud this is classified as a commandment whose reward is stated alongside it (and therefore one does not compel observance of it). But that is not difficult, because clearly when one fulfills the commandment he is given reward. My claim is that he can be given reward even if there is no formal fulfillment of the commandment. That is obvious.
And indeed the Gemara in Kiddushin was precise in rejecting the possibility that perhaps he was contemplating a sin, and did not mention opposite intention, because its purpose was to present a case in which he does not even have a good act, not merely a case in which he lacks a commandment. In that respect, someone contemplating a sin is different from someone who has opposite intention, which is not itself evil. One who contemplates a sin loses even the reward (in the initial assumption, though in the conclusion it is newly established that even this is not so, because the Holy One, blessed be He, does not combine an evil thought with an action). Were I not hesitant, I would say even more than that: one who entertains an evil thought loses the goodness of the act and the reward, but it is possible that he still has a commandment to his credit (certainly according to the views that opposite intention does not negate a commandment). I think I once sent you Rabbi Asher Weiss’s lecture to yeshiva students during the coronavirus period, where he discusses this at length. I discussed his remarks in column 343.
Discussion on Answer
These two things are not comparable. Even if the commandment is toward God, the father can still waive it. By way of analogy: the king commands me to honor so-and-so in order to honor him. If so-and-so waives it, then there is no longer any failure to honor him, and therefore no affront to the king either.
And perhaps according to this, disgracing one’s father is forbidden even if he waived his honor. That is not the same as merely failing to honor him.
I understood very well.
And regarding the Minchat Chinukh (commandment 33), who was unsure whether the commandment of honoring one’s father and mother is a commandment between man and fellow man or between man and God, see there. And in Birkat Shmuel (Yevamot, siman 3) we find that he holds that the commandment of honoring one’s father and mother belongs to the category of commandments between man and God, see there. But at first glance this requires analysis: according to the side that it is a commandment between man and God, how does a father’s waiving of his honor help (Kiddushin 32b)? Seemingly, according to that side, the commandment is not toward the father; rather, the father is the form through which the commandment is fulfilled, but the essence of the commandment is toward Heaven. [Here one might also ask from the Mishnah at the beginning of Peah: “These are the things whose fruits a person eats in this world while the principal remains for him in the World to Come, etc.—honoring father and mother.” Maimonides explained that this is because it is a commandment between man and fellow man, and that also seems to be the meaning there in the Rosh’s commentary, where he writes that because the Holy One, blessed be He, desires more those commandments through which one fulfills the will of other people than commandments through which one fulfills only the will of his Creator, therefore he eats the fruits in this world. Seemingly this contradicts the straightforward implication of Birkat Shmuel. Look carefully at the language of Maimonides and the Rosh, and understand the parameters of this commandment.]