Still, if you were a member of a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz, in my opinion there is no transgression on you and you don’t need to repent.

With God’s help, 9 Shevat 5782

To the questioner — abundant peace and salvation,

I heard that Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu of blessed memory was asked a somewhat similar question by an immigrant from the USSR who, during the days of the “Iron Curtain,” did not know the laws of tefillin and improvised tefillin for himself: he took passages from a photographed copy of the Hebrew Bible in Russian and placed them in wooden boxes.

Years later, when he came to Israel and learned the laws, his conscience bothered him: perhaps he had to repent for the “blessings said in vain” that he had recited every day over the invalid tefillin he had put on out of ignorance, and he asked Rabbi Eliyahu. The rabbi answered him: “I envy the merit you had in putting on those ‘tefillin.’”

And it seems to me that here too, in light of your knowledge of Judaism at the time, you did a wonderful act. You gave of yourself. You showed sensitivity and took responsibility so that innocent people would not suffer hunger and thirst for an entire day. Fortunate are you and fortunate is your lot!

Best regards,
Amihuz Yaron Shnitzelar

As for the act itself, one can suggest several halakhic considerations:

A. It seems to me that in practice for many centuries it has been customary to permit violating the Sabbath in order to save non-Jews, whether because of concern for danger to life if it becomes known that a Jew refrained from saving them on the Sabbath, or because of positions among the medieval authorities that permit violating the Sabbath for the sake of saving the life of a non-Jew who keeps the seven Noahide commandments. Religious medical workers rely on this every single Sabbath.

B. If you had a radio device, perhaps instead of eating the wafers you could have contacted your commander and called his attention to the situation. Using a radio, if it does not have an incandescent bulb, is only rabbinically prohibited according to most halakhic decisors, and therefore perhaps there would be room to permit it in the circumstances of this case.

C. Perhaps you could have put a lot of salt on the wafers until they became “unfit for eating,” and then seemingly there would not have been a Torah prohibition in eating them.

I am not a halakhic decisor, but in my humble opinion these possibilities are worth discussing.

Best regards, see there.

The fact that he envied him for the merit doesn’t mean he fulfilled his obligation. Obviously not. True, in the responsa Sod Yesharim of the Ben Ish Hai he wrote in the name of his grandfather, who was also the rabbi of Baghdad, that someone who put on invalid tefillin (slightly rounded) his whole life is not in the category of “a skull that never put on tefillin.” And that is a very astonishing statement in terms of Jewish law. As for reward in the World to Come, that is a different discussion. See here on the site in my opinion piece about lemon essence on Passover.

Does the statement that such a person is not “a skull that never put on tefillin” also have a halakhic meaning apart from the matter of reward in the World to Come?

As far as I remember, his statement was that they fulfilled the commandment of tefillin, not just “a skull that never put on tefillin” in the mystical sense. His assumption was that someone under compulsion is treated as though he acted.

Maybe he meant that the Holy One, blessed be He, is supposed to see to it that their state in the World to Come, in every respect, will be exactly the same as if they had put on square tefillin (especially according to the Tur, that the act is only a condition). One person traveled on the main road and another went on foot through mountains and valleys, and both arrive at exactly the same place.

Since I’ve recently gotten access to Otzar HaHochma, I opened it just now. Rav Pe’alim, part 4, Orach Chaim, siman 2.
He wonders: “If so, Heaven forbid, they would be lacking a great and supreme commandment that stands at the very cornerstone… and such a thing the mind cannot bear.” But after all, they are like Rabbi Yosei ben HaHorni, to whom they said in the Mishnah: “If that is how you acted, you never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life” [though there there are interpretations that mean he never fulfilled the commandment properly, or that they used hyperbole].
Then he answers: “We follow his intention, for he intended for the sake of Heaven to perform a commandment, because in his eyes this was a complete and perfect commandment, and he did it for the sake of Heaven, so certainly he has full reward,” and his proof is from a transgression done for the sake of Heaven, where we follow the intention and not the act with regard to reward.

It seems that in the question he is dealing with the wonder of how they could be lacking the commandment itself, and in the answer he responds that nevertheless they will merit the same reward. (Perhaps from the outset all he was asking about was the reward — that is, the whole range of consequences born from a properly performed commandment — and therefore he wondered how they could be missing that perfection.)

I’ll bring his two responsa.
In the section “Sod Yesharim” he is actually dealing with spiritual dulling of the heart, and argues that a transgression committed under compulsion does not cause spiritual dulling of the heart:

Question. A person drank a beverage and there was an ant or mosquito in it, in such a way that he did not himself cause this but it happened to him under complete compulsion, in a way that he cannot be blamed and one cannot say he should have been careful and was not. Likewise, a certified and God-fearing slaughterer who mistakenly slaughtered with a blemished knife inadvertently, did not notice, and respectable people ate the meat. Or a town slaughterer who had been examined and appointed by the sages and was presumed God-fearing, but was secretly wicked and fed carrion and non-kosher meat to Israel. What is the law regarding those who ate innocently, and this evil matter did not become known to them either at the beginning or at the end? Was their soul defiled by this impurity of carrion and creeping creatures, regarding which it is written, “Do not defile yourselves with them, and you shall become defiled through them”? Let our teacher, instructor and rabbi teach us, and may his reward be complete from Heaven.
Answer. An impure creature, and likewise the flesh of carrion and non-kosher meat, do not in themselves defile a person’s soul. Even though it is written concerning them, “and you shall become defiled through them,” the intention is not to say that their physical substance defiles the human soul. Rather, every forbidden and impure thing has a spiritual force of impurity resting upon it, and when a person eats it, that force of impurity rests upon the person, enters him, and defiles him. However, if he is under complete compulsion and does not know at all of the prohibition and impurity, and there is also no causation attributable to him by which he caused himself to stumble inadvertently — if he ate that forbidden and impure thing, the force of impurity of that thing does not rest upon the person, and the force of impurity has no permission to enter him or even touch him. Something like this is said about Jael, regarding whom the Holy One, blessed be He, said: “Who testifies concerning her that that wicked one did not touch her?” And this is surprising, for after all he had relations with her seven times. But the matter is that since his acts were under complete compulsion, the force of the husk and evil of his sexual immorality did not touch her, and the husk did not rest upon her.
Similarly, with God’s help, I wrote regarding what our sages said, that food placed under a bed has an evil spirit resting upon it. I said that if a person put someone else’s food under the bed without his knowledge, and the one who put it there is a stranger, not his son, wife, or servant, so that we could say his hand is like the owner’s hand, then the evil spirit that rests on food placed under a bed does not rest upon it, on the principle that a person cannot prohibit something that is not his. Therefore the halakhic authorities ruled that if a non-Jew shook a Jew’s wine in order to cause him a loss, it is not prohibited. And why is it not prohibited? After all, wine used for idolatry causes impurity in a person’s soul, as written in the book Yayin HaMeshumar. But with this it is understandable: since the non-Jew wants to prohibit the wine and defile it against the owner’s will, the force of impurity does not take effect upon the wine through this shaking, and it remains in its purity.

But in the responsa Rav Pe’alim, Orach Chaim, part 4, siman 2, he discusses the question of invalid tefillin, and there he writes that he has a commandment. Although in some formulations it seems he means to say that he has reward for a commandment, which is a different statement. And since all this touches on what I wrote here, I’ll bring it in full:

+Regarding tefillin boxes that are not square, and regarding straps processed by non-Jews.+ It is known concerning the boxes of the head-tefillin and arm-tefillin that were made here in our city, Baghdad, may it be established and rebuilt, from ancient times, that they were not square, to the point that one could plainly see with the eye that they were not square, and there was no need to test them with a compass and measuring tool. In the time of our great master, my teacher and grandfather, Rabbi Moshe Chaim, of blessed memory, the esteemed sage Rabbi Yehuda Ashkenazi, of blessed memory, who was from the residents of Damascus, came to our city and was skilled in several crafts, and he argued before my grandfather the rabbi regarding the tefillin that were not square, and said that it was within his power to teach the craftsmen to make them square. And my grandfather, after examining the words of the halakhic authorities on this matter, agreed to invalidate them, as Rabbi Korban Ishah discussed at length, Orach Chaim 67:7. He then proclaimed in all the synagogues that all the tefillin worn by the men of the city were invalid. From then on they were to wear their tefillin without a blessing until the craftsman learned to make new square tefillin whose squareness would be complete, proper, and precise by compass and measuring tool; then everyone had to make new boxes and bless over them. And so it was: the entire community, from the smallest to the greatest, all refrained from blessing over the tefillin. And after the above-mentioned Rabbi Yehuda Ashkenazi sat with the craftsman day and night and taught him how to make square tefillin properly and accurately by compass and measuring tool, then the whole community made new boxes and blessed over them. And although this matter was very difficult for the leaders of the city and the distinguished members of the congregation, and also for some of the sages of the city, who said that it was a disgrace to us to say that the people of the great city of Baghdad had not been putting on valid tefillin for many years until this Ashkenazi came and made valid tefillin for us — nevertheless they could not prevent this matter, for who could open his mouth before my grandfather the rabbi, and who could defy him? And against their will they bowed their heads to fulfill his decree. Through him the entire great community of our city, which is a mother city in Israel, from the smallest to the greatest, merited this great commandment of tefillin to perform it properly. He did the righteousness of the Lord; he merited and caused the public to merit, for even though there is the opinion of Riaz at the beginning of the laws of tefillin, alluded to by Rabbi Chida in Machzik Berakhah after bringing the responsum of Rabbi Zera Yaakov, nevertheless it is known that the opinion of Riaz is a lone opinion, for all the halakhic authorities hold that the boxes too must be square, and according to them the tefillin that were made here, which were visibly not square, were invalid. And my grandfather the rabbi, who made this correction through his efforts — fortunate is he and fortunate is his lot; the merit of the public depends on him.
And praise God, another correction was also made here in our city regarding tefillin. About fifteen years after my grandfather the rabbi passed away, the sages became aware of the matter of the straps that the scribes were making, and saw that they were not processing the leather of the straps for its own sacred purpose, but were buying hides processed by a non-Jew in full processing, and then throwing a bit of lime on them and saying “for the sake of the holiness of tefillin.” But this second processing they did by hand neither added nor detracted anything, because the hide did not return to a state of stretching such that the first processing by the non-Jew would be completely nullified; rather, it remained in the non-Jew’s processing, and that is the main thing. And it is known that there is no permission in this except according to a lone opinion and in a time of pressing need. At that point the sages strengthened themselves together with my father, the rabbi, of blessed memory, and made new straps from new hides processed from the outset by a Jew for the sake of tefillin, and they proclaimed that the whole community should replace the straps. And so they did, thank God, and from that time onward the matter was properly corrected so that everything was processed by a Jew from the beginning.
And I, your servant, was moved to investigate these matters and the like: in a matter that is invalid according to the law, about which many had erred from earlier times, shall we say, Heaven forbid, that they did not achieve the commandment properly and according to law as it was given to Moses the faithful shepherd and transmitted to the faithful congregation? If so, Heaven forbid, they would be lacking a great and exalted commandment that stands at the chief cornerstone, one that applies every single day and at every time and season, and such a thing the mind cannot bear.
And another such inquiry may also sometimes arise regarding a man who wrote tefillin and gave them to the esteemed proofreader appointed for this and he proofread them, but one time some distraction happened to him while he was busy, and he erred in his proofreading so that a mistake in the tefillin escaped him — one word or one letter too few or too many — and the owner wore them innocently for many years, and when they were opened for a second examination the error was found. It turns out that this man did not fulfill the commandment for many years and recited a blessing in vain, and how could such an innocent and upright man be stripped of this precious commandment? It is also possible that they did not discover the mistake until after his death, in which case he went to his eternal home stripped of this commandment, and with the inadvertent sin of blessings in vain in his hand. This too is very hard for the mind to bear.
And for this I found a remedy in the words of an early sage, brought by Rabbi Chida in Devash Lefi, and his words were quoted by the great Rabbi Chaim Palaggi in Lev Chaim, part 2, siman 10, who was also stirred by a similar matter and wrote as follows: “I saw in the book Devash Lefi, section dalet, letter dalet, in the name of the manuscript Shibolei HaLeket, shevet 8, in the name of a great sage: ‘Every person receives reward for all that he perceives in his own mind, if his mind is directed toward Heaven. For you see that tefillin sewn with linen are invalid, as stated in the chapter “These are flogged”: Rav said, We have seen the tefillin of the house of Rabbi Chavivi that were sewn with linen, and the law is not in accordance with him. Yet certainly Rabbi Hiyya the Great had the reward of tefillin like the other pious men, even though they were sewn with linen.’” Thus it appears that even though according to Jewish law the tefillin were invalid, nevertheless, as long as in his mind he directed himself toward Heaven to fulfill the commandment, he has the reward of tefillin.
At first glance one could say the opposite from what we learned in Mishnah Sukkah 2:7, where they said to Rabbi Yosei ben HaHorni, “If that is how you acted, you never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life.” Tosafot explain at the beginning of Sukkah 3a that the intention is to say that he did not fulfill it even on the Torah level. So we find that even though his intention was for the sake of Heaven, to fulfill the commandment of God, nevertheless they said to him: “If that is how you acted, you never fulfilled the commandment in your life,” implying, Heaven forbid, that he would go stripped of that commandment. See also Tosafot Yom Tov.
However, the Ran, in chapter 10 of Pesachim on the Mishnah “Whoever did not say these three things on Passover did not fulfill his obligation,” explained that “did not fulfill his obligation” means not properly, but it does not say he did not fulfill it at all. And similarly regarding sukkah: “If that is how you acted, you never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life” is not exact language, for the reason there is only lest he be drawn after his table, and whenever he was not drawn after it one cannot say he did not fulfill his obligation. Rather, certainly it is as we have said. These are the Ran’s words as brought by Tosafot Yom Tov at the end of Pesachim. According to this, “you did not fulfill” is not exact; it means you did not fulfill the commandment of sukkah properly. But Rabbi Yaavetz in Lechem Shamayim on Pesachim strongly questioned the Ran and wrote that in truth this explanation of the Ran is that of his master Nachmanides in Milchamot. Even so, “I shall speak before kings and not be ashamed” — is this not precisely what the amoraim disputed in the first chapter of Berakhot, where Rabbi Yosef held that one who acted according to Beit Shammai did nothing at all, and they explained: he did not fulfill his obligation at all, etc.? And if you say that in any case he still has reward for the commandment even though he did not fulfill the rabbinic enactment, from where do we know this? On the contrary, we find that he was punished, etc. Except that here one can distinguish: when one violates the words of Torah intentionally, he receives no reward for the commandment at all; but if he erred and did not fulfill the commandment according to the enactment of the sages, and the time passed and it can no longer be corrected, he still has reward for the commandment in hand, since he acted according to Torah law, though lacking the rabbinic enactment, because he erred in it. So it seems clearly to me. According to this, that is specifically where he performed the commandment according to Torah law, but if he erred and did not perform the commandment at all even according to Torah law — for example where there was a defect invalidating it even on the Torah level — he has no reward at all, and we do not go after his intention.
In truth, however, even according to Tosafot, who explain “you never fulfilled the commandment of sukkah in your life” to mean even on the Torah level, this is no contradiction to the words of the early sage brought by Rabbi Chida. One can say that they spoke with exaggeration in order to establish and strengthen their words like a firm and fixed nail, so as to set this Jewish law in his mind from then on. But even so, they too agree that what he did previously in innocence, thinking that this was the law and with a heart wholly directed toward Heaven, earns him full reward for his commandment. And now the same applies to every invalidation of a commandment that occurred through inadvertence and error: his reward is not diminished at all, since his heart is wholly directed toward Heaven — unlike Rabbi Yaavetz, who held that if through inadvertence he did not fulfill the commandment even according to Torah law, he has no reward at all.
And with God’s help I will bring proof for this from what is said in Horayot 10b: Rabbi Nachman bar Yitzchak said, “A transgression for the sake of Heaven is greater than a commandment not for the sake of Heaven,” as it says, “Blessed above women is Jael,” etc. Here, the act itself is a transgression, and nevertheless, since the intention was for the sake of Heaven, there is great reward for it. All the more so here, in our case, where there was an invalidation in the commandment and there is no transgression here: we go after his intention, for he intended for the sake of Heaven to perform a commandment, because in his eyes this was a complete and perfect commandment, and he did it for the sake of Heaven, so certainly he has full reward. And even where there was also a transgression involved, such as a blessing in vain in the matter of invalid tefillin and the like, even so this is called a transgression for the sake of Heaven and is no worse than that case. For we say that a transgression for the sake of Heaven has great reward, as it is written, “Blessed above women in the tent” — who are they? Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. And even according to the conclusion, it concludes that a transgression for the sake of Heaven is like a commandment not for the sake of Heaven, which still has reward. Examine this well.

I didn’t see that you came up with anything.

By the way, it’s also found in the Responsa Project (no need for Otzar HaHochma).

By the way, in the responsum in Rav Pe’alim he opens with long praise of his great grandfather, that the merit of the public depends on him because he enabled them to have square tefillin, while in the responsum itself it comes out from his words that his grandfather did not contribute to the public’s merit at all, because both before him and after him their merits were full as a pomegranate.

Do you think that indeed both things are true together here — one, that correcting the matter is a merit for the public, and two, that even before the correction those many people had ordinary reward exactly like what they will receive after the correction? Or do we have to choose one?
Holding both sides would apparently mean that after all there is an added superiority for one who performs the commandment properly over one who merely intends and performs an act; and if we accept that there is such an advantage — not only an obligation on the person but a better result — then your difficulties return to their place: why should there be effects tied to actual realization that does not depend on the person in practice?

It seems to me that both are true according to his view. The rectification produced by the commandment of tefillin is not accomplished through invalid tefillin. But they do have reward (and perhaps even fulfillment of a commandment, in a puzzling way).
I didn’t understand the difficulty.

That is, reward depends on the person, but rectifications depend on actual realization. Why would the Holy One, blessed be He, make rectification depend on actual realization? After all, it is obvious that all rectifications are born from a person’s choice to do an act, because it does not sound plausible that water flowing into the sea thereby effects a great rectification in the upper worlds. And if rectifications apply only by virtue of human action, then why add also a condition of actual realization that is unrelated to the person? The Holy One, blessed be He, is the one who established the mechanisms of rectification (just as He established the procedures for receiving reward), so one can ask about them as about any command of God; there is no point in saying that this is simply how it arose in His thought as part of creation. As with your reasoning in the Tur about intention and act.

It’s like a person not getting burned if he doesn’t enter the fire. And if he enters, he gets burned even if his intentions are pure and splendid. There are fixed rules, and such was His will in creating the world. Only an actual deed creates full rectification. Good intentions maybe also rectify something, and maybe not. But as far as the person is concerned, it is an act worthy of reward.
As for a person’s reward, there is a simple reasoning that it depends on his intentions even if they were not realized. Therefore there I would not say that it simply arose in His thought that it should depend on an actual deed. But regarding rectification of the world, that is a matter for which I have no reasoning, and there God’s thought is what determines. In short, there is no difficulty here, but at most a question.

A. What is the difference between all the behaviors of the Holy One, blessed be He — creation, command, or reward? Seemingly it’s all the same thing, and if in one of them we can say that He simply did something without a reason intelligible to us, then so too in all of them. Why do we expect to understand the laws of Jewish law more than the laws of nature (and according to you, the matter of rectifications is like the laws of nature and not like Jewish law)?
B. And especially since we don’t know about matters of rectification from revelation; rather it comes from reasoning (which I understand you also hold), that there should be some contribution to the actual realization of the true commandment. And to invent something by reasoning, well, there has to be reasoning in it. (Therefore this is a difficulty and not a question, because it is not a given that rectification really differs from reward.)
C. What do you think about the possibility that a negative electric charge attracting its positive counterpart thereby effects a supreme unification? No one ever thought such a thing, because it is understood by everyone that the whole matter of rectifications is based on human choice, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, did not desire to create the rectified state directly by Himself. And if so, there is very good reason to think that rectifications indeed depend only on human choice (like reward) and not on actual realization.

We’re repeating ourselves.
A. I explained that there is a difference between a question and a difficulty.
B. Indeed, this comes from reasoning. Otherwise it is hard to explain the meaning of the commandments. And this is a question, not a difficulty. Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it contradicts logic.
C. If we had been commanded to do so, then maybe there would be rectification in it. Indeed only chosen acts rectify, but that does not mean that the choice itself is what rectifies. It requires an act done by choice.

Isaiah 29:8, unfortunately.