Q&A: Obligated Commandment
Obligated Commandment
Question
A thief is obligated (commanded) to pay double restitution (after a ruling by a religious court). When he repays his debt, does he thereby fulfill a commandment from the standpoint of “repayment of a debt is a commandment”? (I assume not, but) why not, really? And likewise regarding the other Torah-imposed penalty payments.
Also, if someone vowed to give charity to a poor person, so that he is now indeed obligated to give charity, does he still fulfill a commandment when he gives it?
Answer
You could ask the same thing about the commandment, “and he shall restore the stolen item.” This is a positive commandment that disengages a prohibition. So there is a commandment, but that does not mean that someone who fulfilled it is a greater righteous person than someone who never stole in the first place. In deontic logic there is a type of such conditional commands (CTD – counter to duty), and we discussed it in the third book of the Talmudic Logic series.
Whoever vowed to give charity and gives it fulfills two commandments: “whatever comes out of his mouth he shall do,” and the commandment of charity. The fact that he vowed only meant that he wanted to spur himself to fulfill the commandment, and of course that does not cancel the commandment for him.
Discussion on Answer
Obviously. But for our purposes there is no essential difference.
It seems to me that since we are dealing with double payment,
– the commandment “and he shall restore the stolen item” is not relevant,
– and this is not a monetary debt but only a penalty imposed by the Torah, meaning a product of the religious court’s ruling, so “repayment of a debt is a commandment” does not apply here; and moreover, we find that someone who admits to a penalty is exempt, which teaches that there is no intrinsic obligation here but only a legal one, a penalty that results from the process of the religious court.
In short, as I understand it, he fulfills no commandment at all (except perhaps obeying the ruling of the religious court).
I don’t see any difference at all. So what if it was created by a religious court ruling?! After the ruling there is an obligation or commandment to pay. If you like, it is part of the obligation of the public that a thief should pay, as I wrote in the column about the obligation to kill himself.
(EA, are you intentionally dealing with double payment and not with someone who caused damage?)
Rabbi, my question really is whether this is a religious obligation or only a legal one. My claim is that there is no religious obligation here, unlike a borrower, who in addition to his legal obligation also has a religious commandment to repay his debt (from the standpoint that repayment of a debt is a commandment). Are you claiming that there is some religious dimension here somewhere?
Tirgitz, indeed. And my claim is that there is a difference between the debt incurred by one who caused damage after the damage was done (which is an intrinsic monetary-legal debt) and the debt incurred through double payment by force of a religious court ruling (which is a monetary-legal debt, but it does not stand on its own; that is, it does not arise directly from the damage but is, in short, a penalty).
And I am asking whether these two claims are correct or mistaken.
(Seemingly it depends on whether damages are considered a loan written in the Torah.)
Definitely.
I asked a question and you didn’t answer. What is the difference from robbery? Or from the commandment of repentance for a sin?
I didn’t understand. The difference between what and robbery or repentance for a sin?
In my last message, do you agree with the claim I made to Tirgitz?
The question is why he is doing what he is doing. And obviously, if he returned the stolen item in order to fulfill a commandment, then he fulfilled a commandment.
But the commandment “and he shall restore the stolen item” applies only when the robber returns the stolen object itself (the principal itself), not when he pays the double payment or the fourfold and fivefold payments, no?