Q&A: On a Sufficient Condition
On a Sufficient Condition
Question
Regarding what the Rabbi says—that having an interest does not force the conclusion that I am acting solely out of that interest—doesn’t that contradict what the Rabbi says elsewhere, that there cannot be two sufficient conditions? After all, an interest is also a sufficient condition, and so too, for that matter, compassion.
Answer
An action can certainly be performed on the basis of two sufficient conditions. Each one by itself would have been sufficient, and in this case both happened to coincide. The question of how to classify such a situation is a halakhic one, not a factual one. For example, later authorities discuss the topic of coercion and willingness—that is, a person who is coerced into doing something that he himself would have wanted to do even without the coercion (and they draw this inference from the Talmudic passage about modest and promiscuous women in Tractate Ketubot). Is he considered coerced or not? And similarly regarding two intentions at the beginning of Tractate Zevachim (for the sake of a burnt offering and for the sake of a peace offering).