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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Legal historians have given considerable attention to the question of intention in rabbinic law. Solomon Zeitlin, in the early years of the present century, published a number of articles touching on this matter, in which his chief purpose was to show that the legal significance of intention was one of the central points of contention between the two great Tannaitic schools, the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. A little later, Michael Higger wrote a doctoral dissertation for Columbia University which he entitled Intention in Talmudic Law. Still more recently, Louis Finkelstein sought to push the dispute over intention back to the days of the Pharisees and Sadducees, attributing to the Sadducees the view that intention by itself has no legal consequence, and as usual explaining this view in terms of the Sadducees' social position.
1 Zeitlin, S., “The Semikah Controversy between the Zugoth,” JQR, N. S. 7 (1917) 500–14Google Scholar; “Asmakta or Intention,” Ibid. 19 (1929) 263–73; “Studies in Tannaitic Jurisprudence: Intention as a Legal Principle,” Journal of Jewish Law and Philosophy 1 (1919) 219–311Google Scholar; “Les dix-huit Mesures,” Revue des études juives 58 (1914) 22–36Google Scholar; “Les principes des controverses halachiques entre les Ecoles de Shammaï et de Hillel,” Ibid. 93 (1932) 73–83; “A Note on the Principle of Intention in Tannaitic Literature,” Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume, English section (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950) 631–36.Google Scholar For a brief summary of Zeitlin's conclusions, see his The Rise and Fall of the Judaean State (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1964–1967) 2. 109–12.Google Scholar And see the comments of Neusner, Jacob, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971) 3. 332–33, 344–47.Google Scholar
2 New York: King's Crown, 1927.
3 Finkelstein, Louis, The Pharisees (3 ed., Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1962) 144, also 843, n. 75.Google Scholar
4 A striking example of this is found at Babylonian Talmud (henceforth = B.) Baba Karama 30a, where Rav Judah remarks, “If one wishes to be pious, let him carry out the laws of torts.” Other opinions recommend the study of ethics or prayer; the Talmud endorses no one opinion over the others. Damage law is as useful a guide to piety as prayer.
5 B. Berakoth 62a.
6 On the range of Torah, see Neusner, J., History of the Jews in Babylonia, 3 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 95–194. The question re-appears in later volumes of the History.Google Scholar
7 The answer must, to be sure, be consistent with the language of the vow. See the Talmudic Encyclopedia (in Hebrew), 7. 181–83.
8 For example, an animal slaughtered without conscious intention that it be offered on the altar could not then be so offered. See B. Hullin 13b, Zebahim 47a, Menahoth 110a, Jerusalem Talmud (henceforth = J.) Kiddushin 1:5 60a. At B. Hullin 31b the principle is extended to non-sacral slaughter. An animal slaughtered by a knife aimlessly thrown — even if ihe cut itself is entirely proper — may not be eaten.
9 Numbers, ch. 19.
10 Mishnah (henceforth = M.) Parah 12:2. Maimonides insisted that the sprinkler even had consciously to intend that the object thus become purified, but this ruling was challenged. See his Code, Laws of the Red Heifer 10:7, and the commentaries there and at M. Parah.
11 M. Rosh ha-Shanah 3:7. See also M. Megillah 2:2.
12 M. Rosh ha-Shanah 4:8.
13 Lev 23:24, Num 29:1; cf. Ps 81:4.
14 B. Rosh ha-Shanah 28a.
15 Although the consumption of leavened bread is of course forbidden throughout the week of Passover, it was considered an obligation to eat unleavened bread only on the first night of the festival, during the meal at which the Paschal lamb itself should be consumed. It is difficult to imagine why Persians would have been interested in such a force-feeding, except perhaps in mockery of the Jewish celebration. Professor Jacob Neusner (in a private communication, 19 August 1973) considers the question “probably a Rabbinic fantasy.”
16 B. Rosh ha-Shanah 28b-29a.
17 M. Berakoth 2:1.
18 Deut 6:4–11; 11:13–21; Num 15:37–41. The Ŝema‘ derives its name from the first word of the first verse (“Hear, O Israel …”). It is one of the two central texts of the classical rabbinic liturgy.
19 B. Berakoth 13a.
20 See also B. Erubin 95b-96a and B. Pesahim 114b.
21 Not all writers have recognized this. See Greenberg, Simon in the Mordecai M. Kaplan Jubilee Volume, English section (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1953) 393Google Scholar; Kadushin, Max, The Rabbinic Mind (3 ed., New York: Bloch, 1972) 213.Google Scholar
22 Oraḥ Ḥayyîm 60:4. And see the commentary of R. Elijah of Vilna.
23 Lieberman, S., Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah, 5 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 1045.Google Scholar
24 Second-century rabbinic theologians were indeed occupied with the questions why God issued the commandments and what he (or people) gained from their performance. See Heschel, A. J., Theology of Ancient Judaism, 1 (in Hebrew; London and New York: Soncino, 1962) 232–37.Google Scholar The answers given, however, are moral generalities and do not ascribe concrete power to the performance of the commandments. At a later time the Kabbalah did attribute such power, indeed cosmic power, to the commandments. See Scholem, Gershom G., On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism (New York: Schocken, 1965) 124–25Google Scholar. Not by coincidence, Kabbalists have also laid much stress on performing the commandments with the proper “intention” (kawwānāh). See Scholem, Ibid. 126.
25 Those later codifiers who adopt this view as normative generally add the proviso that the individual be aware that the commandment is incumbent upon him. They exempt him only from the requirement that he consciously intend to fulfill the commandment at the moment he performs it.
26 See the comments of Twersky, I., Judaism 16 (1967) 156–58Google Scholar; reprinted in Faith and Reason (eds. Gordis, R. and Waxman, R.; New York: KTAV, 1973) 156–58.Google Scholar
27 Elsewhere we find the remark attributed to R. Eleazar b. Azariah that “a man should not say, ‘I have no desire for … swine's flesh or for sexual immorality,' but rather, ‘I do desire [these things but] what shall I do since my father in heaven has so ordained’” (Sifra ad Lev 20:26). Here, recognition of one's motives is precisely the issue, but the context is not the same.
28 “Hypocrisy” in rabbinic parlance seems generally to mean hidden sin, or even (as in B. Sotah 22b) political betrayal. See Tosefta Yoma 4:12, and Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshuṭah 4. 827–28.
29 Sifre Deuteronomy 33.
30 Neusner, History, 3. 337–38.
31 M. Pesahim 10:5.
32 Higger, Intention, 60.
33 Higger's own example fails to prove his case. The commandment, after all, is to tell about the Exodus from Egypt (cf. Exod 13:8,13, etc.). Gamaliel rules that a telling which omits the central symbols of the festival is of no value at all. Even the legal requirement has thus not been met; the telling remains to be done.
34 Urbach, Ephraim E., The Sages — Their Concepts and Beliefs (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1969) 346. News of the forthcoming English translation of this work arrived too late for the preparation of this essay.Google Scholar
35 It is likely that we touch here on an early Christian response to what was perceived as the dominant tone of contemporary Jewish life. Urbach offers a kind of belated response to the Gospels' criticism of the “scribes and Pharisees,” or to Paul's discussion of life under the law. See also Schechter, Solomon, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (reprinted New York: Schocken, 1961) 164–65.Google Scholar
36 Urbach, Ibid.
37 See generally Neusner, J., ed., The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970).Google Scholar
38 Certain teachers have left apparently contradictory rulings; cf. R. Yose in Tosefta Abodah Zarah 3:13, B. Abodah Zarah 27a, J. Yebamoth 8:1 8d-9a (the intention of one who performs a circumcision doesn't matter) and at B. Rosh ha-Shanah 29a (the one who sounds the šôfār must have intention). Such cases, however, presumably are based on unstated differences between the several issues being resolved, or perhaps on divergent traditions in the same name. We never find an individual authority who cannot decide what the law should be in a specific case.
39 It was of course assumed that both piety and ethical sensitivity would be the natural consequences of a life of learning.
40 Deut 29:28/29.
41 An earlier version of this paper was read to the combined Departments of Religion of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Duke University. I learned much from the discussion which took place there. I wish as well to thank my teacher Jacob Neusner and my colleague Judith Plaskow for their helpful observations and corrections.
