{"id":2823,"date":"2021-09-05T10:54:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T14:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/?p=2823"},"modified":"2021-09-05T11:00:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T15:00:04","slug":"for-its-own-sake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/2021\/09\/for-its-own-sake\/","title":{"rendered":"A Person Should Always Engage in Torah ???and Mitzvot?? Even If It Is Not For Its Own Sake"},"content":{"rendered":"

I happened upon the following tidbit\u00a0which I found interesting.<\/p>\n

Rav (Pesahim 50b<\/a> and parallels) famously says “\u05dc\u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd \u05d9\u05e2\u05e1\u05d5\u05e7 \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05d1\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d5\u05de\u05e6\u05d5\u05ea \u05d0\u05e3 \u05e2\u05dc \u05e4\u05d9 \u05e9\u05dc\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 \u05e9\u05de\u05ea\u05d5\u05da \u05e9\u05dc\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 \u05d1\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4, a person should always engage in Torah and mitzvot even if it is not for its own sake, because that which is done not for its own sake comes to be done for its own sake.”<\/p>\n

R. Kappach in his commentary (note 22) on\u00a0Rambam, Hilkhot\u00a0Teshuvah 10:8<\/a> (or 10:5 depending on the edition) notes that Rambam here and in his commentary on the Mishnah (Kappach doesn’t give the reference, but it is apparently to Rambam on Sanhedrin 10:1<\/a>) does not have mention of mitzvot, but rather only of Torah – ” \u05dc\u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd \u05d9\u05e2\u05e1\u05d5\u05e7 \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05d1\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d5\u05d0\u05e4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d5 \u05e9\u05dc\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 \u05e9\u05de\u05ea\u05d5\u05da \u05e9\u05dc\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 \u05d1\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 a person should always engage in Torah even if it is not for its own sake, because that which is done not for its own sake comes to be done for its own sake.”\u00a0 R. Kappach concludes that Rambam doesn’t have the word “mitzvot” in his gemara and that this text makes sense, because had mitzvot been mentioned along with Torah, then rather than \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 (for its own sake, singular) the text should should have been \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05df (for their own sake, plural).\u00a0 As it happens, Rav’s statement as quoted in Nazir 23b<\/a> has \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05df.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Dikdukei Soferim (on\u00a0\u00a0Pesahim 50b and Horayot 10b) doesn’t indicate any variant texts.\u00a0 For the text in Sanhedrin 105b he notes that manuscripts \u05e4 and \u05e7 do not have the word mitzvot.<\/p>\n

Quickly searching the Bar Ilan Responsa CD for “\u05dc\u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd \u05d9\u05e2\u05e1\u05d5\u05e7 \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05d1\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 *\u05d0\u05e4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d5”, I found a number of texts that have the phrase without mention of mitzvot, including e.g. Otzar Midrashim, Zohar, Ran on Rif, and Tosafot HaRosh (A pdf of the search results is here.<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I don’t think this changes much, but I thought it was interesting textually.<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I happened upon the following tidbit\u00a0which I found interesting. Rav (Pesahim 50b and parallels) famously says “\u05dc\u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd \u05d9\u05e2\u05e1\u05d5\u05e7 \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05d1\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d5\u05de\u05e6\u05d5\u05ea \u05d0\u05e3 \u05e2\u05dc \u05e4\u05d9 \u05e9\u05dc\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 \u05e9\u05de\u05ea\u05d5\u05da \u05e9\u05dc\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4 \u05d1\u05d0 \u05dc\u05e9\u05de\u05d4, a person should always engage in Torah and mitzvot even if it is not for its own sake, because that which is done not Continue Reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"coauthors":[89],"class_list":["post-2823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torah-talmud"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2829,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/2829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utj.org\/viewpoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}