What is the Status of Nonspecific Intention?

Provided courtesy of Real Clear Daf

Welcome to Seder Kodshim, the last major order of Talmud Bavli which contains the laws of sacrifices. This week, we began the first masechta of Seder Kodshim: Zevachim, which discusses animal and bird sacrifices. The masechta begins by teaching the halacha of “l’shma,” for its sake. As the Mishnah says, if an offering was brought for the sake of a different offering (e.g. someone slaughtered his olah for the sake of a shelamim), he has not fulfilled his obligation. The Gemara (bottom of 2b) brings a surprising teaching: the Rabbis enacted that the cohen should specifically avoid declaring that he is bringing his e.g. olah for the sake of an olah.  Why? Perhaps he will mistakenly mention the wrong sacrifice and thereby invalidate his offering. The Rabbis therefore concluded that it is preferable to have no intention at all. From this teaching we learn a fundamental point: if someone brings a sacrifice with zero intention, somehow the l’shma requirement is fulfilled. How does this work?

Rava explains that a sacrifice brought with zero intention is perfectly fine because of what happens prior to the actual bringing of the sacrifice. When someone decides to bring, let’s say, an olah, he must first consecrate the animal as an olah. Since this animal already stands to be offered as an olah, the halacha of l’shma does not require the cohen to specifically perform the service for the sake of an olah. As long as the cohen does not repurpose the sacrifice for, say, a shelamim, the l’shma requirement is satisfied.

Rava there notes that there is another instance where the halacha of l’shma applies: gittin, divorce documents. That is, the scribe writing the get must write it for the sake of the woman being divorced. So if for example the get  had been written for a different couple who happened to have the same names as the couple who ended up using the get, the get is invalid and does not effect a divorce. However, with regards to divorce documents, zero intention would not satisfy the l’shma requirement. This is readily understandable in light of Rava’s explanation of the law by sacrifices: a consecrated animal, we can argue, already stands to be brought as whatever it’s been consecrated as; a married woman, by contrast, cannot be reasonably regarded as standing for divorce (marriage problems notwithstanding). Hence it is crucial that the scribe write the get for the correct couple upon being authorized by the husband to draft it.

Now in the beginning of the discussion, Rava states as a given that this is the way it works by divorce documents. The Gemara seeks Rava’s source for this assertion, suggesting and rejecting several possibilities. One attempted proof is from the Mishnah in Gittin (24a) which discusses many examples of gittin that are invalid because they are not considered to have been written l’shma. One of the examples is where a man, married to two wives who have the same name, has resolved to divorce one of them--he just doesn’t know which one. So he tells the scribe: draft a get for me and I’ll decide later which wife to divorce with it. The Mishnah rules this a get that was not written l’shma and therefore invalid. So the Mishnah calls this a get that isn’t l’shma--even though the intention was rather open-ended, for the scribe left open the possibility that the get could be intended for either wife! So, evidently, avoiding an intention for the wrong woman is not sufficient; rather the scribe must specifically write the get for the correct woman, which proves Rava’s claim.

But the Gemara deflects this proof by explaining that what is actually going in this case is that the scribe is attempting to make the get l’shma through a principle called “breira.” Breira is a legal mechanism whereby a person, uncertain as to which of two or more possible items to designate, has one of the items retroactively designated once he ultimately makes his selection. The Tanna of this Mishnah rejects breira and therefore this get is not l’shma. The point is this: an attempt to use breira means the scribe is actually making a designation at the time of the writing: for either this wife or that wife, and we will never know which one was chosen if we cannot utilize breira. So even if zero intention was good enough, this get cannot be considered l’shma because it was (possibly) intended specifically for the other wife!

The Gemara does end up finding a source which clearly indicates that gittin, unlike sacrifices, have to be specifically written for the woman being divorced (see 3a). In the process of getting there we got a chance to explore some interesting ideas.