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Text Excerpt
״יקריב אתו״ – מלמד שכופין אותו. יכול בעל כרחו – תלמוד לומר: ״לרצנו״.
With regard to one who pledges to bring a burnt-offering, the verse states: “If his offering be a burnt-offering of the herd, he should offer it a male without blemish; he should bring it to the door of the Tent of Meeting, according to his will, before YHWH” (Leviticus 1:3). The seemingly superfluous words “he should offer it” teaches that they coerce him to bring the offering. I might have thought that it can be offered entirely against his will, by taking it from his possession and sacrificing it; therefore, the verse states: “According to his will.”
הא כיצד? כופין אותו עד שיאמר: ״רוצה אני״. ואמאי? הא בלביה לא ניחא ליה! אלא לאו משום דאמרינן: דברים שבלב אינן דברים? ודילמא שאני התם, דאנן סהדי דניחא ליה בכפרה.
How can these texts be reconciled? They coerce him until he says: I want to bring the offering. The Talmud asks: But why should this be effective; but in his heart it is not satisfactory for him to bring the offering, and it is not according to his will. Rather, is it not because we say: Unspoken matters that remain in the heart are not significant matters, and his intention is rendered irrelevant by his explicit statement? The Talmud rejects this: But perhaps there it is different, since it is clear to us that it is satisfactory for him to achieve atonement, despite his earlier statement to the contrary.
אלא מסיפא: וכן אתה מוצא בגיטי נשים ושחרורי עבדים, כופין אותו עד שיאמר: ״רוצה אני״. ואמאי? הא בלביה לא ניחא ליה! אלא לאו משום דאמרינן דברים שבלב אינן דברים? ודילמא שאני התם, משום דמצוה לשמוע דברי חכמים.
Rather, the Talmud derives a proof from the latter clause of that same baraita: And similarly, you find with bills of divorce of women and bills of manumission of slaves that when the court rules that a man must divorce his wife or free his slave and he does not want to, they coerce him until he says: I want to divorce my wife, or: I want to free my slave. But why should this be effective; but in his heart it is not satisfactory for him to divorce her or to free him. Rather, is it not because we say that unspoken matters that remain in the heart are not significant matters? The Talmud rejects this proof as well: But perhaps there it is different, because it is a mitzva to listen to the statements of the rabbis, and the assumption is that when he is required to divorce his wife or free his slave, his true desire is to perform the mitzva.