OU TORAH REALLYCLEARDAF Is It Important to Have a Pure Mindset When Serving Hashem? By Rabbi Shmuel Wise

Of course it is most ideal to have pure intentions when serving Hashem. But if our intentions are not perfect, or even selfish, the Gemara taught us on 105b to do the mitzvos anyways, for “eventually the person will come to have the correct intention.” Tosfos in Taanis (7a) qualifies this concept when it comes to learning Torah for ulterior motives. While learning for, say, one’s own honor would fall under the scope of this principle, learning as a means of starting up with someone would not. If one was learning just to put down his fellow, we would apply what the Gemara states there, that “if one who learns Torah for improper reasons, the Torah he learned becomes poison for him.”