Our Mishna and Gemara on Amud Aleph discuss a dispute regarding what procedure is appropriate when the blood of an offering that is to be placed on the altar with four placements was mixed with the blood of an offering that is to be placed on the altar with one placement. Do you place the mixed blood on all four corners, or perhaps on only one? Potentially, each choice has a problem. If you place the blood on all four corners, one sacrifice will receive an inappropriate and excessive number of blood placements. If you place the blood with one placement, then one sacrifice will be deficient in its requisite number.

“Rabbi Eliezer says: The blood shall be placed with four placements. Rabbi Yehoshua says: The blood shall be placed with one placement, as the priest fulfills the requirement with one placement after the fact.”

“Rabbi Eliezer said to Rabbi Yehoshua: According to your opinion, the priest violates the prohibition of: Do not diminish, as it is written: ‘All these matters that I command you, that you shall observe to do; you shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it’ (Deuteronomy 13:1). One may not diminish the number of required placements from four to one. 

Rabbi Yehoshua said to Rabbi Eliezer: According to your opinion, the priest violates the prohibition of: Do not add, derived from the same verse. One may not add to the one required placement and place four.”

In essence, the dispute revolves around whether a sin of omission or a sin of commission is preferable when the intention is to fulfill God’s command.

Sod Yesharim (Parashas Zachor 11) uses this concept to explain Shaul’s dilemma regarding the destruction of Amalek. Shaul was hesitant to completely obliterate this sworn foe, despite the apparent command from God, due to a question regarding how to interpret the scripture. Shaul’s position was that in case of doubt, he should hold back from completely destroying them. However, Shmuel’s point was that there are certain times where playing it safe when in doubt is improper. A directive from God, even if a detail is not clearly understood, demands action and not passivity. Shmuel stated (I Shmuel 15:23): “For improper action is like the sin of divination, but refusal to act is like the iniquity of idols.”

Sod Yesharim interprets Shmuel’s rebuke as follows: If one takes action sincerely, even if mistaken, it would indeed be a wrongdoing and a sin. But totally refusing to follow God’s command is heretical like idolatry.

This is Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion. Once there is a directive, the requirement to act takes precedence, even if there is a possibility that a mistake could be made. Sod Yesharim explains this is the same reason why we have a halachic rule that when a positive commandment conflicts with a negative commandment, the positive commandment supersedes. Viewed from one perspective, this is counterintuitive: What gives the person a license to transgress? Perhaps the commandment only applies when it does not conflict? Yet, since the command demands action, being passive is improper, and the intention to actively fulfill God’s will acts as a buffer and free pass even if there is an inadvertent transgression.

Most of the time when in doubt, except when specifically directed by Halacha, we play it safe and do not take action. Yet practically speaking, life’s circumstances cannot always be fully captured by every code and rule, and it is valuable to know that at least in theory, sometimes it is morally proper to act—even when in doubt—instead of being passive.