—for the legally accountable person, in proportion to that measure.

As for the subsidiary intention, none of this accrues to it. When someone takes the command or the prohibition merely for the sake of his own portion, or performs the deed for his own share, he has curtailed that portion from its unrestricted scope and confined what was meant to be universal. It therefore cannot rise to the level of the primary intention. The governing maxim here is, “Actions are judged by intentions.”

The reward is magnified when one seeks the public good:

Acting in line with the primary objectives greatly elevates an act of obedience, and violating them greatly aggravates the sin.

1. The first case: Whoever acts in accordance with those objectives is laboring for the reform of all people and the removal of harm from them in an absolute sense. He either explicitly intends all that, or he simply obeys the command, under which falls everything the Lawgiver wished to achieve by that command. When he does so, he is rewarded for every soul he revives and for every general benefit he intends. There is no doubt about the magnitude of such a deed; hence, “whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind.” By contrast, anyone who does not act in this way receives a reward only to the extent of his own intention, for actions are judged by intentions: the broader the intention, the greater the reward; the narrower the intention, the smaller the reward—an obvious matter.

2. The second case: Whoever works against those objectives is working for general corruption; he is the opposite of the one striving for universal reform. Since intending general reform magnifies the reward, acting against it magnifies the sin. For that reason a share of the burden for every person who unlawfully kills a soul was recorded against the first son of Adam, because he was the first to introduce killing: thus, “whoever kills a soul, it is as though he had killed all mankind.” Likewise, “whoever initiates an evil practice bears its burden and the burden of everyone who acts upon it.”