Better for a kohen to daven in a minyan with one other kohen or no kohanim at all?

Question

Say a kohen has an option of davening in one minyan where there is no kohanim at all in order that they should have bircas kohanim. Or he could daven in a minyan where there is at least one other kohen so then he could make the bircas kohanim then a "d'oraisa". Which minyan should he daven in. The minyan where there will be 2 kohanim and the mitzvah will then be m'doraisa. Or in the minyan where there is no kohanim so at least then this minyan should have the minyan m'drabbanan (so to for the other minyan)

The same could be asked when one minyan has no kohanim but the other minyan has 2 kohanim. That minyan will have bircas kohanim m'd'oraisa, however the kohan if he goes to the minyan with no kohanim will only perform the mitzvah on a d'rabbanan level, perhaps better then to go to the other minyan and perform it on a d'oraisa level. This is different than the first case because even if he doesn't go to the minyan with 2 kohanim, they will still have bircas kohanim on the level of a d'oraisa, however he won't. Which is better?

Answer 1

Your question is based on the mistaken premise that one Kohen in a Shul is not Biblically mandated to do 'Birkas Kohanim'. That isn't quite true.. What the Halacha does say is that if there is only one Kohen, then the Chazan isn't supposed to call out 'Kohanim', though if he mistakenly did (as often happens), the Kohen hasn't transgressed a Biblical Mitzva if he doesn't go up.

See, for example: קיצור ש''ע ילקוט יוסף קכח:א

'ואפילו אם אין שם כהן אלא כהן אחד, אם קראו כהנים ולא עלה, הרי זה עובר בעשה כנז'.

This doesn't necessarily make the 'Birkas Kohanim' done by one Kohen any different.

As it is a 'מצוה דאורייתא' either way, it would make more sense to go Daven where there is no other Kohen, as this way you are enabling everyone to receive the ברכה when they wouldn't otherwise.