Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
OF MITSVOT
danger, particularly in a religion of law such as Judaism, of losing sight of the goal of the
system while busying oneself with the necessary details that were meant to contribute to
achieving that goal. In the case of Judaism, that translates into the difficulty of observing
its many laws while yet keeping an eye on the system’s overall goals and priorities.
Knowing the forest, understanding what Judaism wants of its adherents in broad
terms, can help several groups of people. First, and of greatest interest to this study, it
helps those who expend time and energy on acting Jewishly, in several ways. It eases
their reaping the intended benefits of the religion, since they know better how to direct
their efforts; it makes it more likely that they will recognize those benefits when they
accrue, since they will be on the lookout for them; and, finally, it helps them direct their
religious energies and priorities most effectively, avoiding the trap of getting caught up in
Those who see a need to change the religion, for whatever reason, can use this
work to tailor their suggested modifications so that they fit into the internal ethos of the
system, that what they think should change still maintains the system’s own perspective
racist, etc.—but those criticisms only deserve to be heard if they accurately understand
1
I mean here such incongruities as Jews who assiduously observe customs that arose late
in the evolution of Judaism while neglecting explicit Biblical imperatives.
2
the whole system. So, too, whatever changes critics might suggest need to “blend in with
the neighborhood,” as an architect might say, need to fit with the goals and values of the
rest of the system. This study hopes to provide a convenient summary of those positive
Finally, outsiders, those who do not partake of the religion either because of lack
of interest, education, or because they are not Jewish, can often be misled by the
particular observances of Judaism they see local Jews performing. It would be easy for
the casual observer to assume that Judaism is a religion of ritual, focusing primarily on
the Sabbath, holidays, and eating rules; we hope that this review will provide a broader
For all that the trees sometimes obscure the forest, they nonetheless are also what
produces the forest; trying to encapsulate the goals of Judaism can only proceed from
assembling its various laws into some kind of working whole. Just like a forest of
evergreens could not be said to have the goal of feeding a town, and a forest of fruit trees
could not have the goal of greening an area throughout the year, the goals of Biblical
Judaism cannot be separated from the laws that guide the Jew in achieving those goals.2
Clifford Geertz, the celebrated anthropologist, made much the same point in
introducing “thick description” as the best way for anthropologists to describe a culture.
natives’ view of that society, the outside observer could accurately portray and analyze it
for academic purposes. We are hoping here to provide a thick description of the positive
2
That the Torah sought to educate Jews already takes a stand on the issue of ta`amei
hamitsvot, the reasons for the commandments, but that is a topic best left for another
occasion. Readers will note that we have chosen to refer to the Torah as the source of
Jewish law, leaving for another time a fuller definition of God’s role in the legislation of
Torah law.
3
Thick description requires a judicious selection of only those details that usefully
inform us as to the larger issues, not including too many to be overwhelming, yet not
leaving out relevant information. With a culture as complex as Judaism, selection along
those lines is devilishly difficult. Let us spend a moment explaining how we cut that
First, for reasons we will explain below, we have chosen to discuss only Biblical
Judaism, that originally legislated in the Torah. While we will analyze those laws within
using the Rabbinic tradition of what they meant, we will not discuss the many later layers
of Rabbinic legislation, which certainly affected and enriched the religion. Even so, we
are left with too much material to be digested usefully within a reasonably sized study.
provides a further way of subdividing Judaism into digestible portions in his enumeration
of the 613 commandments that the Talmud asserted could be found in the Torah,3 which
comment, though, we need to remember that his enumeration assumes not only the
validity of the Talmudic claim that the Torah ordained 613 commandments, but also that
248 of them were positive commandments, meaning they require a person to take specific
action, and 365 were negative, meaning they prohibit certain actions.4
3
That there were definitely and only 613 commandments was also a matter of debate; see
Nahmanides’ questioning the assumption in his comments on the first of Maimonides’
introductory principles to the book.
4
Makkot 23b.
4
expectations of the religion, the Talmud’s delineating them separately reminds us that
they play different spiritual roles. Prohibitions set a base level of behavior; they establish
which actions contradict the values and ideals of the system. Carefully fulfilling those
laws demonstrates a Jew's submission to a Higher Will, but does not insert any positive
content into that Jew’s spiritual experience. It is observing the positive commandments,
we assume and assert, that transforms a Jew’s relationship with the Creator.
Refraining from eating non-kosher food, for example, obeys a Divine command.
While that obedience itself somewhat furthers a person’s relationship with God, it mostly
avoids the spiritual/ religious damage of ingesting a prohibited food.5 A Jew who only
avoided transgressions would not only be a partial Jew; he/she would have little if any
That partial relationship would extend both from the Jew’s only observing a part
of the whole, but also from that Jew’s experiencing God only as a forbidding presence, a
strict disciplinarian who restricts His subjects’ lives in multiple and burdensome ways.
God’s many kindnesses that Judaism also emphasizes would escape such a person’s
notice completely. Since we seek a quick method of defining the kind of people Judaism
strives to mold in positive terms, we will look only at the positive side of the coin.
5
This would explain the greater severity of punishment for transgressing prohibitions as
well as the more burdensome requirements of teshuvah, repentance, for most such
transgressions. Since they defined a basic standard, violating them was akin to a crime.
The positive commandments (with the notable exceptions of circumcision and
participation in the Paschal sacrifice) delineated ways of reaching higher than the base;
while obligatory, a failure in observing them meant a failure to achieve a positive end,
but did not produce any directly negative results.
5
Two hundred forty eight commandments, while certainly less than the original
613, does not yet provide a manageable focus of study. Although an accurate
characterization of the Torah’s ideal spiritual goals for Jews would have to discuss all of
those, that project is still too lengthy for most people’s interests or for our goals here.
Maimonides helps us cut down the list further. At the end of the section of his
Book that describes the positive commandments, he mentions that many of them only
to the Temple, for example, are no longer in force. Sixty of them, however, are
obligatory on all men everywhere and 46 on women. That list of sixty allows for the
Since our goal is to properly see both the forest and the trees, we will group the
work together towards a more general spiritual goal. Within a group, though, we will
look at each commandment on its own terms, to understand the central technical
requirements of the mitzvah, its laws or halakhot, as well as the broader goals that
mitsvah was trying to achieve. Along the way, as we note commandments from which
women are exempt, we hope to slowly build an understanding, from within the system, of
the assumed differences between the sexes. By the end of the study, we will have shown
which themes figure more and less prominently within the sixty and the forty-six,
showing the Torah’s central universal values and how it expected Jews to embody them.
Maimonides’ List
few authorities argued against his view that these acts were obligatory according to Torah
6
law (we will note those debates as they arise). Maimonides organized the material in a
particularly convenient way, but the items on his list are common to all. It is worth
stressing this point again: the issues we are reviewing here are what thousands of years of
Jews have assumed constitute the Torah’s expectations of Jews in all times and places.
(the number of universal positive commandments for men and women respectively); his
comments about those mnemonics suggest that he, too, meant this list as more than just a
commandments correspond to the verse “Shishim hema melakhot, there are sixty
queens.”6 These sixty commandments, he seems to be suggesting, are the queens of the
For women, Maimonides offers two verses, first “ki azlat yad, for their power has
gone”7 a verse which, in its original context, clearly sees the loss of the yad as a tragedy.8
Translated to our context, that mnemonic would seem to say that women have yad (14 in
that they are fourteen-sixtieths diminished from men’s Judaism. That ratifies the view of
many modern women, who believe that the religion legislates a lesser religious role for
them.
only gave one mnemonic for men-- cites the verse “gam at be-dam beritekh shilahti
6
Shir haShirim 6:8.
7
Devarim 32: 36.
8
See, for example, Sanhedrin 97a, where the Talmud offers different options for the kinds
of communal losses, all of them significant, that must precede the coming of the Messiah.
7
asirayikh, as for you also, through the blood of your covenant I have sent your captives
forth,”9 with the word be-dam (46 in the numerological reading) signifying the group of
mitsvot in which women are obligated. In this version, women’s mitsvot are a berit, a
covenant, which can provide redemption on its own, not just a pale shadow of the men’s
covenant. Maimonides explicitly (and redundantly) calls that group of 46 mitsvot “the
Maimonides closes by saying “and this is what we wished to hint at with the
positive commandments and their number.” Given his penchant for oblique statements,
we suspect that he was signaling readers that these mnemonics were meant to convey
substantive messages, rather than just serving as a convenient memory device. This is
especially true in the case of women, where he provides two mnemonics, which view
women’s obligations differently, either as a loss of yad (14) from men’s mitsvot or a dam
see women’s role as a deduction, as less than the “true” Judaism. Seen from another
perspective, though, the corpus of women’s mitsvot constitutes an independent unit, with
a meaning and message of its own. We hope, by the end of this study, to have teased
from the sources the positive meaning of Judaism for men as well as the positive,
The last point, that this list will shed some light on why the Torah obligated
women in a different set of mitsvot than men, sits at the heart of the decision to restrict
ourselves to Torah commandments. Many elements of Judaism have become difficult for
9
Zekharyah 9:11.
8
modern minds to accept, but one of the repeated strategies of those who urge fundamental
systemic change has been to distinguish between Rabbinic and Biblical Judaism by
arguing that central Jewish views of the religious experience are “simply” Rabbinic. If
so, that view continues, what one group of people created—perhaps in ways specific to
the social circumstances under which they operated-- others can change.
Without conceding the claim, we here hope to avoid that issue by only studying
Torah- ordained observances, albeit as understood by tradition. Armed only with the
assumption that the Torah reflects Divine values and ideals, we can discuss what it
wanted from Jews without worrying about human intervention in the process. Studying
the Torah’s distinctions between men and women, we assume, will enlighten us as to the
Jewish view of how the two sexes are meant to differ from each other.
the system, the fundamental equivalence of those mitsvot. Given a large group of
commands, humans naturally look to organize that group by importance; Jewish tradition
resisted such distinctions, equating all positive commandments.10 Despite sources that
give added importance to certain mitsvot, Jewish law generally sees each of these
commandments as an essential and important step on the road to whatever God wanted in
commanding the Torah. To reasonably encapsulate the Torah’s goals, we must track
themes that arise repeatedly across mitsvot; it is those ubiquitous elements of the system
As we hope is obvious from the introduction thus far, this work intends to study
10
See Avot, 2:1, which warns readers to be as careful of a seemingly light mitsvah as an obviously
important one. Maimonides interestingly mentions studying the Hebrew language as an example of a
mitsvah qalah, a mitsvah that seems unimportant, although it is not clear that it is a mitsvah at all.
9
sixty separate mitsvot, to derive some sense of their purpose within the Biblical system,
and to group them with like mitsvot. Since Maimonides grouped his Book of the
Commandments by theme, some of our work has already been done for us. Indeed, at the
beginning of our analysis of each mitsvah, we will note its number in our list as well as in
Maimonides’ Book.
various mitsvot; we believe we will often uncover meanings within the practical laws that
have not been articulated before (certainly not in English). To get to that meaning, we
will describe each mitsvah and its central halakhic components. Those components often
if not always yield a slightly different sense of the observance than the original
description alone; it is that newer understanding that we will animate our analysis.11
Because of the way we have structured the study, the easiest way to reap its full
benefits is to read it from beginning to end. For the ease of more casual readers,
however, we have organized the work to facilitate seeing the conclusions even without
First, we have divided the study into three parts, the first two of which each tackle
a relatively large set of mitsvot that are thematically related. The third part discusses five
smaller groups of mitsvot; none of those groups was large enough to demand separate
treatment. At the beginning and end of each of those parts, we have placed introductory
and summary discussions to smooth the way into the meat of the topics. In addition, we
have opened the presentation of each commandment with a brief description that captures
This work, then, can be read in several ways, depending on each reader’s time and
interests. As with any book, its author hopes it will be read cover to cover. For those
with less time, the synopses at the beginning of each mitsvah, along with the various
introductions and summaries, will provide much of the experience. For those merely
skimming, this chapter, the introductions and the conclusion, will at least give the overall
commandments focus on building a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first
group directly defines and builds a Jew’s relationship with and belief in God; the other
defines the various holidays, the frequent occasions that a Jew needs to stop ordinary life
in order to experience a particular type of closeness with God. It is also in those two
areas that most of the differences between men and women arise, allowing us to begin to
The other mitsvot break down into smaller units, each of which we will discuss in
its proper time. There are mitsvot that have to do with food, mitsvot that remind us of the
special role of the kohanim, the priests, in Jewish society, mitsvot connected to the
Temple (even in times of its destruction), and mitsvot that tell us how to build a proper
In each of these sections, we will find aspects of proper Jewish practice that are
not obvious from the overall topic area. Only after having studied each will we be able to
produce an accurate picture of the Bible’s positive goals for its adherents.12
Eastern philosophies advocate living a mindful life, where a person is fully aware
12
A mode, I hasten to add, not significantly changed by Rabbinic law.
11
of each of his actions. Judaism, we hope to show, agrees, only it cares about a mind full
of God and the experience of God. By molding the Jew’s intellectual profile, by inserting
God-experiences regularly into the Jew’s life, by insuring that Jews maintain a memory
of the ideal society centered around a Temple in Jerusalem with priests running the
service, by making eating, building a society and a family all parts of the religious
experience, the religion looks to focus Jews on one common element, service of the
All the commandments in the first group directly discuss ways of relating to God.
also appear in his list of sixty.13 These are the obligations to: 1) Believe in God, 2)
Believe in His Absolute Unity, 3) Love Him, 4) Fear Him (recognizing His continuing
power to punish), 5) Worship God, including praying at least once daily, 6) Develop a
Continuing Relationship with Torah Scholars, 7) Swear in God’s Name, 8) Imitate God’s
Attributes, 9) Sanctify God’s Name, 10) Recite Shema Morning and Evening, 11) Study
Torah and Teach It, 12) Don Tefillin on the Head, 13) Lay Tefillin on the Arm, 14) Wear
Tsitsit, and 15) Place Mezuzot on the Doors and Gates of Jewish Cities.
Mitsvot 18 and 19 in Maimonides’ list, the requirement for every Jewish man to
write a Torah scroll, and to recite Grace After Meals, also belong in this group, since both
also serve to foster a relationship with God. Maimonides interprets the commandment to
write a Torah scroll as an adjunct to the mitsvah of studying Torah, as we will see. Grace
After Meals might be seen as being about eating, but Maimonides listed it between the
obligation to write a Torah and to build a Temple; context suggests that he saw it as
13
Presumably, he put them first because of their central importance to the system.
13
Synopsis: The commandment to believe at least in a God who Causes the world’s
existence. In this case, we review several other views of the scope of the commandment,
ranging from minimal belief, to belief in God’s Creation of the World, taking the Jews
out of Egypt miraculously, and giving the Torah.
The first mitsvah in Maimonides’ list is to believe in God. When God led off the
Ten Commandments with the words “I am the Lord your God,”14 Maimonides (and
others) understood that as an order, not a statement of fact. In the Book of the
that there is a Cause and a Reason (God) and that this Cause moves, or animates, all that
exists.
Torah, his Code of Jewish Law as well—only postulates a rather distant God, one with
little direct impact on the world. It requires belief in a Cause that underlies all that exists
(an idea Aristotle also accepted), and calls that Cause God. As Maimonides expresses it
in this commandment, there is no requirement to consider how God affects daily life.
Sefer haMitsvot, one phrase departs strikingly from that perspective. Sefer haMitsvot
speaks of the commandment is “to believe,” while Mishneh Torah15 uses the term leda, to
know. To make sure we notice the change, Maimonides uses that word both in the
heading of the section (the koteret), which briefly lists the commandments incorporated
in that section, as well as in the body of the text, which he introduces with the words
“The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdoms is to know that there is a
14
Exodus, 20:2.
15
Hilkhot Yesodei haTorah 1:1
14
First Existent…”
Basic assumptions about Maimonides will affect which of the several possible
explanations for the switch that a person finds convincing. Many academic scholars
assume that Maimonides secretly adhered to an Aristotelian version of God; for them,
Maimonides assumes a deeper connection between the Creator and the world than
allowed in the Aristotelian view, as we will see. On the other hand, those who would
represent Maimonides as seeing God as more involved in the world need to explain why
To answer that question, we would first point out that this commandment is
uncomfortably similar to others; in fact, some other mitsvot, such as believing in God’s
Unity, loving Him, and fearing Him, could completely subsume this one. Those later
commandments all also assume that God plays a more active role in the world than just
from the others. This mitsvah speaks of the narrow fundamentals of a God, with the
His demand of knowledge may be an attempt to explain why the Torah would
Maimonides gave an Aristotelian definition of God for what a Jew is required to know,
and that he saw Aristotle as the benchmark of what human intellect could find by reason
alone, suggests that he envisioned this mitsvah as obligating Jews in that awareness of
God that any intelligent human being would realize on his own. This mitsvah, then, was
15
for a Jew to be as certain of God’s existence as other intelligent human beings. Other
aspects of the Jewish engagement with God could be left for later mitsvot.
thirteenth century enumeration of the mitsvot arranged by the order of the weekly Torah
readings.17 Although agreeing with Maimonides that the verse indicates a command,18
Nahmanides adds that the mitsvah also requires the belief that God took the Jews out of
Egypt.
Textually, that explains the Scriptural verse more completely than did
Maimonides, since it takes account of both "I am the Lord your God," and the words that
follow, "Who took you out of the Land of Egypt." That leads Nahmanides to include a
belief in the Creation of the World in this commandment, since he sees the Exodus as a
proof of God’s power to perform miracles, a power that in his view depends on God’s
God's omnipotence also necessarily implies his yihud, his Absolute Unity,
presumably because only a Being so different from people in His lack of physicality and
16
In his Commentary on Exodus 20:2, as well as in his glosses on the Sefer haMitsvot,
first on this commandment in the section on mitsvot `aseh, positive commandments, and
then in his first gloss on prohibitions, lo ta`aseh 5.
17
Mitsvah 25.
18
As opposed to the Halakhot Gedolot, a Geonic enumeration of the 613 coimandments.
Nahmanides defends the author of that work, known as Behag, by saying that he viewed
belief in God as underlying all the commandments, not as a separate obligation of its
own. As we have seen, the question of why it should be its own commandment animates
Maimonides' and Nahmanides' discussions as well.
19
For more on Nahmanides' view of miracles, see D. Berger, " " R. Moses b. Nahman
(RAMBAN): Explorations in his Religious and Literary Virtuousity, ed. I. Twersky
(Harvard U. Press: Cambridge, 19), . Maimonides' view of Creation ex nihilo is less clear
than Nahmanides'; based on his discussion in the Guide, scholars have argued for each of
three positions.
16
divisions would have the power to act as God did. Rather than Maimonidean
minimalism, these authorities viewed the obligation maximally; a Jew, for these authors,
a regular basis.
One other perspective worth mentioning sees this mitzvah as having less to do
with God’s existence than with His commanding the Torah. R. Nissim Gerondi (Ran), a
fourteenth century Spanish Talmudist and thinker, asserts that the references to God’s
existence and to His taking the Jews out of Egypt were to verify that the Torah the Jews
were receiving came directly from Him.20 The mitsvah is not only to know that God
exists and engaged mankind historically, but that Jews’ central national document was
Sefer haHinukh defines belief in a useful way, with both an internal and an
external component. Internally, the mitsvah is to establish propositions about God firmly
in one's mind and heart, recognizing that no other set of ideas could be true. Externally,
belief means that the person always verbally assumes the existence and power of God,
particularly in answering questions on any related topic. The Hinukh adds “if he will
merit (or succeed) to rise in the levels of wisdom, and will use his heart to understand and
his eyes to see with a firm proof that this belief is true and clear, no other possibility
could be true, then he will have fulfilled the mitzvah in the best way.”
His assumption that there are levels of belief in which one can grow over time,
raises the issue of how one grows in the fulfillment of the commandment. He gave one
useful answer, to verbally assert that belief whenever occasion arises. People are shaped,
as the Hinukh writes on numerous occasions, by their words and actions. The more that a
20
Derashot haRan, ed. L. Feldman (Jerusalem, 1977), p. 157.
17
Jew speaks confidently of God's existence, the more he himself will actually believe it.
saying that belief depends perspective. A person who consistently seeks explanations for
the world that ignore God will cease to believe in Him; others, who see God’s relevance
to the world, will find that belief fortified. The obligation to establish one’s belief in
God, according to the Hinukh, includes the obligation to view the world in a way that
Whether this mitsvah obligates minimal or maximal belief in God, clearly some
even more important place in Jewish law and thought than comparable mitsvot--
Maimonides included this belief among the thirteen necessary ones for every Jew, and
Sefer haHinukh points out that someone who does not maintain this belief is a heretic and
loses much of his right to membership in the Jewish people. For these authorities, a Jew
who denies the existence of God crosses a line from incomplete observance of the system
to having left the system completely. Bare belief is not the goal, however, and coming
mitsvot elaborate the kind of belief being sought, even according to Maimonides.
Synopsis: The obligation to believe in God’s Absolute Unity, a term that means more
than just the belief in one God as opposed to many, as defined below.
Maimonides' description of how to fulfill this mitsvah, along with the previous
one, occupies the bulk of the first chapter of his Mishneh Torah. Not surprisingly, he
cites the end of the famous first verse of the Shema, “the Lord, Our God, the Lord is
One,” as the source of the commandment. For Maimonides, those words, like the first
words of the Ten Commandments, not only state a fact, but command a certain belief.
18
Like so many mitsvot, this is easier said than fully defined. While God’s Oneness
most obviously means that there is one God as opposed to two or many, Maimonides
takes ahdut, oneness or unity, further than that. He envisions the command as including
the belief that God has no parts or constituent units-- so that the Trinity, for example,
would not qualify as a belief in One God. For Maimonides, God is an Absolute Unity,
Absolute Unity also means that God has no limits or end, meaning He has no
body (since a body, by definition, has an end-point). Shema did not only deny the
possibility that idols actually represent God; for Maimonides, the words deny the
existence of any physical component to God, since that would limit Him and His Unity.
their attempts to relate to Him, not least in rendering problematic any application of
gender to God. Since humans only know of an existence in which everything has some
Being.
tedamyuni ve-eshveh, to whom can you compare Me and I will be comparable.” At the
simplest level, the verse denies idolatry, since none of the other gods are as powerful as
the True God. His citing the verse in this context adds the recognition that human beings
do not possess any meaningful way to characterize God. Despite the world being full of
His Glory (as another verse says), God is so distinctly Other that humans cannot
21
Nahmanides, as we mentioned in the previous mitsvah, thought God's omnipotence
extended from that Oneness.
22
Laws of Foundations of the Torah 1;8.
19
God's Otherness also leads to the necessary failure of any human attempt to
accurately discuss God. God does not speak, or act, or anything, in the way humans
might think; all expressions about God are simply concessions to the needs of human
vocabulary. Indeed, Maimonides spends the bulk of the first section of his Guide
relationship to God. 23
Sefer haHinukh stresses that this mitsvah, also, sits at the center of the religion,
that denying God’s unity is a denial of the faith as a whole, rendering meaningless any
mitsvot such a person performs. He, of course, was writing in a Christian context, where
the pressure to convert to a religion that believed in a Trinity and the issue of
much as Sefer haHinukh, the fundamental message that observance of mitsvot must be in
nonetheless applies to all Jews everywhere, and must be a part of any picture of the goals
3—Love of God
Synopsis: The discussion elaborates on what it would mean to love a Creator Who is
inherently Other.
The commandment to love God, also codified in words of the Shema that are
recited morning and evening, “ve-ahavta et Hashem Elokekha you shall love the Lord
your God,” presents two related challenges.24 First, it is always surprising to find God
commanding emotions, since those would seem to be less malleable than actions. We
can easily understand how God could command Jews to give money to charity, for
involves a sense of deep identification and connection with someone or something else;
that connection itself (whether based on blood relationship, living together, or shared
interests) fosters the feelings of love. Since the previous mitsvah just stressed God's
Tradition offers two different answers. In their comments on that verse, the
Biblical exegetes Rashi and Nahmanides both assume that ve-ahavta refers to performing
the mitsvot me-ahavah, out of love, which they defined as without any ulterior motive.
This view relates ahavah, love, to the notion of lishmah, of performing the
commandments simply because God said to, not for the rewards of honor, wealth, health,
24
Deuteronomy, 6:5. For the obligation to recite the Shema, see below, mitsvah 10.
21
or whatever other good is seen as the reward for that performance.25 The love of ve-
Maimonides, in brief in the Sefer haMitsvot and at greater length in the beginning
of the Mishneh Torah, mentions two kinds of ahavah, each of which comes closer to
ordinary human love than that suggested by Rashi and Nahmanides. First, he notes that
contemplating the wonders of the universe that God created engenders a sense of love for
the One who put all this into place.26 This seems to parallel a certain kind of human love,
one in which the love stems from a longstanding relationship of giving. This is not,
perhaps, the hit-you-over-the-head variety of love that Hollywood would like to pretend
fuels marriages, but it is a kind of love that many people feel towards their various
Rachel Naomi Remen tells a beautiful story that captures this kind of love; it
begins with a woman nursing a homosexual man who was dying of AIDS. 27 As the man's
health declined, he needed the kind of care that could only be administered by someone
who was living with him in his house. After much thought, the woman decided to take
on this role, although it meant a great effort on her part. One day towards the end of his
25
Judaism’s preference for fulfilling mitsvot out of pure obedience or love seems to run
counter to the whole endeavor of ta`amei hamitsvot, of finding reasons and rationales for
the commandments, that sits at the base of this monograph, and that informs much of
Jewish observance. Today, for example, an observant person speaking to a nonobservant
one could probably offer reasons to explain all of the practices of the religion he or she
observes. Rashi’s, and tradition generally’s, preference for observance lishmah, without
ulterior motive, seems to denigrate those who keep mitsvot for any of those reasons.
While this topic is debated, one answer would be that those reasons are acceptable as
spurs to observance, but should not be the sole reason for one’s observance of the
commandment.
26
The experience also fuels yir’ah, awe or fear, as we will discuss in the next mitzvah.
27
The story appears in Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather's Blessings.
22
life, when she arrived home, she discovered that he had dressed and shaved himself (a
great effort at that stage of his illness), and was waiting downstairs for her.
When she entered the house, he got down on one knee and proposed marriage to
her. The love that had been built between them started (I have no knowledge of the other
factors that entered their relationship) from the kindnesses this woman performed for
him. While that might only be the starting point of love, Maimonides implies that a Jew
should start building love for the Creator in the same way, contemplating His kindnesses
Maimonides also describes constantly thinking about God, as if the Creator were
the object of one's affections, as either itself being love of God or helping to build it.
Maimonides, the arch-rationalist, actually gives the example of a lovesick man, who
thinks about his beloved constantly. While Maimonides thinks that these thoughts need
to be educated contemplations of God-- simply walking around thinking "I love you,
God" does not qualify-- the basic principle seems to be that acting as if one is in love will
lead towards actual love. Just as constancy of concern and thought characterizes human
Maimonides has thus offered two models for how to act in a way that is
meaningfully referred to as love, even while recognizing that people cannot truly develop
that emotion for a Creator they cannot know. People can only know the Creator's
handiwork (in some sense) by studying the universe with an eye towards appreciating its
Cause and, from that perspective, act as if in love, which, in some sense, is as good as so
being.
23
The nineteenth century Sfas Emes, written by the leader of Gerer Hasidism,
questions how the Torah could command an emotion,28 and responds that the Torah thus
reveals that it is within human powers to fulfill that obligation. In this view, people can
actually create (manufacture?) or practice the emotion of love to such an extent that they
will actually feel it. If the source of faith is faith itself, the source of love might be
actions of love.
This mitsvah perhaps also gives some insight into why God created the emotion at
all. In trying to figure out how to connect to the Creator, the love people feel for those
around them naturally serves as a model for how to achieve love of God, since that is the
only love they know. It is possible, then, that God incorporated love for others not only
for its survival value—it leads to parents protecting children, families protecting and
helping each other, and so on—but also to help people understand how to foster the
proper relationship with Him. As humans love their spouses, parents, children, relatives,
friends, and strangers, they might be growing not only in their general humanity, but in
4—Fear of God
In his Code, Maimonides reads yir’ah, the word the Bible uses, as something
more similar to awe than to fear. He groups awe with love, seeing both as stemming
from a proper examination of the created universe. In the previous mitsvah we noted that
such contemplation can lead to love or at least a deep desire to know the Creator of that
universe. Along with that desire for closeness, he believes humans will recognize their
28
First mentioned to me by my friend Eli Weber.
24
why he opens the Code with three chapters offering a thumbnail sketch of the universe as
he understood it.29 Considering that the Code is ostensibly a work of Jewish law, the
discussion reminds us that Maimonides viewed thinking about the relationship between
God and this world as an act of mitsvah observance. Studying God-issues and the world
were not only intellectual challenges; they helped a person deepen his or her love of God,
yir’ah as fear. He requires fearing God, so as to avoid becoming like those heretics who
do as they please “be-keri,” which for Maimonides means that they assume that the
29
Chapter 2 describes the world of the angels, which he pictured as real beings, although
(like God) completely nonphysical; they differ from each other only in their level of
knowledge of God. Maimonides considers the angels, their nature and makeup, as what
the Rabbis meant when they spoke of Ma`aseh Merkavah, the Working of the Chariot.
The term comes from the first prophecy of Ezekiel, where the prophet has a vision of a
chariot that supports God, with various figures and parts to that chariot. In the Talmud's
view, that vision represents some kind of deeply esoteric knowledge about the structure
of God’s relationship to the universe, including the ministering angels and their role.
Maimonides, although speaking in very different terminology, assumes that his brief
investigation strikes to the same issue.
As he notes at the end of chapter 2, the Talmud ruled that such matters should
only be discussed on a one-to-one basis, and only with someone who has already proven
himself capable of understanding these issues on his own. For such a person, a brief
indication of a deeper truth would suffice to lead to the next stage of comprehension.
Maimonides is therefore very brief, almost cryptic; luckily, our goal here is not to outline
God's relationship to the world. The early chapters of the 3rd part of the Guide provide a
more in-depth analysis of Ezekiel's vision.
Another fuel to ahavah and yir’ah, which Maimonides delves into in greater
detail, is Ma`aseh Bereshit, literally the sections of Genesis that describe the Creation of
the World. This, too, the Rabbis prohibited teaching in public. For Maimonides, that
meant Aristotelian physics; for us, it might mean quantum physics, cosmology,
astronomy, and so on.
25
world is governed by chance rather than by God.30 Being aware that God punishes
evildoers is, for Maimonides, essential to yir’ah; denying that truth characterizes those
At the end of the Laws of Repentance, Maimonides offers yet another definition
of yir’ah, this one giving it a more positive spiritual role. In that source, he says that
someone who fulfills all the commandments in order to achieve some goal— she-lo
lishmah, as we discussed earlier-- is only serving mi-yir’ah. Yir'ah thus means not only
awe or fear, but indicates action that is less than fully pure, although it may be wholly
positive.31 Yir'ah is the religious path most people tread for most of their lives.
Yir'ah thus has at least three meanings in Maimonides’ presentations alone. It can
imply the fear of punishment, a fear that assumes that God is actively involved enough in
the world as to punish transgressions. It can describe the awe-filled reaction of man
when confronting the greatness of the Creator. Finally, yir'ah might be the state occupied
even by most religious people, whose worship is tainted with some desire to achieve
Although both fear and love create difficulties of definition, the reminder that
they are part of the commanded relationship between a Jew and God has broad
ramifications for our reading of the rest of the system. Whatever particular details other
30
1:3. The word appears in Leviticus, 26:21, and was interpreted in various ways. In the
Bible, God promises to act the same way with those who walk with Him be-keri. At the
beginning of Hilkhot Ta`anit, Laws of Fasts Maimonides cites the verse when he speaks
of people who attribute tragedies that befall them to happenstance, suggesting that he saw
the word as meaning happenstance. In our context, then, it would mean those who
assume the world is governed by chance and therefore do as they please.
Incidentally, this also suggests that Maimonides might have agreed with Rashi and
31
Nahmanides that actions performed lishman, only for the sake of keeping God’s mitsvot,
would qualify as ahavah, love.
26
with a certain mind-set towards God, and, probably, that it serve to foster the growth of
Synopsis: The prime example of the mitsvah, prayer, shows that service involves
recognizing God’s presence and impact on the world. So, too, study qualifies as a way of
experiencing that impact as well.
will help us better understand how he conceived the mitsvah. At the beginning of his
Sefer haMitsvot, Maimonides wanted to explain why his enumeration of mitsvot would
differ from those offered by earlier authorities, particularly the ninth century Halakhot
from counting as a mitsvah among the 613. That explains, for example, his omission of
“Kedoshim tihyu, you shall be holy,”33 from the count. He does not mean that this and
similar statements are not obligatory as far as the Torah was concerned, just that they do
not qualify for the Talmudic count of 613. Some have suggested that this rule also led
Maimonides to omit the commandment to settle the Land of Israel, since that, too,
Returning to the mitsvah of serving God, the standard of leaving out general
mitsvot should have excluded this one as well. Maimonides explains that he includes it
only because there is also a specific obligatory act, prayer, which qualifies as fulfillment
of the commandment.35 He notes that the Rabbis of the Talmud refer to prayer as the
definition of `avodah; since `avodah can both narrowly define one specific obligation as
well as express a general value of the system, he can include it in the list.
Maimonides adds that the Rabbis elsewhere call study of Torah the definition of
`avodah. Our discussion here will consider how each of these qualifies as service, in turn
clarifying what service of God means generally as well as how prayer serves as the
petitioning God at least once a day. That petition was supposed to have a specific
structure, opening with words of praise, making a request, and then closing with thanks
and praise for the blessings God already provides in one’s life. Apparently, asking God
for help with some need is not only a possibly effective act for achieving some purpose, it
mean, apparently, that there are only 613 obligations in the Torah; there might be many
more than that. It does not even mean that these are the 613 most important ideas in the
Torah, since some of the most general and important commandments would be left off as
too all encompassing. Even had this work analyzed all 613, then, it would not have
encompassed all of the Torah. Our analysis of sixty, then, is only more partial than that
of all 613, not partial as opposed to complete.
35
That a certain act can turn a mitsvah hakolelet kol haTorah, a commandment that
encompasses the entirety of the Torah, into a mitsvah that makes it onto the list might
also explain the mitsvot we have seen so far, such as ahavat Hashem, love of God. Those
mitsvot were also ones that in some sense included the entire Torah. Maimonides would,
however, say that the contemplation of the world and the focusing of one’s attention on
God constitute obligatory acts that therefore render them ripe for inclusion.
28
By daily considering one’s needs and turning to God for assistance in fulfilling
them, a person (without relinquishing any responsibility to work to achieve those ends
him or herself) articulates human beings’ dependence on God. Verbally recognizing and
people can too easily come to believe that human efforts alone bring about the results
those humans want, the conscious insistence that God plays a role as well is an act of
there, the worship stems from investing oneself in the understanding of God’s Word and
the religious system that Word set up. Even so, study, like prayer, helps insure that one’s
life is filled with thoughts of God and maintains His centrality in one’s existence, by
The view that the mitsvah of prayer focuses on asserting dependence on God
supports a famous idea articulated by the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It is well-
known that Nahmanides disagreed with Maimonides about whether prayer was
obligatory, believing instead that the Torah only required prayer in times of particular
distress.36 Rabbi Soloveitchik suggested that Maimonides and Nahmanides did not
disagree in principle, but that Maimonides required every Jew to daily experience him or
her self as in sufficient distress to call out to God. That would make particular sense if
Maimonides saw the commandment as requiring Jews to increase their sense of the
This is pretty heady stuff, particularly coming from Maimonides, who so often
36
As he explains in his gloss to that mitsvah.
29
elsewhere emphasizes humans’ inability to make any positive statements about God.
Noting that element of his thought, academics tend to assume that Maimonides saw God
as completely uninvolved in the world, since any involvement would imply change in a
perfect God. The mitsvah of prayer suggests that the academics are only half-right.
Maimonides indeed sees God as fully Other, fully perfect and unchanging.
At the same time, in a way he would not dare define since he believed it was
impossible to make fully accurate positive statements about God, I read Maimonides as
believing that God was immanent in this world, involved, and the source of our salvation
from every distress. How the two go together is another mystery impenetrable because of
God’s difference from anything that humans know in their physical universe. While His
Otherly Being, the obligations of love, fear, and now service pull in the other direction.
This last one, in particular, requires Jews to engage God to the extent possible, turning to
Synopsis: To cling to God, either only by developing a close relationship with Torah
scholars, or also by swearing in God’s Name when pressed to prove the truth of one’s
statements.
We have combined these two mitsvot because Nahmanides denies that the verse in
question enunciates separate obligations. Maimonides defines the first of the two he sees
in the verse as the obligation to place oneself in the same social circle as talmidei
hakhamim, Torah scholars. Nahmanides agrees that that is obligatory, based on the words
"u-vo tidbak, and you shall cleave to Him."37 Since it is impossible to cleave to God,
37
Deuteronomy 10:20. Variations appear elsewhere in the Torah as well.
30
tradition offered cleaving to scholars as the reasonable substitute intended by the Torah.
The second mitsvah commands swearing in God’s Name whenever the occasion
arises that one has to strenuously verify the truth of a certain proposition. Maimonides
sees that as implying a prohibition against swearing by any other yardstick of truth. His
words suggest that he was focused on the mitsvah as obligating Jews to both believe and
demonstrate by their actions that God is the only legitimate source of truth.
Sefer haHinukh, Mitsvah 435, focuses differently, asserting that the person
swearing in God’s Name reminds himself of God’s existence and Providence. In that
view, the mitsvah helps the person taking the oath, rather than having that person serve
Nahmanides disagrees, accepting only that the Torah means to permit swearing in
God’s Name, not to command doing so. He explains those verses that seem to command
swearing in God’s Name as details of the more general commandment to cleave to Him.
For Nahmanides, in fact, only someone who has already developed a high level of
Partially, Nahmanides’ view stems from his variant text of the Talmud,38 but he
also seems to argue with Maimonides about the religious value of swearing in God’s
Name. For Maimonides, such oaths demonstrated recognition of God as Ultimate Truth;
Nahmanides saw them as the result of a long process of achieving true closeness to God.
substitute for cleaving to God Himself, Maimonides sees the mitsvah as an obligatory
way to improve oneself.39 Since the members of a person’s social circle shape his or her
38
Temurah 3b.
39
In both the Sefer haMitsvot and the sixth chapter of Hilkhot De`ot.
31
thoughts, opinions, character traits, and actions, the Torah orders Jews to insure that
scholars are included in that circle. Close contact with such people on a regular basis
allows a Jew to learn from their actions, their character, and their beliefs, and apply those
Maimonides’ belief that a relationship with Torah scholars will improve a person
such an interaction. In defining the mitsvah, Sefer haHinukh says that these scholars
teach how to perform mitsvot and the proper beliefs for a Jew to uphold.41 Possibly, the
Hinukh assumed that learning about mitsvot covered all proper actions and that learning
proper beliefs and the ways of God covered all areas of character as well. Taking his
words at face value, though, he is notably more intellectually focused than Maimonides,
who focused on general character and actions as well, without limiting himself to a
religious context.
despite having lived in a highly segregated society, did not distinguish between the
genders, implying that he expected women, however they could appropriately do so, to
secure the educational value of socializing with Torah scholars. Sefer haHinukh only
40
Maimonides defines what scholars teach in two different ways. In the Sefer haMitsvot,
he mentions ways of acting and of thinking about the world, meaning that scholars teach
lessons of action, moral character, and intellect. In Hilkhot De`ot, he mentions only
de`ot, character traits, and ma`asim, actions, although that is probably only because that
is his topic in that section of his Code, not because he had changed his mind and limited
what can be learned from a talmid hakham.
Mitsvah 434. When he gets to the purpose of the mitsvah, he says that by associating
41
notes that women should also make an effort to get to hear Torah scholars, which almost
sounds as if they are exempt from the mitsvah, but that it is a good idea.
Maimonides gives two examples of how to fulfill the mitsvah that are interesting
because they might easily be seen as expressing other values. First, he says that the
obligation to cling to Torah scholars means that men should try to marry the daughter of a
scholar and also try to marry their daughters to (or encourage their daughters to marry)
such scholars. Without Maimonides, we might easily have assumed that the Talmudic
sayings that recommended such marriages were advice about how to insure a happy
business with them, which on its face seems to be an alternative to giving them charity.
We would especially have guessed that that was what Maimonides meant by that urging,
since he virulently objected to scholars’ taking money from communal charity funds.
Nonetheless, Maimonides instead phrases the value of these actions in their insuring that
the person will spend time with that scholar, creating more opportunities to learn from
him.
Whether or not the Torah demanded that Jews verbally express their connection to
God through oaths, the discussion of this verse has unequivocally informed us that the
Torah wanted Jews to develop a social circle that includes those who will, by their ideas,
character, and actions, help others elevate themselves. Many people can perform that
function in various ways, but the Torah focused on Torah scholars as the surest vehicle to
Synopsis: Based on Scriptural examples of God’s action in the world, Jews must strive to
become more like God in their characters and actions.
The eighth mitsvah adjures Jews la-lekhet bi-drakhav, to follow His ways. We
might assume that that is limited to acting in ways directly identifiable with God, such as
keeping mitsvot, the “ways” God ordained for Jews.42 Maimonides, based on several
rabbinic statements, applied the obligation to character as well, so that the obligation
comes to the fore in his definition of proper character, cultivating the middle path in
The middle path, for those not familiar with the term, was the Aristotelian ideal of
character. It meant balancing the extreme strategies on any issue, and adopting a path
that took account of both but leaned toward neither. In the question of spending money,
for example, Maimonides and Aristotle would approve of someone who was neither
profligate nor miserly, but right in the middle. According to Maimonides, that is not only
the best way for human beings to act in a secular sense, it fulfills the Torah's
Maimonides presents the issue with notable differences in his various writings. In
the Sefer haMitsvot, which he wrote before the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides cites a
version of this notion that appears in the Midrash43 but not the Talmud. Commenting on
the key words in the obligation, la-lekhet be-khol derakhav, to walk in all His ways,44 the
called, etc.”
That expression does not claim that God is compassionate, merciful, or any of the
other listed character traits, just that he is called such. Given Maimonides’ theological
concerns about ascribing emotions and actions to God—a perfect Being would be
completely unchanged and unchanging, in his view—the Midrash’s care in saying that
distinction between God and humans; Scripture uses certain words for God not because
they correctly describe Him but because they instruct people as to how to best improve
their character.
Two other sources complicate the picture. First, the Talmud's words, which
Maimonides refers to in the Sefer haMitsvot, ignore that distinction.45 Based on the verse,
“Aharei Hashem Elokeikhem telekhu, You shall follow after the Lord Your God,”46 the
Talmud says that just as God clothes the naked (as He did with Adam and Eve), visits the
sick (Abraham after his circumcision), and comforts the bereaved (after Sarah died), so
We could perhaps avoid the full consequences of the statement by assuming that
even the Talmud only meant that Scripture describes God as doing so. As long as we
maintain that "acting like God" is a Scriptural term, the obligation to imitate God would
mean that Jews are meant to study Scripture to see how God is described as acting, and
develop traits of character that would lead to acting similarly. Maimonides might even
claim that Scripture described God as acting and having emotions to allow humans to
45
Sotah 14a.
46
Devarim 14; 5.
35
One more text forces us to move beyond the Scriptural, to recognize another
legitimate source of information on how to act in a God-like fashion. The Talmud cites
Abba Shaul who, based on the verse “zeh eli ve-anvehu, this is my God and I will glorify
Him,”47 says that just as God is hanun, so, too, Jews have to be hanun, and so on.48 Here,
the verse in question does not specify acting like God, it only speaks of identifying and
glorifying Him. When Abba Shaul says that that means being merciful, etc., he seems to
assume that those terms are accurate descriptions of God, not just those that humans can
understand.
In Guide I; 54, Maimonides explains this and similar statements about God. He
says that God’s impact on this world—not how He does it, but the results of His
influence—would, if a human were to have such impact, betray certain traits of character,
particularly those listed in the 13 Attributes found in Exodus,49 and that are part of the
liturgy for Yom Kippur. Those attributes of action, defined as the character traits of a
hypothetical person performing those acts, are binding. It is in that sense that we can
meaningfully say that God is compassionate (He has created a world which, if a human
had created it, would betray its Creator’s compassion) and so on.
Accepting this claim means that Jews’ strivings towards character improvement
should pay attention to several guidelines. The Golden Mean, with appropriate
adjustments for supererogation, provides one type of ideal character to use as a model.
Beyond that, Scripture mentions actions and traits that describe God, which offer more
47
Exodus 15:2.
48
Maimonides says he found the statement in the Midrash on Parshat Kedoshim; it also
appears in Shabbat 133b.
49
34:6.
36
avenues for emulation. Finally, the world, God’s Handiwork, provides evidence of God's
"character" as well, although the interpretation of the evidence is the greatest challenge of
the three. Whatever the final result, the most important realization to be had is that there
take one’s "natural" character and work to mold it into a more God-like one, using all
Synopsis: The obligation to place fidelity to God above one’s own interests.
In the 5th chapter of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, Maimonides
assumes that the obligation to be killed rather than transgress certain prohibitions,
yehareg ve-‘al ya`avor, is an example of the more general requirement to sanctify God's
name. Starting with this detail, we can expand to a better understanding of the obligation
generally.
Three of the Torah’s prohibitions are considered so serious that a Jew must never
violate them, even under threat of death: idolatry, murder, and gilui `arayot (incestuous
audience, the motives of the person demanding the sin, or the social/political context
where the threat is made, alter that rule. Those factors will affect other applications of
yehareg ve-`al ya`avor, but spending a moment on these three start us on the road to
It seems simple to connect the obligation to die rather than commit idolatry to an
50
Incest for these purposes is defined as sexual relationships that would be punished
either by death or by karet, meaning also that the two partners could not create a
halakhically valid marriage. For the derivation of the obligation to be killed for these
three, see bPesahim 25b. For the definition of incest, see bKiddushin 67b.
37
obligation to sanctify God’s Name, since those who worship a foreign god are obviously
rejecting the notion of a single God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. Refusing to do so,
even on pain of death, clearly demonstrates a person’s devotion to the sanctity of His
Murder fits less obviously, since it is not clear how killing someone else under
threat of death profanes the name of God. The Talmud bases the requirement to be killed
rather than kill on the simple logic that no one can decide whose life is more deserving of
salvation; the threatened person has no right, therefore, to decide that it is better that the
other person die rather than him or her self. That logic only explains why it is prohibited
to kill someone else even at the cost of one’s own life, but does not show how that serves
Sefer haHinukh’s phrasing of the Talmud’s logic offers one way of combining the
two. He says that no one can know which of the two people, the potential murderer or
the victim, will perform more mitsvot in their lives after this incident. In that reading, the
Talmud's comment about not knowing whose blood is redder really means that it is
impossible to judge who will perform more mitsvot. If so, the definition of “redder”
blood is a person’s future potential as a worshipper of God, something that humans ever
know.
Assuming that who “should” live or die depends on who will serve God better in
the future, itself a debatable contention, at least explains how refraining from killing can
constitute a kiddush Hashem. The refusal to murder the named person is not a simple
ethical decision, it is a recognition that the standard of judgment of the value of human
life is beyond human beings’ capabilities. The person who gets killed for refusing to
38
murder someone else not only submits to God's command not to kill, he or she also
Once we see that, of course, we can make the same point without adopting the
Sefer haHinukh’s assumptions that the number of mitsvot a person will perform
determine his or her life-value. As long as we know that whatever standard God uses is
future mitsvah potential or not—we can know how being killed rather than killing is an
The Talmud expands the rule from murder to incestuous relationships based on a
verse that compares the two.51 The exact derivation is unimportant for us here, but
relating incest to murder suggests that here, too, we cannot appreciate the seriousness of
such sins. Letting oneself be killed rather than engage in incestuous intercourse would
again be bowing not only before God's command, but also before His greater wisdom.
The rule of yehareg ve-`al ya`avor applies to other sins as well, but in those cases
surrounding circumstances affect the application. Jews are required to refuse, for
example, to violate any Torah prohibition, even under threat of death, if the person
coercing the violation was focused on its being a violation of the Torah, and the incident
occurred in the presence of ten adult Jews. If a government were making a concerted
effort to stamp out Jewish observance, the rules would be even more stringent, since Jews
would be obligated to refuse orders to violate any aspect of Judaism even in private.
When the coercer cares only for his own pleasure, however, such as asking a Jew
to sew him a suit on Shabbat, the Jew would be allowed and perhaps required to do so
51
bPesahim 25b, commenting on Deuteronomy 22:26.
39
even in public.52 That last case suggests that the key issue in yehareg ve-`al ya`avor is
whether or not the Jew is being asked to choose between God and the person threatening
to kill him. Where no such choice is required—as when the person coercing the
transgression clearly cares about himself and his pleasure, not the religious ramifications
for the Jew in question—the issue of kiddush Hashem does not arise.
Maimonides understood it as an obligation to put God's goals in the world ahead of one’s
own, particularly when specifically confronted with a choice between the two. In that
sense, Maimonides apparently saw idol worship, murder, and incest as acts that
inherently contravene central elements of God's picture of the world, so that even private
violations count as saving one’s own life at the cost of violating God's plan.
For other mitsvot, the acts themselves are not so central to God’s rule of the world
that the Jew must forfeit his life to avoid transgressing them. When, however, those acts
are made into crucial choices -- in times when the whole religion is under attack or when
the choice is being made in public (so that other Jews will see a coreligionist choosing
the mitsvah mentioned by Sefer haHinukh. According to the Hinukh, someone who
wantonly sins in private (with no coercion and with clear recognition that it is a sin),
desecrates God’s Name; conversely, someone who refrains from sin simply because God
prohibited it, even when acting completely alone, sanctifies the Name. Lacking an
audience, we might not know why the issue of kiddush Hashem arises. Once we know
See the discussion in Maimoindes, Hilhot Yesodei haTorah 5:2 and Shulhan Arukh,
52
that the choice is the crucial element, we realize that submission to His judgment of right
and wrong even when alone in a room can also sanctify His Name.
The various versions of kiddush Hashem-- sins that inherently desecrate the
Name, such that they must be avoided even under penalty of death, sins where the
sins that disregard God completely-- show the God-focus of the commandment as a
whole. In a world where many willingly ignore God’s desires, kiddush Hashem tells
Synopsis: The obligation to articulate one’s belief in God morning and evening.
This mitsvah stands out from the ones we have seen before in that it is the first
from which women are exempt, and will therefore introduce us to the concept of a
sources agree that this mitsvah obligates men to say something morning and evening, but
there is a range of opinions as to how much reciting the Torah mandated. At the low end
of the spectrum, many authorities, including Nahmanides, Rashba, and Sefer haHinukh
thought the Torah only required saying the first verse of Shema, the declaration of God’s
Oneness and Unity. These authorities think that the other paragraphs of Shema included
in the liturgy were ordained by the rabbis. Other rabbinic opinions ranged from just the
first paragraph of Shema, the first two, and, perhaps, all three.53
Maimonides seems to take the last position, that all three sections are obligated by
53
R. Ovadyah Yosef, in his responsa Yabi`a Omer 8, Orah Hayyim 6, sections 4-6
reviews the various authorities who hold each of these views. Sefer haHinukh discusses
the mitsvah in mitsvah 420.
41
the Torah. At the beginning of his Laws of Shema, he lists the three sections to be
recited, explains the purpose of each one, and then says that reading those three
The disagreement about Shema extends to their disagreeing about the result
produced by the recitation. Sefer haHinukh, who focuses only on the statement of God’s
Unity, sees the mitsvah as instituting a regular reminder of God’s existence. That
reminder alone, he assumes, was sufficient to achieve the mitsvah’s purpose, keeping
describes the first paragraph as teaching not only God’s existence and absolute unity, but
also the need to develop ahavah (love) for Him, and to study (both the text of Torah and
whatever other texts will teach about Him) in order to further one’s connection to Him.
The next two paragraphs expand the scope of obligations to include all of mitsvot, tsitsit
as a reminder of those mitsvot and (especially for the nighttime Shema, when tsitsit are
can, should, and must keep that Unity uppermost in their minds and actions throughout
the day. Despite his philosophical interests, in other words, Maimonides had a keen
We can show that Maimonides nonetheless agreed with Sefer haHinukh that the
mitsvah was meant to institute a regular reminder of other existing obligations by noting
second century Mishnaic source, that says that just as the Torah set fixed times for
Shema, so, too, the Rabbis set fixed times for prayer. He comments that the Tosefta
supports his view that prayer itself is a Torah obligation, although the Rabbis, Hazal, set
prayer, but is odd in the context of Shema-- why would he stop to prove something about
prayer in a description of this mitsvah? We suggest that he read the Tosefta as teaching
us about the mitsvah of Shema as well. Just as in prayer, where Hazal set fixed times and
forms of expression for a general obligation to turn to God, Shema is the Torah's setting
such times and forms of expression for more generally stated obligations, such as to
Recognizing that Shema brings specificity to certain broader mitsvot offers a first
aspect of the entire category of mitsvot `aseh she-hazman grama upon which to focus in
trying to understand women's exemption. First, we should remember that women are
obligated in all the underlying mitsvot for which Shema seems to serve as a reminder.
Women are just as obligated as men to believe in the Absolute Unity of God, to come to
as great an understanding of that Unity as possible, and to develop love (not just
emotional, but the love of deep understanding) of the Creator. The exemption here is
from the requirement to, at fixed times, remind oneself of these obligations.
Similarly, Maimonides sees women as obligated only to pray at least once a day,
as per Torah law. Of course, as is true for men even as far as the Torah was concerned,
the more often and/or more eloquently one prayed, the better. Women were freed, in
other words, from following the specific times for prayer set up by the Rabbis.
43
This split suggests—for now, it is only a suggestion, but it will become clearer as we
continue our study—that the exemption from time-related mitsvot reveals the Torah’s
desire to avoid legislating specific forms of observance for women, rather than being any
less concerned with their spirituality. The “real” mitsvot here are just as obligatory for
women as for men; the difference lies in the extent to which women’s remembering to
fulfill those mitsvot are directly guided by the Torah.54 While we will expand our
understanding of the issue as we go along, it seems enough for our purposes here to have
seen that this exemption (not to judge the category as a whole yet) does not take away
from the spiritual expectations the religion has for women. It only refrains from
obligating them--they are, of course, permitted to say Shema if they wish-- in a specific
10)11--Talmud Torah
Synopsis: The obligation for men to insure that knowledge of the Written Torah passes
from generation to generation.
Our presentation here will argue that what the Torah and Talmud meant by the
community today. While the mitsvah includes the obligation to study as much Torah as
one can—what people generally assume about the mitsvah-- that is not its essential
definition. The exact definition of such a central Jewish obligation will certainly
contribute to our attempt to articulate positive Judaism. In addition, though, it sheds light
on what might be the proper priorities for education Jews, adults and children, most
productively.
54
I have suggested one reason for this in my "Men And Women’s Differing Religious
Aims, As Taught By The Category Of Mitsvot `Aseh She-Hazman Grama" printed in the
online journal, Women-in-Judaism.com, available at
www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/contemporary/contemp_index1.html.
44
This redefinition might also have a practical effect on the study of Torah among
Jews today, as it will provide a less-daunting formulation of the obligation than the usual
one, which says that a Jew must learn as much as he can. Finally, since, like keriat
Shema, women were not obligated in this mitsvah,55 knowing exactly what the Torah
chose not to require of women is crucial to understanding the Torah’s view of women’s
spiritual existence; it is especially important to dispel the falsehood that the exemption
commandment to teach more than to study. His definition refers to both learning and
teaching, with the source-verse of ve-shinantam le-vanekha, you shall teach it to your
children.56
He also records Sifrei's ruling that the verse obligates men to teach any students
who wish to learn, in addition to their sons, since Scripture elsewhere refers to students as
requiring a person to know the literature of Torah well enough that he can answer any
question immediately. That last comment, which reads the Biblical verse nonliterally to
make a pedagogical point, values knowledge of Torah not for its own sake, but because
teaching one's sons as proof that only sons are included in the commandment; again, the
55
One opinion in the Talmud saw this mitsvah, and its relationship to tefillin, as the
source of women’s exemption in mitsvot `aseh she-hazman grama generally, see the
Talmudic discussion in bKiddushin 33a-35a.
56
Deuteronomy 6; 7.
57
34:7.
45
moment-- point to the mitsvah of Talmud Torah as concerned with guaranteeing the
transmission of knowledge from one generation of Jews to the next, not—as is usually
assumed-- with the act of study per se. While the act of study has positive value for the
person who engages in it, the mitsvah carefully focuses on teaching, as we have seen.
Some further examples: In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides follows the Talmud
ve-hoda`tam le-vanekha ve-livnei vanekha, you shall tell them to your sons and
grandsons,58 the Talmud asserts a particular obligation for grandfathers to teach their
grandchildren.59 Maimonides rates this as a higher priority than teaching students outside
the family, but as lesser than the need to teach one's own sons.
idea that the mitsvah seeks to guarantee transmission of knowledge. Placing the
relying on strangers or the community at large, and that may be why the Torah chose to
do so.
The Talmud sets an interesting minimum on a father's obligation to teach his son
in order to fulfill the mitsvah: the text of Torah. As long as the son can read and explain
any selection from the Five Books of the Torah, the father has fulfilled his obligation.
That makes most sense if we remind ourselves that the mitsvah meant to guarantee
transmission of basic cultural knowledge--the Torah, the source of all Jewish knowledge
58
Deuteronomy 4;9.
59
Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:2 and bKiddushin 30a.
46
and law, was the basic text expected to be familiar for Jews from one generation to the
next.
Only that understanding of the mitsvah explains the Talmud’s derivation of the
grandparental obligation. The verse “ve-hoda`tam” refers directly only to Jews’ needing
to maintain and transmit the memory of the event of mattan Torah, the Giving of the Law
at Sinai, not the content of Torah. That the Talmud uses a verse about that requirement
to elucidate the obligation of study of Torah assumes that the two are related, as if the
obligation were actually to create and uphold a certain connection to the Word of God
both in content and in the circumstances of its giving. Teaching Torah to children and
grandchildren transmits memory of the event at which that Torah was given in addition to
The Talmud certainly does not wish Jews to stop at the text of Torah, and it
makes sure to include stories of people who came to know the entire expanse of Jewish
literature, but it never suggests that the basic obligation involves anything other than the
text of Torah. We might say that the rest of that literature that people study-- Talmud,
commentaries, codes, etc.-- simply helps Jews to better understand the original document
The perspective of Talmud Torah presented here could also considerably alter our
understanding of women’s exemption. The act of study is not the issue, since the Torah
did not focus on the act of study for men. Nor was the Torah mandating the need to
60
An obligation in which Rema, at least, included women, see Yoreh Deah 246; 6.
47
knowledge, to insure that the next generation (and the next, ad infinitum) is given some
minimal level of Torah knowledge. Certainly we can wonder why the Torah chose to
free women of that obligation (and our study of their other exemptions will offer an
answer),61 but the re-framing of the question alters our picture of that issue, and of the
Synopsis: The male Jew’s obligations to wear reminders of God on his arm and head, as
ways of binding his emotions and thoughts to God’s worship.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the mitsvah of tefillin—the requirement that
each male Jew wear a box on his arm and head, each box containing parchment recording
the four biblical sections that mention the requirement—is that it counts as two mitsvot.
Counting tefillin as two mitsvot affects practical observance when only one of the two
boxes is available, since it means that there is full religious value in donning each one; in
contrast, in the mitsvah of tsitsit, the need for white and tekhelet, of indigo dyed strings,
Practical issues aside, seeing the two types of tefillin as separate obligations raises
assemble more facts about the ritual. First, here, too, women are exempt, and the source
Maimonides reminds readers that bKiddushin 35a exempts women based on the
verse that Jews are supposed to wear tefillin "le-ma`an tihyeh Torat Hashem be-fikha, so
that the Torah of God should be in your mouths."62 Since women are exempt from the
61
Again, see my online article, referenced above, note 54.
62
Exodus 13;9.
48
obligation of teaching Torah to their sons and grandsons, the Talmud says, an obligation
that includes discussing Torah “when you sit in your homes, when you walk on the road,
when you lie down, and when you arise,”63 they are similarly exempt from wearing an
appurtenance apparently intended to keep that Torah in their mouths. The assumption of
the Talmudic statement incidentally informs us that tefillin are in some way an adjunct to
Other elements of the mitsvah further highlight tefillin's role in increasing the
wearer’s awareness of Torah (and, by extension, God), or making it more consistent. The
Talmud requires regularly touching/ feeling the tefillin while wearing them, to insure that
the person maintains focus.65 It is while wearing tefillin (as opposed to tsitsit, for
example) that halakhah stresses the need to avoid inappropriate thoughts and actions
(such as expelling air), so much so that people who could not avoid improper bodily
from donning tefillin until they could regain their bodily control.66
63
Deuteronomy 6; 7.
64
The connection to Torah study perhaps also explains why so many of tefillin’s laws are
halakhot le-Moshe mi-Sinai, laws attributed to a direct tradition from Moses at Sinai. As
Maimonides notes at the beginning of Laws of Tefillin, there are ten such halakhot
regarding the preparation of tefillin, each of which are absolutely necessary for an
acceptable observance of the mitsvah. Perhaps tefillin’s declared purpose, keeping God's
Torah in our minds, is furthered by making oral tradition central to the proper observance
of the commandment; since Torah, according to Jewish tradition, encompasses much
unwritten material, the observance itself incorporates both types of material as well. The
late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik is reported to have made a similar point in explaining
the centrality of the oral tradition to establishing the exact date of Shavuot, Pentecost, the
anniversary of the Giving of the Torah, as discussed in bMenahot 65a.
65
Shabbat 12a.
66
Orah Hayyim 37;2.
49
The common custom to wear tefillin only during morning prayers, a result of
concern about the expulsions of air mentioned a moment ago, shows that the issue of
cleanliness outweighed the religious value of constancy of presence. Since tefillin were
so focused on disciplining minds and bodies to the awareness of God, it was meaningless
to wear them when the person in question could not exercise the proper self-control. Yet
that ideal form of the mitsvah again shows that it was meant as a constant presence in a
Only when we think of tefillin as a constant presence, as the Torah was assuming
they would be, can we offer a sensible view of the role they were meant to play in the
Torah system. Imagine if, among the mosaic of ethnic practices in the city of New York,
simply when out on the town (all of which, by the way, are perfectly permissible in the
Torah’s view). That picture justifies the Torah’s claim that this mitsvah would keep
words of Torah (and, by extension, thoughts of God) in our mouths; it is much harder to
imagine Jews ignoring their status as Jews while wearing their tefillin than nowadays,
when the tefillin have been safely left at home after morning prayers.
Tefillin as a constant presence on Jews’ heads67 also helps explain the connection
the Talmud draws between tefillin and another verse. In its original context, the verse
“ve-ra’u kol `amei ha’aretz ki shem Hashem nikra `alekhah, all the nations of the world
will see that God’s Name is upon you,”68 means that when Jews keep the mitsvot and
67
Remembering that Jews were originally supposed to wear tefillin all the time also
clarifies the Talmudic assertion, Menahot 37b, that the tefillin of the arm are a private
sign between the person and God, while those on the head are a public one. When tefillin
is limited to synagogue, the distinction seems useless, but in the Torah’s ideal of a life
lived while wearing tefillin we understand the distinction easily.
68
Devarim 28;10.
50
receive the promised reward, other nations will note their good fortune and know that
God is with them. The Talmud instead reads the verse as referring to tefillin; in seeing a
Jew wearing tefillin, non-Jews will know that the Jew in question, and the nation in
general, bear God’s Name.69 That again only makes sense if wearing tefillin was part of
Although we do not intend to focus on it here, this view of tefillin also suggests a
reason for women’s exemption similar to others we have suggested before. Just as the
case of Shema, here, too, the Torah exempts women from the obligation to place a
physical reminder of God on their persons; women are no less obligated than men to
think of God (although perhaps less obligated to think of Torah), but the Torah did not
Knowing that the tefillin were to serve as reminders of God and Torah,70 we can
note tradition’s view of how the two boxes serve different reminder functions, also
explaining why they are separate commandments.71 The tefillin on the hand (near the
heart) were seen as helping the Jew bind his emotions to God, while those on the head
channeled his thoughts towards God. By separating the two, the Torah apparently
informs us that the two areas of human action—thoughts and emotions-- differ so greatly
The connection appears in several texts, among them Berakhot 6a and 57a, as well as
69
Sotah 17a.
Some Talmudic statements expand that to seeing tefillin as protection against sin, as we
70
that the mechanism for bringing each into relationship with God is completely separate
Our brief examination of tefillin shows that the boxes are less a rote act than an
attempt to produce specific responses, both in the people wearing them and those who
meet those people. As we hope is true often in this book, it reminds us that the
observances ordained in the Bible aim to produce a change in the people observing that
Synopsis: The separate obligations for men to tie reminder-strings on any four-cornered
garments they wear during the day, and for all Jews to place reminder-boxes on their
doors and gateways.
The conceptual issues posed by these two mitsvot are fairly similar to each other
as well as to tefillin, so we can discuss them together. The mitsvah of tsitsit is to tie eight
strings on the corners of any four cornered garment a male Jew wears. To perform the
mitsvah fully, most of those strings should be white, with one or two of them being
tekhelet; tekhelet is a dye, probably of an indigo color, made from a fish called hilazon in
the Talmud. The Talmud describes tekhelet as matching the color of the sea and the sky.72
For hundreds of years, the identity of the hilazon has been unknown, but the last century
and a half has seen at least three attempts at re-identifying it. Currently, P’til Techelet, an
institute in Israel, is popularizing the theory that murex trunculus is the true tekhelet, and
For further discussion of the tekhelet debate, see The Journal of Halacha and
73
Contemporary Society, vols. XLII and XLIII, with articles by Mendel Singer,
“Understanding the Criteria for Chilazon,” response by Baruch Sterman, “The Source of
Techelet,” and a letter supporting Dr. Singer’s position by R. Yehchiel Yitzchok Perr.
The homepage of P’til Techelet, the organization dedicated to manufacturing and
52
The two parts of tsitsit, in contrast to tefillin, are not separate mitsvot. That means
that a person who does not have tekhelet can nonetheless fulfill the mitzvah with only
had both white and tekhelet strings. That technical halakhic fact means that wearing a
garment with strings on its four corners is religiously meaningful to some extent whether
those strings are all white, all tekhelet, or a mix of the two (as opposed to, for example,
wearing strings on a three-cornered garment, which does not fulfill any religious
command or goal whatsoever). Any suggestion as to tsitsit’s purpose must therefore take
We will be better able to develop a theory of the mitsvah, however, if we first turn
to the other mitsvah in this section, mezuzah, the obligation to place a box on the doorpost
of each doorway in a Jewish home and on the gates of any cities that are Jewishly owned
or controlled. That box (or case) must contain a piece of parchment on which a scribe
has written the two sections of the Torah that mention the mitzvah. Those sections are
also two of the four placed in the boxes of the tefillin, since mezuzah is mentioned in the
same section of the Torah as tefillin and Torah study; mezuzah, tefillin, and the Torah
scroll are the three common ritual objects in Judaism that require a particular kind of
writing and parchment. Any explanation of mezuzah should take account of its similarity
to those mitsvot, presumably in terms of its role in keeping a Jew focused on some kind
As we mentioned briefly in our discussion of tefillin, the Talmud says that anyone
who fulfills the mitsvot of tefillin, mezuzah, and tsitsit will not soon sin,74 a statement that
stresses their protective function. Having looked at some details of these observances, it
seems clear that that accurately sums up their basic purpose as well, although each in its
own way. Tefillin are placed on the arm and head since they are meant to affect hearts
and minds, leading to the Torah of God being in the Jew’s mouth.
The Torah itself discusses tsitsit’s role in reminding Jews of God, in the verse, “u-
r’item oto u-zekhartem et kol mitsvot Hashem, and you will see them and remember all
the commandments of God…”75 Combining the verse’s stress on seeing the tsitsit with
offers the possibility that tsitsit are meant to remind its wearers of God and their
responsibilities towards Him in all of their outward interactions. If so, we would read
mezuzah, which again combines protection with memory of the Torah, as insuring that
Jews’ passages in life—doorways-- will be ones filled with God and His Torah.
aspects of human experience offers insight both into the question we raised before, why
the two types of tsitsit are considered one mitzvah, when the two types of tefillin were
The two tefillin boxes addressed different parts of the self, the intellect and the
emotions. The different elements of the mitsvah of tsitsit, in contrast, have the same
basic purpose, serving as a reminder of God on a Jew’s clothing. The different colors
presumably serve different purposes within that goal, but they are apparently nonetheless
a unified obligation.
75
Numbers 15;39.
54
For an example of how to construe their different roles, the late Rabbi
Soloveitchik once suggested that white was the color of clarity, symbolizing life
situations that were simple and clear. Tekhelet is a color lacking in clarity—the Talmud
describes it as similar to the sea, which was similar to the sky, which was similar to the
Throne of Glory. All those comparisons, Rabbi Soloveitchik suggested, are purposely
inexact, because tekhelet symbolizes complex questions, ones without a single or obvious
answer or method of dealing with them. While the two types of strings play different
roles in that scheme, they are nonetheless both performing the same basic function, which
Mezuzah, following that logic, reminds a Jew of God in the home, during personal
and family interactions. As Jews pass through doorways, moving from one space to
another, the mezuzah beckons them to bring God into that passage as well. Perhaps a
story about a novice in a Buddhist temple will make that point clearer. A young man had
just spent his first year in the temple and was home on a visit when he met Thomas
Merton asked him what he had learned in his first year in the temple, expecting to
hear grand tales of visions and enlightenment. The young man replied that he had
learned “about opening and closing doors,” by which he meant that he had spent the year
Moving on to the issue of women’s exemption, we note that women are exempt
from three of the four mitsvot of reminder, the three that are found directly on one’s
76
I read the story in The Spirituality of Imperfection, .
55
person or garments; the one they must join in is one that is placed on a doorway, a much
less intrusive form of required memory of God. As we might say in the Talmud, mi-mah
nafshakh, either women are obligated to surround themselves with reminders of God, in
which case they should be included in all four mitsvot, or they are not so obligated, in
The Talmud registered technical reasons for these exemptions, although they are
not obviously helpful on a conceptual plane. The technical explanation for women not
being obligated to wear tefillin is that they do not have to learn Torah; they do not have to
learn Torah, as we have seen, because they were not made part of the chain of
transmission that the Torah wished to insure. We had no explanation, however, as to why
they were not made part of that chain. The Talmud then found textual support for the
claim that women’s exemption from tefillin serves as a paradigm for their exemption
from all positive time-related commandments.77 Again, the Talmud does not offer any
Seeing the different treatment of largely similar mitsvot here offers the possibility
that the extent to which a mitsvah intrudes on one’s choices about oneself affects whether
the Torah decided to require that act of women. Responsibility for the chain of
responsibility brings with it the obligation to wear tefillin throughout the day. So, too,
having string-fringes on the ends of one’s clothing deeply affects how others experience
that person.78 Having a box on the doorposts of a home only affects those who notice it,
77
Kiddushin 34aff.
78
We would even speculate that it is for that reason that the Torah limited the observance
to certain times. In the case of tefillin, when other symbols of the same covenant were
more broadly available, such as Shabbat, the Torah freed the person from the need to
56
and in a way that is less tied to the particular homeowner than those other mitsvot.
We would tentatively suggest, then, that the Torah exempted women from those
obligations that affected their personal religious identity in the most rigid and intrusive
ways. Women may decide to perform these mitsvot, but are freed of the absolute
obligation to do so. Men, on the other hand, were required to have these various
reminders surrounding them at all the times ordained by the Torah. This theory, of
course, relies on the general framework we have offered for the past four mitsvot-- the
two of tefillin, tsitsit, and mezuzah—that the Torah was installing reminders in Jews’
persons, clothing, and doorways to help maintain mindfulness of God at all times and
Understanding this mitsvah fully includes not only understanding the Torah’s
original command—to write a Torah scroll—but also the other options for that
observance and the discussion surrounding those other options. From there, we will see
how the mitsvah is not so much about the writing as about having access to items for
study of Torah.
The Torah asserts this obligation by requiring Jews to write hashirah hazot,79 this
song, a phrase that meant only the song recorded in the next chapter of the Bible. The
wear such an identifying mark. In the case of tsitsit, the goal of the mitsvah was the
seeing, perhaps again because it was a question of how one saw oneself during
interactions with others. Where seeing was not an issue, the mitsvah was not put in place.
79
Deuteronomy 31; 19.
57
mitzvah, however, requires writing the entire Torah.80 The Talmud also makes clear that
each generation must write new Torah scrolls, so that one may not rely on scrolls
A significant body of opinion does allow buying a scroll, although that is a less-
usability, qualifies as writing it, since the person who corrects it has made it into a scroll
that can be used. Later rabbis pondered the distinction between purchasing and inheriting
a Torah, since in both cases the person did not write it. Minhat Hinukh suggested that
buying a Torah at least involves effort and monetary cost, whereas inheritance requires
no action at all.82
In the early fourteenth century, R. Asher, known as Rosh, raised an issue more
central for current observance of the mitsvah.83 He pointed out that in the time of the
Talmud, people not only read from a scroll in public, they used it for their private study
of Torah. It was in such a context, he claimed, that the Torah commanded writing a
scroll; the intent of the mitsvah, however, was that the tools of Torah study would be
Nowadays, Rosh said (a view that became all the more true with the advent of
printing), when people no longer study from those scrolls, writing or purchasing the
books one would use in study--including Bibles, volumes of Mishnah or Talmud, and
80
See Sanhedrin 21b, with Shulhan `Arukh Yoreh De`ah 270:1.
81
Rashi already proposes this view, as do many authorities up to and including the Vilna
Gaon; surprisingly, Rema, Yoreh Deah 270, rejects this possibility.
82
This leads to other interesting questions, such as whether receiving a sefer as a gift
would qualify or not, but we will leave those for another forum.
83
Quoted in Tur Yoreh De`ah 270.
58
commentaries—should also fulfill the mitzvah. Rosh seems to be saying that the mitsvah
was always an adjunct of the mitsvah to study Torah; as people’s practices around Torah
study changed, the ways to fulfill the mitsvah expanded to incorporate the texts they used
in that study.
Maimonides excludes women from the obligation,84 a view that makes most sense
if he, too, adopted Rosh’s assumption that this mitzvah serves as an avenue to easing
study. That does not necessarily mean that he would have adopted Rosh’s expansion of
the mitzvah to other books, but his distinguishing women from men, which he does not
explain or justify, seems to agree with Rosh's assumption about the underlying motives of
the commandment.
writing other books of learning could substitute for the obligation to write a Torah scroll,
others could not accept that Rosh would see a Torah commandment as changing over
time. Instead, Beit Yosef suggests that Rosh only meant that with the change in study
habits there was also value in writing those books, but that he would have still required
Sha'agat Aryeh, the eighteenth century R. Aryeh Leib Heller, rejects Rosh’s
central assumption, the connection between Torah study and the requirement to write a
scroll.86 He is so confident of that disconnect that he assumes women are also obligated,
84
In his list of the mitsvot that apply in all times and places at the end of the positive
commandments section of the Sefer haMitsvot. In the delineation of the mitzvah itself, he
does not mention that distinction, but in the Mishneh Torah, both in the koteret, the
heading, to the Laws of Sefer Torah and in 7;1, he refers conspicuously to men as the
ones obligated.
85
Most notably R. Joshua Falk in his commentary Perishah on Tur Yoreh De`ah 270.
86
No. 35.
59
contra Maimonides, and that Rosh could not have meant that other writings could fulfill a
admission of the loss of the full tradition of the proper spelling for certain words in the
Torah,87 Sha'agat Aryeh notes that it was impossible to fulfill the original Torah
commandment, which necessarily involves producing a copy of the Torah scroll exactly
as Moses wrote it. Once the original observance was lost, the Rabbis instituted their own
version of the commandment, only this one focused on Torah more broadly, not on the
written scroll exclusively. It was this Rabbinic version that Maimonides and Rosh were
discussing, with all of the differences from the original commandment that we have
discussed.
Sofer, similarly rejected the connection to study.88 He noted a recurring debate in the
Talmud89 as to whether darshinan ta`ama de-kra, whether the halakhic system allows
of the Torah's goal in commanding them. Since the Talmud clearly rejects the view that
allows doing so, Hatam Sofer writes that Rosh must only have been making his
comments in order to explain how that point of view would currently understand the
mitsvah. Current practice, which rejects analyzing mitsvot that way in legal contexts,
87
Haserot and Yeterot, words that are written with or without a vav or a yud on certain
occasions. See, for example, the statement of Rabbah b. Bar Hanah, Kiddushin 30a.
88
254, late 18th and early 19th centuries.
89
Centrally in bBaba Metsia 115a.
60
Hatam Sofer's point, while well taken, contradicts the simplest reading of Rosh,
especially since other authorities all agreed that Rosh was codifying his view of practical
Jewish law. Too, raising darshinan ta`ama de-kra here seems to be an error, since the
Torah itself gives the reason that Rosh used to shape his view of the mitzvah. The
Talmudic discussion that Hatam Sofer referenced singles that out as one situation where
it was acceptable to use the underlying reason in deciding how best to perform a mitzvah.
The Torah says to write the shira, teach it to the Jewish people, and place it in
their mouths, clearly indicating that the writing is a part of the teaching and the placing in
their mouths. Rosh's connecting the mitsvah of writing to the rest of the verse should
This leaves us with a majority view that this mitsvah is connected to that of Torah
study, as evidenced by Maimonides’ assumption that women are exempt and by Rosh’s
view that the mitsvah changed as the methods of Torah study changed. Instead of adding
one more technical requirement to the Torah’s list, our analysis has shown how this
mitsvah connects to the others we have seen in this section, all of which set up ways of
keeping God and God’s Torah in a Jews’ minds and hearts as much as possible.
Synopsis: To recite a blessing after eating a full meal, mentioning God’s goodness in
giving food, the gift of the Land of Israel, the covenant of circumcision, Torah, and hopes
for the rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of Davidic kingship.
religious experience, the Torah itself legislated few of them. In Maimonides’ view, in
fact, the Torah only ordained the requirement to thank God after eating food. To prove
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that the Torah did require this act, Maimonides cites the Tosefta’s reading of the verse
“ve-akhalta ve-sava`ta u-verakhta et Hashem Elokekha `al ha’aretz hatovah asher natan
lakh, and you will eat and be satiated and bless the Lord Your God for the good land that
He gave you.”90
In contrast to Maimonides, the Talmud seems to assume that the Torah also
ordered Jews to recite a blessing before studying Torah. In fact, Nahmanides lists that
Megillat Ester, a book that usually defends Maimonides’ position, in this case agrees
with Nahmanides.
Maimonides may have decided that that Talmudic discussion was not
authoritative because its last few lines (which attempt to logically extend the Biblical
obligation to include blessings after the study of Torah and before eating) are clearly not
accepted. The obligation of birkat haMazon, with prooftext, is recorded again later in the
tractate;91 there, the Talmud does not mention the blessings for the study of Torah. We
suspect Maimonides therefore concluded that the earlier section does not make a
halakhically accepted statement, leaving Grace After Meals as the only Biblical
obligation.
However he came to his position, his view sets up Grace After Meals as the
paradigm for all blessings. Indeed, in the first chapter of the Laws of Blessings, he
extrapolates blessings on food from birkat haMazon, and then broadens the category of
blessings to include birkhot haMitsvah, blessings recited before a mitzvah, and birkhot
shevah ve-hoda’ah, praise and thanks to God. All of those, in Maimonides’ presentation,
90
Deuteronomy 8;10.
91
48b.
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extend from birkat haMazon; it was the Torah’s requiring Jews to bless God for the food
and the Land He gave them that taught the Rabbis the religious value of such blessings.
In this view, all examples of thanking God with a blessing differ only little from the
experience of thanking Him for food. Given a commandment to do the latter, it was
blessing before studying Torah means that the Torah provided two models of blessings
for the Rabbis to expand. Instead of all blessings coming from Birkat haMazon, some
may have been an expansion of the religious experience codified in the obligation to
recite a blessing before Torah study. A technical disagreement about whether the Torah
ordained a particular blessing, then, affects how we understand the process the Rabbis
The evolution of birkat haMazon over time merits attention as well. While the
Talmud assumes that the first three blessings of the Grace After Meals were ordained by
the Torah,92 it also recognizes that their exact form only became fixed at a later date,
when historical events allowed for the fullest expression of the relevant themes. 93 Thus,
Moses wrote the first blessing when the manna came down from Heaven, Joshua wrote
the second upon entering the Land of Israel, David the part of the third that refers to
Jerusalem and Solomon the part of that blessing that mentions the Temple.
The details matter less for our purposes than the tacit belief that the Torah might
ordain the uttering of blessings without codifying what needs to be mentioned in them.
See, for example, Berakhot 45b, on answering amen after the third blessing, with
92
As history unfolded, those involved in the religion saw that these themes were the ones
the Torah had intended to include in the obligatory Grace After Meals.
There are other examples of such evolving obligations; noting them as they arise
serves as a salutary reminder that the Torah did not mean to be a complete system, but
left much open to later human input. That in turn alerts Jews in each generation to stay
alert for opportunities to flesh out the Torah’s sometimes skeletal information about a
The Talmud expresses an unresolved doubt as to the source of women’s obligation, the
Torah or the Rabbis.94 Despite Maimonides’ general care about noting when women are
exempt from a particular mitsvah, he does not mention an exemption here, in either the
Sefer haMitsvot or the list that has been guiding our discussion of Universal Positive
Judaism. He only incorporates the Talmud’s doubt when he explains that women cannot
help men fulfill their obligation, since the rule is that only a person with a similar level of
obligation can help someone else by performing the act for them, with their permission.95
The discrepancy between the Talmud’s presentation and Maimonides’ raises two
questions. First, why is the Talmud unsure of women’s status? Second, why does
Maimonides neglect to mention the doubts about women’s obligation in his Sefer
haMitsvot presentation? For the first question, many authorities accepted the suggestion
of R Shlomo Yitshaki, Rashi (1040-1105), that women were not included in the
94
20a.
95
Hilkhot Berakhot 5:1. Maimonides offers a reason why women would be included,
since this is not a time-related mitsvah, but not for why they would be exempted.
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obligation because they were not given an independent share in the Land of Israel.96 That
means that the Talmud was questioning whether the Torah’s reference to blessing God
“for the good Land that He has given you,”97 was a necessary component of the Grace
After Meals.
If it was, it means that the Torah was commanding Jews to experience every meal
in the context of the Land of Israel, whether that meal came on the Land or not. That
would translate into meaning that women were not so much exempt as irrelevant to this
obligation; it was not an obligation to thank God for the experience of being satiated with
food, but to reflect on that eating in the context of the Land, a context women did not
need to share in the same way. That pushes the question of women’s exemption off for a
larger one, how their attitude to the Land can or should differ from men’s, but it
the Sefer haMiitsvot suggest that he had not formulated a reason for women’s exemption
and therefore read the Talmud’s discussion as only relating to the question of women
fulfilling men’s obligation. Faced with a Talmudic piece he could not explain but could
also not deny, Maimonides codified it (since unequivocal Talmudic statements are
normative), but did not interweave its implications into other areas of his thought.
96
Rashi, Berakhot 20a, s.v. O de-Rabanan. Although Tosafot ad loc. disagrees,
Nahmanides on bBaba Bathra 81a, s.v. ve-Yesh she-Sho’alin assumes Rashi’s reason and
offers a solution for Tosafot’s problem. See also Rosh, Berakhot 3;12, who casually
assumes Rashi’s reason.
97
Deuteronomy 8:10.
65
Sefer haHinukh records many more of this mitsvah’s halakhot than is his usual
custom, perhaps because he saw it as more central to religious experience than others.
For Maimonides, this mitsvah sets the stage for all blessings, which also gives it great
importance, as the central example of thanking and praising God for that which is good in
one’s life.
As we close the first part of this study, we should note that we have not only
already examined more than a quarter of the obligations in Maimonides’ list, we have
laid the foundation for the rest of our analysis. Maimonides discussed fifteen of them in
either Sefer ha-Madda or Ahavah, the Books of Knowledge and Love, which focus most
The one mitsvah in the list that does not appear in those sections of Maimonides’
Code was the obligation to take oaths in God’s Name. That, however, reflects the odd
That more than a quarter of the positive obligations that apply in all times and
places focus on God reminds us of the centrality of that aspect of being a Jew. It might
be easy to assume that there are marker mitsvot of Judaism, such as Shabbat and kosher
(or certain moral obligations). Without taking away from the importance of those or any
other Torah obligations, this group reminds us of the centrality of a different element of
Jewish religiosity.
define how to believe in God’s existence or unity, or what it means to fear Him, although
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denied that daily prayer was Biblically obligated) was only an example of how to
worship, and was a relatively loose obligation—to ask God for something at some point
in a day. Getting to know God, to make belief in God, fear of Him, and so on, are vital
elements of being Jewishly observant, but are inherently loosely defined. At least, that is
The next six, five of which are not obligatory upon women, define the
relationship with God significantly more rigorously. A Jew must recite his essential
belief in God, reward and punishment, mitsvot (both generally and marker mitsvot, such
as tefillin, mezuzah, and tsitsit), and the Exodus, twice a day. A Jew must study and teach
Torah (including owning the means for Torah study, such as by writing a sefer Torah), to
enough of an extent so as not to lose any of it in the transmission from one generation to
the next. A Jew must wear reminders of Torah on his person as well as seeing them on
his doorposts.
None of these six mitsvot adds content to the messages made obligatory by the
first nine; they only add ways of insuring that those first ones are fully inculcated. So,
too, the mitsvah of mezuzah simply orders Jews to place a reminder of these messages at
their doors and gates, a reminder that intrudes on one’s person much less significantly
than those others. In thinking about the exemption of women, we note that women are
equally obligated in the content of the Jewish religious experience, and in certain ways of
insuring that that content is part of their lives (swearing in God’s Name, becoming close
to Torah scholars so as to learn from their actions and character, and mezuzah, for
example).
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The ones from which they are exempt seem to be the ones that most directly
affect their personhood. In those rigidly defined forms of religious expression, although
not in the message that underlies them, the Torah seems to have assumed that it was
The next section, that on the holidays, will include more such examples,
supporting our suggestion of the nature of men’s Judaism—a religion of content with
directly legislated ways to inculcate that content in one’s person—and women’s, where
the ways of inculcation are left open for women to figure out for themselves.
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Seventeen mitsvot deal specifically with holy days, making up the largest
organized that list thematically-- that he saw them as closely related. Despite the loss of
the Temple and Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, the obligations to observe these
special days show that watching the calendar is an essential element of the positive
As before, reviewing each of the mitsvot in question must precede any ideas about
the religious role these mitsvot fill. We can cheat a little, though, by noting that we will
find two kinds of mitsvot in this section, those that order Jews to desist from creative
labor on certain days and those that define special obligations for those days. The
commandments in the first group apply to the entirety of the day of Shabbat, of Yom
Kippur, two days of Passover (Passover), one day of Pentecost (Shavuot), two days of
The mitsvot hayom, commandments of the day, are often not obligations of the
day as a whole, but just particular acts that need to be performed once or a few times a
day. They include the obligation to verbally note the advent and completion of
Shabbat(kiddush and havdallah), the obligation to remove leavened bread from the home
before and on Passover, to eat matsah on the first night of that holiday, to tell the story of
the Exodus on that night, to Count the Omer leading up to Shavuot, to live in the sukkah
98
Nos. 154-170 in the list.
69
all of Sukkot and to take the Four Species on the first day of that holiday, to blow shofar
At first glance, the order to desist from creative labor is not dependent on the
specific observances of the day, since the obligation is to desist from such labor
throughout the day, not just until or during the particular observance involved. Had the
Torah commanded that a Jew rest until having blown the shofar on Rosh haShanah, for
example, the rest would clearly serve a protective function for the blowing of shofar,
insuring that other involvements would not interfere with proper observance of that
commandment. To use a parallel example outside the realm of religion, people who
attend a party, fireworks, or other celebration for several hours on July 4 th can be said to
have fulfilled the point of the day, regardless of what else they did in that 24 hours.99
The commandments to rest for the entirety of certain days cannot therefore be
seen as purely facilitative, easing the performance of the ritual observances of each
holiday. At the same time, we will here be assuming that those more limited
commandments do valuably inform us about the character of the rest expected on each of
those days. While the various commandments of rest are indistinguishable from each
other, the experience of that rest differs greatly. The rest from ordinary occupations on a
holiday dominated by the blowing of the shofar cannot but diverge from the rest of a day
Evidence that the rest for each holiday bears a distinct character of its own comes
mitsvah. Especially when we notice that Maimonides counts the obligation to rest on the
seventh day of Passover, which we generally think of as the conclusion to the holiday that
began on the first day, separately from the obligation to rest on the first day, we realize
that the seventh day was not supposed to simply repeat the first. The Torah could
theoretically have outlined the notion of a holiday, and then listed qualifying dates. By
separately obligating cessation of creativity on each day, the Torah seems to be giving
The traditional liturgy offers a complementary avenue to fleshing out the content
of the rest God wanted on each of these special days. In naming the holidays, both in the
standing prayer and in Grace After Meals, tradition added a description of the day.
Passover, for example, is called zeman herutenu, the time of our freedom, Shavuot
(Pentecost) is referred to as zeman matan toratenu, the time of the giving of the Torah,
and Sukkot (Tabernacles) is zeman simhatenu, the time of our happiness. If those
descriptions are accurate, presumably the cessation from creative work should reflect
Distinguishing the holidays from each other in their basic purpose, with both the
rest of these days and their mitsvot hayom contributing to that purpose, explains why the
Bible instituted so many such days. Since much of the Torah is focused on shaping Jews’
lives into more Godly frames of reference, the Torah required the Jew to periodically step
away from routine, to intensely focus on his/her relationship with the Creator. That
intense focus, with slightly different emphases depending on the time of year, allows a
better-shaped approach to God and life in the rest of the year. In this section, then, we
will be studying the concept of rest, and the separate mitsvot commanded on each
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holiday, to enrich our understanding of what the Torah meant in each of the holidays it
commanded, what would qualify as a proper fulfillment of the holiday the Torah sought
Jews to observe.
revealing the character of the day as a whole to some extent mitigates the rejection
implied by exempting them from many of the mitsvot hayom. At first glance, the Torah’s
their religious growth generally. Realizing that those mitsvot serve only to concretize the
broader message of the day leaves open the possibility that the Torah allowed women the
freedom to find other acts or activities that expressed those same ideals. As obligated as
men in experiencing these days, the exemption from the mitsvot hayom means only that
they could choose whether those rituals served them best in fostering the kind of rest and
of these mitsvot, which will deepen the general characterizations already offered. While
we will largely go in order, we will also group together those commandments that are
commandments both by the number of this study as well as the number that Maimonides
15) 154 & 155--To Desist from Melakhah (Creative Labor) on Shabbat and to
Verbally Declare Shabbat
Synopsis: The obligation is to create a day—at least by ushering it in verbally-- in
which one contemplates the week’s activities of creation, searching for ways to create in
a more Godly fashion in times to come.
100
Men, commanded to perform these acts, did not have the religious leeway to decide whether these were
the most personally productive ways to that religious goal.
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The first of these two mitsvot commands Jews to positively desist from those
activities prohibited as melakhah, creative labor, on Shabbat; at the simplest level, this
adds a positive commandment to the existing prohibition of creative labor. Indeed, Sefer
haHinukh comments on this mitsvah only that he has already discussed it in the earlier
prohibition.101 This view of the `aseh, the positive commandment, would also explain
why the Talmud assumes that women are obligated (despite its being time-related);102
since the prohibition and the positive commandment are basically the same, those
Despite his including women in the commandment, which somewhat equates the
positive and the negative, Maimonides saw the positive obligation of rest as having some
separate religious content as well. He opens the 21st chapter of the Laws of Shabbat by
mentioning that the Torah’s use of the word tishbot103 means to require rest even from
activities that are not specifically defined as melakhah, as creative labor. He then spends
the next several chapters listing shvutin, rabbinically prohibited actions, many of which
are included because they are similar to Biblically proscribed ones. 104 In Maimonides’
reading, tishbot taught the Rabbis that the Torah wanted Jews to avoid activities that
smack of creative labor, not just the ones that technically qualify as such.
101
See Mitsvot 85 and 32.
102
See bBerakhot 20b and Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim, 271;2.
103
Exodus 23;12.
104
This is a separate category from those actions prohibited because they might lead to Biblically prohibited
ones. In the former category, for example, Maimonides, Laws of Shabbat 22;23, follows the Talmud in
saying that the Rabbis prohibited coloring one’s face on Shabbat because it was similar to painting or
dyeing—that is not because they worried that a woman who wore makeup would then go out and dye and
animal hide.
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Rabbinic requirements actually have their roots in a very general Biblical statement. It
also tells us that the Torah's list of 39 prohibited labors meant to establish broad
categories from which to desist on Shabbat; while only those particular labors incur
capital liability if violated, the Torah’s intent was that Jews would refrain from all such
activities. The Rabbis, then, were simply defining the Torah’s wishes more explicitly.
Nahmanides, who does not accept Maimonides’ general claim that a positive
interpreted to mean that he also does not always see the positive commandment as
defining a different religious experience from the prohibition),105 here agrees. He notes
that the Torah's prohibition did not guard against a Jew spending the day of Shabbat (or a
holiday, for that matter) in heavy labor-- moving furniture back and forth, for example.
To avoid that possibility, the Bible also commanded that Jews make these days in to days
of shabbaton, which he defines as obligating rest in the simple sense of the term, in
addition to the avoiding of creative labor made incumbent by the prohibitions of those
days.106
Knowing that the Torah’s call for rest means more than the 39 prohibited labors
and, according to Nahmanides, means rest from all physical exertion does not yet tell us
what a Jew should do on such a day. Two further pieces of information about the
prohibited labors of Shabbat offer an answer, that refraining from these activities should
105
See his gloss to the sixth of Maimonides’ introductory principles to the Sefer haMitsvot.
106
See, for example, his interpretation of the word in Leviticus 23;24. He makes the same point in his
Sermon for Rosh haShanah, printed in Kitvei Ramban, ed. C. Chavel (Mossad haRav Kook: Jerusalem,
1968), p. .
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suggest, is to notice the not-doing of these activities, to experience the stepping back
positive commandment, as if the lack of the activity can form a positive religious goal.
That goal can be better understood by reminding ourselves of two technical facts about
these categories of labor. First, the Talmud derives the 39 categories from the
construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle built in the desert as a proto-Temple. 107
The second technicality, the rule of hilluk melakhot, shows that each of these acts
could independently damage one’s Shabbat experience. That rule states that in the time
of the Temple, each of these types of labor, violated unintentionally, would incur the
category of labor only obligated one sacrifice. A Jew who both planted and cooked on
Shabbat, for example, would have to offer two sacrifices to atone for his unintentional
sin, while one who cooked, baked, and fried, all the while without full realization of the
religious ramifications of this act, would only have to offer one sacrifice.108
That rule makes sense only if each of the prohibited Shabbat activities is
various prohibitions, violating one should be no different than violating another, and the
rule should either be that all acts can be covered by one sacrifice or that each act,
107
See, for example, Shabbat 49b.
108
See Shabbat 70a, with Rashi, s.v. Hilluk Melakhot.
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regardless of type, requires a separate sacrifice. Tying the number of sacrifices to the
number of categories violated means that the category is central to Shabbat observance.
Seeing each creative act as a separate type of violation distinguishes what the
Torah means by “rest” on Shabbat from the ordinary meaning of the word. Ordinarily,
rest involves a stopping of activity, a retreat from certain kinds of effort. On Shabbat, the
prescribed rest fulfills its purpose only if it pays attention to each of the categories from
which the person is resting. A cook, for example, could just sleep on Shabbat, but would
more fully experience the day’s rest by considering (either in his or her head or by sitting
in her kitchen and looking at where he or she ordinarily slaves) each of the ordinary
creative activities he or she is not doing that day. Jews’ rest on Shabbat ideally is an
attentive rest, a rest of awareness, not of lack of consciousness.
That picture of Shabbat rest also explains the imitatio Dei of Shabbat better than
the ordinary picture of rest as lack of activity. Jews stop creating on Shabbat, the Torah
says, to imitate God, who created the world in six days, and ceased on Shabbat, va-
yinafash. That word va-yinafash, which Rashi and Ibn Ezra translate as “and He revived
Himself,” is philosophically problematic, as Ibn Ezra notes.109
Perhaps because of those problems, the kabbalistic reading of the text was to
connect va-yinafash to nefesh, the soul, and to see this as a reference to the neshama
yeterah, the extra soul, that inhabits a Jew over the course of Shabbat. 110 Nahmanides
records another kabbalistic view that Shabbat maintains the soul, although he does not
explore the mechanism by which that happens.111 Our discussion explains how Shabbat
rejuvenates, in addition to improving our understanding of how it could even
metaphorically have been said about God.
Creativity, in all forms, cannot be continuous; bursts of creative activity depend
on periods of contraction and criticism, where the creator (or others) analyzes the work
that has been performed, see what has been achieved, and what remains to be perfected.112
Used as a time to consciously, actively, and thoughtfully step away from the week’s
various modes of creativity, Shabbat lays the groundwork for even more productive
creativity in the week to come. The rejuvenation feeds the creativity; it is not separate
from it.
Applying verses to God always involves difficult anthropomorphisms, but seeing
va-yinafash as referring to an active rest that sets up the next period of creativity offers a
palatable reading of the verse. It does not mean that God rejuvenated Himself, an
abhorrent idea, but that God stepped back from His most active involvement in Creation
for a period of review and consideration. Shabbat for people seeks the same kind of
active review of the week, in which the person considers how he or she created in the
week gone by, and learns lessons that will be helpful in the future.
109
Exodus 31; 17.
110
See, for example, Nahmanides’ comment on Exodus, 31;13.
111
Genesis 2;7.
112
As Matthew Arnold noted, in his essay, “On the Function of Criticism at the Present Time.”
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Our interpretation of the kind of rest the Torah expected on Shabbat should affect
the experience of the second of the obligations related to Shabbat, the requirement to
verbally articulate that it has arrived.113 Instead of just announcing the advent of a blank
day, with no specific content intended, kiddush on Friday night ushers in a day of
contemplative review, in which the past week is put into as full a perspective as possible.
obligation, based in the same verse as that of kiddush, zakhor et yom haShabbat le-
kadesho, Remember the Sabbath day to make it holy.114 His opinion radically changes
the obligation. While common observance sees the Torah as caring only about declaring
from the rest of the week verbally, which requires delineating its beginning and end.
Interestingly, Shabbat is one of the few holy days where we do not need to discuss
women separately from men, since the Talmud 115 infers that women share in all the
obligations of Shabbat, positive and prohibited. For Maimonides, that means that women
are also obligated, on a Torah level, in reciting havdallah at the end of Shabbat.
Taken together, these two mitsvot portray Shabbat as a completely separate time
of the week, set off by verbal declarations, either only at the beginning or both beginning
and end. During that separate time, the Torah expected separate behavior as well,
113
That we must make that statement over wine or bread is generally seen as a rabbinic requirement.
114
Exodus 20;7. Maimonides’ view seems to be based on his textual version of the
Talmudic selection, Pesahim 106a, that inferred the obligation from the verse. While
common texts read bi-kenisato, when it enters, Maimonides’ apparently read bi-kenisato
u-ve-yetsiato, when Shabbat enters and ends. The context favors the common version,
since the Talmud was discussing the need to make kiddush when Shabbat entered, and
whether there was an obligation of daytime kiddush as well.
115
Berakhot 20b.
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characterized by a state of rest, not only the clearly defined rest of refraining from
physical exercise and from the specific prohibitions of Shabbat, but rest in the sense of
digesting the creative events of the well-lived previous week. That rest gives people a
chance to fulfill the goals of Shabbat, to put the previous week in perspective, laying the
Synopsis: Actively removing leavened bread from one’s possession reminds the Jew that
service of God should be performed with zeal and speed, not in a relaxed or lackadaisical
fashion.
As with Shabbat, the positive commandment for Jews to remove all leavened
bread from their possession forces us to consider the need for an `aseh, a positive
commandment, when a lo ta`aseh has already been instituted. The prohibition of bal
yera’eh, of having leavened bread,116 should obviate the need for a positive
commandment as well.117 Here, too, we will show that the Torah was pointing to a
positive religious goal in this removal, not just an avoidance of the leavened bread itself.
this case might have led to some positive commandment overriding the prohibition
against owning leaven. To avoid that vulnerability, Minhat Hinukh says, the Torah added
a positive commandment. Although that idea does not lead to any obvious religious
information, another of his ideas, this one also purely legal, can be expanded to articulate
116
Exodus 13;7. The verse reads “Matsot should be eaten for the seven days and there should be no
leavened bread seen for you nor found for you in all your borders.”
117
Exodus 12; 15. The verse reads: “Seven days you shall eat matsot; however, on the first day, you shall
remove all leaven from your households…”
118
Mitsvah 9.
78
a plausible theological reason for the Torah to command actively removing leaven in
obligated to own some leaven in the days leading up to Passover, so as to get rid of it for
the purposes of the positive commandment. While the prohibition only about ownership,
The question itself points in a productive direction, reminding us that the mitsvah
establishes the removal of the leaven—not just its absence from the household-- as a
religious experience. For that to be tenable, though, we need to offer some reasonable
explanation of the positive value of hamets removal. Two simple suggestions spring to
mind, each relying on different assumptions as to the underlying reason for the
The first suggestion works off of the well-established Jewish tradition that
leavened bread on Passover symbolizes the evil inclination, the yetser hara. The symbol
of leaven as evil inclination has its roots in a post-prayer supplication that the Talmud
reports in the name of R. Alexandrai. He used to ask that God save the Jews from the se-
`or she-ba-isah, the leavening agent in the raw dough,119 a request included in early
prayerbooks, such as Seder R. Amram and Mahzor Vitry.120 In that locution, the se`or
119
Berakhot 17a.
120
The current common final prayer to the standing Amidah, elokai netsor, arose relatively recently, and
involved weeding out other personal post-amidah prayers recited by important Jewish figures.
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R. David ibn Abu Zimra, Radbaz (1479-1573), ties the phrase to hamets on
Passover.121 Trying to explain the multiple rules set up by the Torah regarding hamets
(Jews must remove it from their possession, cannot own it over the course of the holiday,
and cannot eat it or get any benefit from it), he cites several sources that connect it to the
se-`or she-ba-`isah.
Fleshing out that connection, we would say that the Torah prohibited hamets to
heighten Jews’ awareness of the need to control or vanquish the evil inclination. The
positive commandment serves to remind Jews that awareness of that inclination is part of
the point; the goal of Passover is not only to get rid of hamets or the inclination it
symbolizes, but to realize that eternal vigilance is the price of keeping it at bay.
That reading, although more traditional than the one we will offer now, falters in
that it ignores bread’s complete permissibility during the rest of the year. Halakhah
accepts that bread is the staff of life, the basis of reciting the Grace After Meals, the warp
and woof of human nutrition, and fully acceptable other than on Passover. If it carries the
Alexandrai’s prayer was said throughout the year, not only on the holiday. The phrase
se`or she-ba-isah, then, consistently stood for the evil inclination, even at times when
leavened bread was completely permissible; why should it be translated from metaphor
discussion of the prohibition. The more famous of the Bible’s justifications of the need
to eat matsah on Passover is that the Jews did not have enough time to fully bake their
bread on the way out of Egypt (since they were leaving be-hipazon, hurriedly).
121
3:546.
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Yet the prohibition of hamets on Passover was instituted before the Jews ever left
Egypt.122 Furthermore, God commanded the Jews to eat the first Paschal sacrifice be-
hipazon, with a sense of hurriedness, even though they did not leave Egypt until the next
wonder whether it did not depend on any practical need to hurry, but because hipazon on
Passover carries a positive spiritual value that God wishes to inculcate within Jews.
While relaxation and calm is useful in many areas, mitsvot are ideally performed
with all appropriate speed. Passover, the season in which Jews relive their first national
experiences with God, is also a time when they were being told to reinvigorate their zeal
in performing mitzvot. In that context, the phrase that urges prompt performance of
available, do not delay its performance-- interestingly uses the rare, but perhaps
Hamets and its parallel, relaxation (it is, after all, bread that is allowed to rise, as
opposed to matsah, which must be carefully watched from the moment it starts being
made), are not inherently bad, which is why Jews may eat it freely during the rest of the
lax. By forcing Jews to pause once a year, remove hamets completely from their
households and pay careful attention to the need for its opposite, zerizut, in their
relationship with God, the Torah sets up Passover as a periodic reminder of a broader
lesson about religious fervor, a lesson that can be sufficiently learned in one concentrated
17)157 & 158--The Commandments to Tell the Story of the Exodus and to Eat Matsah
Synopsis: The obligations to relive the Passover story each year in one intensive evening,
and to fortify that memory by eating only matsah throughout the next seven days.
that every Jew must tell the story ke-fi tsahut lashon hamesapper, according to the
particular set of words found in any particular book(s), but for each individual to tell the
story as well and fully as possible. That in turn means that participants in a Seder should
be striving for length and detail in describing the greatness of what God did for them, the
cruelties the Egyptians committed, how God took revenge, and thanks for His kindnesses.
This, Maimonides says, is the meaning of the Rabbis’ motto that whoever tells more
quickly understood. On Seder night, Jews are attempting to fully describe what God did
for them; at a minimum, that requires understanding (perhaps reliving) the situation
before God stepped in, God’s actions in taking them out, and the subtexts of those actions
(setting up a permanent relationship with the Jewish people on the basis of that event, for
example). Accomplishing such a textured retelling is a daunting task for one evening’s
work, and people will succeed to varying extents depending on their capabilities.124
124
Maimonides’ description of the mitzvah seems to exclude an opinion often quoted,
that discussing laws of the Seder, such as the definition of matsah or maror, also qualifies
as sippur yetsiat mitsrayim, as telling the Exodus story. According to Maimonides, that
would seem to hold true only to the extent that the investigation of those halakhot
improves the person’s understanding of the original events. If a deeper understanding of
the rules for baking matsah helps define something about the haste with which the Jews
left—for example, in line with the discussion in the previous mitzvah, if those rules
define the kind of hipazon the Torah wished Jews to evince in their performance of
mitsvot, or the vegetables that qualify for maror help define the troubles the Jew endured
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understand the issue as a whole. Maimonides does not mention women’s obligation,
although halakhah generally assumes that women are as obligated to tell the story as
men.125 Maimonides’ silence, coupled with the time element in this observance, led
Minhat Hinukh to question whether women were actually so obligated. Others, however,
point out that Maimonides explicitly notes when women are exempt, at least in the Sefer
haMitsvot, and does not comment here. His silence more likely means that women are
equally obligated. The question then becomes (probably for Maimonides, but certainly
for other authorities), how we know that women are included in this commandment.
as well. Matsah, too, is a mitsvat `aseh she-hazman grama, but the Talmud explicitly
expands the obligation to women, noting that anyone who is prohibited from eating
hamets on Passover is included in the obligation to eat matsah.126 Perhaps, then, this
Of course, the problem with that suggestion is that the Talmud does not mention
the telling of the Exodus story in that context. Minhat Hinukh noted that R. Nissim of
Gerona (Ra”n) assumed that women are obligated in all the positive commandments of
Shabbat, based on their obligation in shamor, the prohibitions. The Talmud, however,
only explicitly includes them in the obligation of kiddush, the zakhor. Ra”n apparently
assumes that kiddush was just an example, but that the Talmudic principle was that
anyone obligated in the prohibitions of a day would be included in its positive elements
in Egypt-- it would make sense that delving into those halakhot could help in the retelling
of the story.
125
See Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 472:14, with Responsa Yehaveh Da`at 2:65.
126
bPesahim 43b.
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as well. That comment, applied to Passover, would mean that women’s inclusion in the
prohibition of eating hamets includes them in all the positive commandments of the
In support of that logic, we can note that, both here and in his legal code, 127
Passover and of remembering the Shabbat. He might have chosen to compare the two for
many reasons, but to suggest that he was hinting at Ra”n’s idea (that here, too, women
are included in all the `asehs of the day by virtue of their inclusion in the lo ta`asehs) is
eating matsah after the one of telling the Exodus story in his count. Since the
commandment to eat matsah comes two verses after the obligation to rid Jewish homes of
hamets, we would have expected Maimonides to record them right near each other
(although he does not attempt to follow the order of the Torah, here the two mitsvot are
close both conceptually and physically). His inserting the storytelling imperative in
between perhaps shows that he saw that mitsvah as inherently connected to the matsah-
eating one.128 If so, he might have thought that all those obligated in eating matsah
necessarily are obligated in telling the story, a logic that would have included women.
Having mentioned the connection between the obligation to tell the story of the
Exodus and the obligation to eat matsah, we should spend a moment clarifying that latter
obligation. The Torah speaks often of eating matsah for the seven days of Passover, but
does not specifically command it; indeed, the Talmud assumes that there was only an
127
Laws of Hamets and Matsah 7;1.
128
See Pesahim 36a, it is a bread over which we tell many stories.
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actual requirement to eat matsah on the first night of the holiday. In the time of the
Temple, that obligation was connected to the eating of the Paschal sacrifice; after that
time, the Talmud says, “ba`erev tokhlu matsot, in the evening you shall eat matsah,”129
provides the de-oraita obligation.130 Other than that first night, as far as the Talmud
informs us, eating matsah is the only way to eat a bread product on Passover, but is not
itself obligatory.
the holiday.131 Having connected the eating of matsah to the recitation of the Passover
story, we can understand that continuing obligation as an attempt to fortify the lessons
learned the first night of Passover throughout the course of the seven day holiday. Each
time a Jew eats matsah on Passover, ideally, the events of the Exodus reverberate in that
Jew’s mind, helping insure that it remain a part of his or her memories and life-
The three mitsvot connected to Passover, the obligation to remove hamets, to tell
the Exodus story, and to eat matsah thus combine, in our presentation, to produce a
specific set of lessons meant to carry over to the entire year. Hamets, prohibited
inherently, not just because of the Jews’ hasty exit from Egypt, symbolizes a relaxed,
unhurried approach to life. The Jews’ leaving Egypt was deliberately performed in a
hurried fashion, however, to create the lasting memory among Jews that service of God
should be undertaken with alacrity and speed, not lackadaisically and slowly.
Telling the Exodus story keeps those miracles alive as realities of a Jew’s life; in a
129
Exodus 12;18.
130
See Pesahim 120a.
131
See, for example, Tsits Eliezer 10;27.
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world where belief in God is often difficult, the memory of those miracles should
maintain the Jew’s belief in a God who is both able and interested in affecting the
outcomes of human history. While the telling itself hopefully carries those messages,
eating matsah with that telling, and then continuing to eat that symbolic food, is meant to
insure that the memory stays a living part of the Jew’s life throughout the year.
This way of viewing the issue also explains the lack of gender differentiation.
While ordinarily women would be exempt from mitsvot such as eating matsah or telling
the Exodus story, since they are time-related, they are too fundamental to faith in God
and miracles for the Torah to allow for women to ignore them. A Jew, male or female,
must have the Exodus firmly anchored at the base of his or her belief in God, and only
the repeated retellings of the story, along with eating matsah, can provide that anchor
fully.
18)159, 160, 162, 163, 166, 167 —The Obligation to Desist from Creative Activity on Six
Holy Days
Synopsis: The obligation, six times a year, to set aside a day for cessation of creative
labor, to celebrate with public assemblies and with eating.
to rest from creative activity on the six holidays ordained by the Torah, the first and
seventh days of Passover, the day of Pentecost (Shavuot), the day of Rosh haShanah, the
first day of Tabernacles (Sukkot), and Shemini Atseret, the eighth day of Sukkot. We also
pointed out that the special obligations that apply to each holiday, individualize them.
We will elaborate each holiday’s separate character in discussing those mitsvot hayom.
Here, we want to account for the common thread of these days, highlighted by the
Torah’s characterizing all of them as both mikra kodesh, which most literally means an
appointed holy time, and shabbaton, a Shabbat-like day. Similarly, when Maimonides
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and the Shulhan Arukh codified the laws of rest on these days, they did so in a summary
fashion, in a section entitled Hilkhot Yom Tov. It would be a mistake, then, to focus only
on the various holidays’ individuality; here, we will discuss that which is common to all
physical rest in addition to rest from all creative activity except for that which is
necessary for providing the proper food for the celebration of the day. Putting just these
two basic terms together, we see that a holiday is a publicly- announced day, in which the
community gathers together for various purposes, throughout which people are meant to
relax.
reminds us that eating was important to the full experience of a holiday. The Torah refers
to the activity from which to desist on the holidays as melekhet avodah, which the
Talmud assumes means that Jews were allowed to perform melekhet okhel nefesh,
creative activity undertaken to provide food.132 That area of permissible creative activity,
which extends to carrying items from place to place (prohibited on Shabbat) and burning
fires, at least when those acts have some Yom Tov use, emphasizes the importance of
132
See Mekhilta to Parshat Bo, section 9, and Megillah 7b. The Talmud notes, there and in several other
places, a tannaitic debate as to whether a Jew could violate the ordinary holiday restrictions in order to
prepare makhshirei okhel nefesh, items needed to prepare food. Shulhan Arukh 495;1 rules that only those
items that could not have been made ready the day before can be made on the holiday itself. While there is
some debate as to the reason for this prohibition, Maimonides phrases it nicely as an attempt to avoid
people preoccupying themselves with permitted labor rather than enjoying the day itself. The permitted
activities, he notes, were only allowed so as to increase the joy of the day, not to leave room for a day of
labor disguised as a holiday.
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Perhaps parallel to the American model of a day off from work and a parade,
when the Torah wanted Jews to take account of important occasions, it ordained that they
observe a full day of rest from all creative labor—so as to allow for proper awareness of
the day’s themes and concerns— have a public assembly, and celebrate with a feast.133
the experience rather than just avoiding some negative consequence. Here, the positive
aspect is that the rules of the holiday insure that we will free enough space, time, and
psychic energy to experience God on six central occasions of the year, each for its own
The mitzvah of counting the Omer obligates Jews to count each of the forty-nine
days from the second day of Passover until the holiday of Shavuot. In the Torah’s
presentation of it, this counting responds to the offering of the Omer sacrifice, a barley
offering from that year’s new harvest, and leads up to the offering of the shetei halehem,
133
Although we are assuming there is an obligation of eating on holidays, some halakhic authorities
disagreed. Compare Tosafot Berakhot 49b to Sukkah 27a, in each case s.v. I Ba`ei. Based on bPesahim
68b, Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 529 assumes an obligation to spend half of each holiday feasting and
engaging in enjoyable activities.
One other legal principle supports the view that holidays were meant to be free of
encumbrances, to allow for focus on certain central themes. On holidays, there is no
differentiation among the various melakhot of the kind that we saw before regarding
Shabbat. Whereas each type of creative activity is punished separately on Shabbat, they
are all treated the same on holidays. Noting this distinction, R. Aharon Lichtenstein once
suggested that a holiday is about creating a certain freedom from ordinary life, so any
interruption of that atmosphere is as bad as any other. On Shabbat, in contrast, the point
was not only to create a certain atmosphere, but that each different type of activity was
inherently prohibited on that day, hence the different result in terms of the need to atone
for such sins.
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two loaves of bread made from the new crop of wheat and offered in the Temple.
Theoretically, that would mean that in the absence of a Temple, there would be no
Maimonides, however, ruled that the Biblical obligation was in full force even in
a post-Temple era, a position that distinguishes him from most medieval authorities,
including Sefer haHinukh.134 The second group assumes that the mitsvah depends on the
bringing of the Omer sacrifice, the Minchat haOmer, which only occurred when the
Temple was still standing. According to those rabbis, the mitsvah is for each adult male
Jew to count daily from the event of bringing the Omer to the holiday of Shavuot.135
Aside from relegating our Counting of the Omer to the Rabbinic realm, that view
also closes off a possible understanding of the role of the holiday of Shavuot in post-
Temple times. As a Temple-holiday, Shavuot saw the offering of the shetei halehem, two
breads baked from grain of the new harvest, with an accompanying sacrifice and
celebration. Outside of the Temple, the Torah offers little information about the meaning
of the holiday. Maimonides’ view that counting the Omer is a timeless mitzvah offers at
To get to that meaning requires developing some picture of the meaning of the
mitzvah itself. Sefer haHinukh reads the mitzvah as stressing the importance of
134
See Sefer haHinukh 306; Beit Yosef Orah Haytyim 489 cites Tosafot, Rosh, and Ran, as assuming that
the mitzvah is currently Rabbinic.
135
The mitzvah is, obviously, an example of a mitsvat `aseh she-hazman gerama, which, to digress briefly,
points out that that category had little to do with the time constraints placed on the obligated person. It
takes three seconds to count the Omer; nothing in the time-demands placed on women suggests that they
could not fulfill such a requirement.
136
See Leviticus 23;15-22. As far as the Torah defines it, the holiday has little character outside of those
aspects.
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connecting the Exodus from Egypt to the receiving of the Torah.137 In that reading—
majority opinion that the Biblical mitzvah applies only when the Omer was actually
offered—the counting is more about bridging the gap between the two holidays than
about the Omer experience at all. That ignores the Torah’s consistent emphasis on the
By focusing on the underlying ideas of the progression from the offering of the
Omer to the offering of the shetei halehem, we can develop an alternate explanation that
allows for the timelessness of the mitsvah yet maintains a clearer connection to the Omer.
In technical terms, the offering of the Omer is a matir, an act that removes a prohibition,
in this case the prohibition of hadash, a Biblical prohibition against using any grain
planted after the bringing of the previous year’s Omer until the next Omer is offered.
The Omer only rendered permissible grain used outside of the Temple; the Temple itself
did not use new grain until the shetei halehem, the two loaves of bread, were brought on
Shavuot.
The two offerings teach two lessons that can also be applied more universally.
First, these mitsvot, like many others, teach that Jews do not use the world’s bounty until
giving some to God. The grain harvest, being considered an experience of God’s bounty,
means that some should be offered to God before using it. This example of that message
additionally reminds Jews that the mundane and the sacred need to be separated,
including renewing them separately, in service of God. Even after the Jewish people
renew their appreciation of God’s grain by offering the Omer, the Torah required a
137
Sefer haHinukh 306.
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distinct dedication process before the Temple partook of that new grain. Though the
basic act is the same, recognizing God’s bounty before partaking of it, the two realms
realize that it was a holiday meant to rededicate and renew those acts of service of God
that occur directly in the sacred realm. Maimonides, who sees the counting as universally
applicable, might then be saying that those lessons are not Omer dependent. Each year,
as Jews renew their relationship with God on Pesah, they are also supposed to remember
that they must separately rededicate their specifically holy acts as well. Although the acts
of the holiday itself were all Temple-dependent, the lessons of the day, reinforced by the
although the Torah actually defines it more broadly than that, as we will see—is codified
in both a positive and a prohibitive form (an aseh and a lo ta`aseh). As before, we will
here seek the positive religious value indicated by the `aseh side of that equation. This is
138
With only a little stretching, Sefer haHinukh’s idea can be made to correlate with this one. Since
Passover is the holiday of the Exodus—a mostly political event—and Shavuot the time when tradition
assumed that the Revelation at Sinai occurred, connecting the two holidays similarly stresses the need to
connect the mundane experience of God, on Passover, to the sacred one, on Shavuot.
That also explains, incidentally, why the Giving of the Law on Shavuot became so important after
the Destruction of the Temple. At a simple level, it was the only content left to give the holiday. Given our
analysis, however, it also fits thematically with the message that was conveyed during the Temple era by
the observances of those times.
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Reminding ourselves that the Torah refers to `inui nefesh, not fasting, starts us on
the road to the understanding we seek.139 The Talmud, in fact, lists five forms of
affliction, eating and drinking (which count as one), washing, anointing with oil, wearing
shoes, and engaging in marital relations, all of which qualify as obligatory `inui nefesh.140
Soul affliction, then, addresses more than just refraining from imbibing food.141
The amounts of food and drink that create liability on Yom Kippur also differ
Knowing the amount that creates liability on Yom Kippur is important in three
ways.142 First, as mentioned, that is the amount that leads to the highest level of
falls ill on Yom Kippur and needs to eat, halakhah recommends trying to feed them less
than that amount, so as to minimize the extent to which the person has to violate Yom
Kippur (as long as there is no meaningful danger in trying to do so). Third, and this is the
element that will help us here, the prescribed amount yields insight into what the Torah
139
See, for example, Leviticus 16:31.
140
mYoma 8:1.
141
Nonetheless, eating and drinking have a special status in this list, in that they are the
only ones for which Jewish tradition assumed the transgressor would merit the karet
penalty.
142
Any amount of eating or drinking is prohibited on Yom Kippur, since Jewish law rules that hatsi shiur
assur min haTorah--Torah prohibitions extend to even less than the ordained amount, see bYoma 73b.
Only those who imbibe the amounts mentioned in the text incur the full liability.
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Had that amount been a kezayit, we would have understood that the food
prohibition on Yom Kippur was similar to the pig prohibition throughout the year or the
hamets prohibition on Passover, simple food prohibitions, each with their own reason.
Instead, the Talmud notes that it takes eating a large date or drinking the volume of one
cheek to incur that liability, since at that point the food puts the person’s soul at ease.
Having had his or her soul put at ease, the person can no longer be described as being
Rather than caring about the act of eating or drinking, then, the Torah seems to
focus on maintaining a state of `inui nefesh, since it is ruining that state that leads to the
full Divine punishment. Maimonides and Sefer haHinukh offer interesting explanations
for why the Torah was concerned with such soul-affliction. In Mitsvah 313, the Hinukh
sees `inui nefesh as supporting Jews’ attempts to achieve atonement on this day. Using
the analogy of a slave who comes before his master for forgiveness, Sefer haHinukh
notes how inappropriate it would be for that slave to appear with a mind focused
elsewhere, and still enslaved to his various sins. So, too, God wanted Jews not to seek
forgiveness while still enmeshed in their physical desires. In that picture, each moment
Maimonides, in both Sefer haMitsvot and Mishneh Torah, uses the verb shevitah,
resting or desisting, for what Jews do in regard to food on this day. Although he does not
specifically explain the term, our previous experience with it, in the context of Shabbat
and holidays, suggests that he means that refraining from eating in some way creates a
different atmosphere for the day, one conducive to the day’s goals.
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Simply recalling that the Torah uses the word `inui for what is going on offers an
explanation for how it does so. The soul and the body are only connected during life, in
the picture of Jewish tradition. Food, which satisfies a bodily need, at the same time
helps maintain the soul’s connection to the body. Refraining from food loosens the
connection, which both afflicts and frees the soul. Since the leaving from the body is
difficult for the soul, freeing it is both hard and easy; it is painful as it occurs, but it
Judaism does not generally picture human souls as imprisoned in their physical
bodies; the soul gains from the body as well, since it is the body’s performance of mitsvot
that elevates the soul in its appreciation and awareness of God.143 Nonetheless, the soul
on its own is able to connect to spirituality more quickly and surely than when caught up
in physical concerns.
ordered Jews to forego (or severely limit) their physical connections to the greatest extent
possible, to—for one day a year—free the soul to express itself most fully. The acts that
create that freedom, fasting and so on, pain the soul at the same time as freeing it, which
Reading the affliction of souls and desisting from eating as facilitating the greatest
possible soul experience of Yom Kippur also suggests that that affliction/rest grows in
intensity throughout the day. On Yom Kippur night, when most Jews have eaten a large
meal in preparation for the fast (as Jewish law commands), the fast does not yet create
significant affliction, nor indeed does it create significant rest from physical concerns.
143
Many medieval thinkers assumed that the World to Come would reward the soul and the body together,
since both had contributed to the merits that earned this reward.
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Towards the late afternoon of Yom Kippur, the fast, the affliction, and the desisting, have
Seeing inui nefesh as a state to be achieved over the course of the day could also
explain why the Torah would ordain the afflictions as a positive commandment as well as
should have sufficed. The Torah’s adding a positive commandment supports the view
The afflictions other than eating and drinking are treated differently in Jewish
law, leading many medieval authorities to assert that they are rabbinically ordained.145
Others, however, assert that all the inuyim are de-oraita, but that the Torah granted
Rabbis the right to define them.146 They would read the phrase `inui nefesh as indefinite,
specifically including only eating and drinking. Beyond that, the Torah expected the
Rabbis to define other activities that could support that same experience, which became
prohibitions against washing, anointing, etc. This concept of Rabbis’ contribution to the
definition of Torah law, which we have seen to some extent in defining how to rest on
Shabbat and appears in other contexts as well, assumes that the Rabbis were given a role
144
This could, perhaps, apply equally to Shabbat. Having just finished all the preparations for the day, a
Jew after candle lighting does not, perhaps, yet experience the rest of Shabbat as much as towards the end
of the following day. If so, Shabbat, like Yom Kippur, would be progressive rather than static.
145
See, for example, R. Asher to Yoma 8;1. First, in these other afflictions, the Talmud permits some forms
of the action for various reasons. For example, one may wash to remove actual dirt from one’s body, or
wear shoes if walking barefoot would create too great a discomfort. See Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 613;
1 and 5. If the requirement to avoid wetness was de-oraita, the reasoning goes, Rabbis would not have been
so lenient. While the Talmud offers prooftexts for the afflictions other than eating/drinking, these
authorities view them as asmakhta, meaning they are not offered as definitive proof, but as a textual
support.
146
See the discussion in Beit Yosef 611;1.
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in completing the process of defining central Judaism, not only in adding their own
discussions, either the one of resting on Shabbat or on holidays. Neither quite fits,
For most purposes, the comparison to Shabbat fits best. The definition of the
kinds of activities from which Jews must desist on Yom Kippur is almost exactly the
Maimonides and Sefer haHinukh147 equate the two, leading Maimonides to assert that on
Yom Kippur, as on Shabbat, the prohibition of creative labor extends to acts that are
That would mean that on Yom Kippur as well as on Shabbat the goal of the
positive commandment is to actively expand the narrow categories created by the Torah.
Those categories are supposed to be developed into a fuller understanding of the ways in
which we change the world around us and to desist from those activities. For Shabbat,
we previously explained that that helped a Jew more fully imitate God’s rest on the
seventh day. That reasoning does not help with Yom Kippur, where there is no portrayal
of God resting.
One approach, a fairly technical one, would assert that all special days should
involve desisting from all creative labor, to allow for proper focus on the purpose of the
day. Shabbat, then, would be a paradigm of the need for people to occasionally step
147
317.
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away from their ordinary labors, to appreciate aspects of their existence they might
otherwise neglect. The special rules for other holidays, this line of reasoning would
suggest, was an exception carved out to facilitate celebration and feasting. Yom Kippur,
when eating is prohibited, simply stayed in the usual category of full prohibition of such
acts. That view sees Yom Kippur’s extra prohibitions as telling us about holidays in
Alternatively, we suggest that Yom Kippur has a broader set of actions that are
inappropriate because the day requires a more concentrated focus than other holidays.
Repenting properly and achieving atonement may make greater demands on human
concentration than the goals and foci of the other holidays. As opposed to a celebration
God’s care of the Jews in the desert, the proper experience of Yom Kippur may have
been meant to be more intense than the other days, an intensity signaled by the broad
prohibitions.
That discussion aside, we should note that Yom Kippur is not exactly the same as
Shabbat. Yom Kippur violations, for example, are punished with karet, a Divine
punishment that human courts can replace by administering lashes, rather than mittah,
capital punishment. Aside from changing the consequences for the sinner, the difference
defines two different loci of primary concern with enforcing proper observance.
Although the Talmud envisions human courts as providing atonement for such
sins by administering lashes,148 the punishment the Torah explicitly delineates for
148
See, for example, bMakkot 13b.
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violating Yom Kippur, karet, is in the hands of God. For Shabbat, however, a human
court bears the full responsibility to administer the punishment for the transgression.
Any reason for this is speculative, but we suggest that the observance of Yom
Kippur (outside the Temple) is primarily individual, each Jew using the day to properly
focus on repentance and forgiveness, while rest on Shabbat is a communal matter, that of
creating a certain seventh-day experience for the Jewish people. Many of the
technicalities of Yom Kippur are similar to Shabbat, then, but the full discussion of the
day shows it to be a more private, goal-focused day than Shabbat, which looked to form a
Living in a sukkah on Sukkot, the correct way to translate the Torah’s “ba-sukkot
teshvu, you shall sit (read: reside),”149 involves, primarily, eating, drinking, and sleeping
in the Sukkah. That command mostly means to perform any of those actions in a Sukkah
whenever the Jew chooses to perform them. By that standard, someone who fasted or did
not sleep during the holiday would not have to enter his Sukkah.
On the first night of the holiday, though, the Talmud infers a specific requirement
to eat in the Sukkah, regardless of weather conditions that might normally exempt a
person from the commandment. One opinion in the Talmud required eating fourteen
meals in the sukkah, two for each day of the holiday, but that is not accepted in practice.
In defining the amounts that would obligate eating in the sukkah, the Talmud
assumes that one may snack outside, but that akhilat qeva, a set meal, must take place in
149
Leviticus 23:42.
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a Sukkah, although the definition of akhilat qeva is not clearly articulated. The Shulhan
Arukh rules that up until an egg’s worth (a ke-betsah) of bread is not considered a meal,
but also praises those who are careful not to even drink water outside of the sukkah.150
There is, then, a minimal definition of living in the sukkah (avoiding those actions that
necessarily constitute living), and a maximal one (performing all of one’s activities in the
The Bible defines the basic function of the Sukkah, remembering that God had
placed the Jewish people in Sukkot during the Exodus,151 which also allows us to
understand the sliding scale of necessary involvement with the mitsvah. Reminders are
necessarily personal, since people’s memories work differently. For some, sitting in a
sukkah only when eating their fullest meals will still carry over into their experience of
the rest of the day and of life. For others, a more frequent presence in the sukkah is
necessary to achieve the active memory sought by the mitsvah. While halakhah defines a
minimal standard for living in a sukkah, the maximal standard is to have that experience
dominate one’s experience of these days, to most fully inculcate the message of Divine
obligation, another example of a mitsvat `aseh she-hazman grama. Here, at least, we can
see how the common reading of such mitsvot, that they create excessive burdens on
mothers, might be relevant. In addition, though, this is another mitsvah that ordains a
specific ritual practice to impress certain values upon Jews, meaning that it intrudes not
so much in terms of time, but personal freedom. The time involved in living in a sukkah
150
See Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 639:2, based on mSukkah 2:4 and 5.
151
Leviticus 23:43.
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might be less of a problem for women, than the requirement to adjust one’s life to the
needs of the mitsvah, leaving little room for flexibility in how to learn that lesson, how to
why the Torah exempted women from this category, and we will return to it again in our
branch), etrog (citron), hadassim (myrtle branches), and aravot (willow branches)-- and
rejoicing with that bundle for seven days of Sukkot in the Temple and taking it on the
first day of Sukkot anywhere in the world. In the introduction to the relevant section of
his Code, Maimonides mentions only the Temple aspect of the mitsvah, leaving the first-
day obligation for the text of the chapter that discusses lulav. The comment about
rejoicing with the lulav suggests that he saw the lulav itself as an object inducing (or
For contrast, compare the Sefer haHinukh’s formulation,152 which does not
mention rejoicing in the context of the mitsvah. In offering a reason for the mitsvah, the
Seefer haHinukh views the lulav as a replacement for tefillin (which he assumes are not
worn during the entire holiday). Since the holiday is a time of joy, some tangible object
was needed to remind Jews of the proper standards of behavior, which is what the four
species of the lulav-bundle are geared towards. For the Hinukh, the lulav reminds Jews
152
Mitsvah 324.
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to express our joy properly and decorously; for Maimonides, it seems to be the source of
that joy.
Maimonides’s view explains why the mitsvah applies all seven days only in the
Temple more easily than does the Hinukh’s. The verse about lulav speaks of rejoicing
“before God” for seven days. If the lulav is the source of that joy, we know why it has to
be part of the experience. Outside of the Temple, however, the verse simply commands
Jews to take the four species on the first day, meaning that there is a mitsvah of rejoicing
in the Temple and of taking—simply picking the bundle up and shaking it-- elsewhere.
The Hinukh is forced to suggest that outside the Temple the joy is not as great on
succeeding days and there is therefore no need to have a lulav on all those days, a
Their differing views of the mitsvah suggest differing symbolisms as well. For
Maimonides, since the lulav is a vehicle of joy, it ties naturally into the joy of the holiday
as a whole, which seems to focus on God’s Providence and its effect on our securing
livelihood (or harvest, in an agricultural society). In that version, the four species
represent the produce and plant life whose growth and success the holiday celebrates.
The Hinukh instead focuses on how the species can represent parts of the human body,
seeing them as a reminder to use one’s body for Divine service. That reading, of course,
separates lulav from the messages broadcast by the other parts of the holiday. What the
lulav means, then, is as much up in the air as the fundamental purpose of the mitsvah.
Like with lulav, the Torah does not clearly explain the purpose of blowing the
shofar. In the section of the Code devoted to those laws, Maimonides does not offer a
call, reminding Jews to repent. Sefer haHinukh follows a similar line, likening it to the
trumpets that call people to war; on this day, Jews are being called to battle their evil
inclination, so that God can judge them graciously and allow them more time to live and
The Rabbis’ connecting the blowing of the Shofar to the central blessings of the
Additional Prayer-- malkhuyot (Kingship), shofarot (the sounds of Shofar), and zikhronot
(Memory)—means that they saw a thematic connection with those blessings as well. 154
With our attention drawn to those blessings, we can easily see the shofar association.
When kings enter a room there is a flourish of trumpets, so the blowing of the
shofar could be reminding Jews to reaffirm God’s rule in the world by blowing the
trumpets of His arrival. The shofarot blessing reviews Scriptural verses that speak of the
use of the shofar on various public occasions, such as the Giving of the Torah at Sinai
and the future advent of the Messiah. That may be because memory of those events
serves as a merit for the Jews, or at least as a “reminder” to God of the permanent
connection between Him and the Jewish people. The blessing of zikhronot speaks of
sympathetic memory, in which God remembers human actions with an eye toward mercy,
with the implication that the shofar facilitates positive memories, in this case God’s
153
Mitsvah 405.
154
See mRosh haShanah 4;5.
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Given the multiple possible explanations of the sound of the shofar—and there are
numerous others—we realize that the sound of the shofar is so filled with symbolism that
no one symbol can fully capture its meaning. In the way that white light unites the entire
spectrum of light, that it brings a great deal of content into a unity into an undifferentiated
unity, the sound of the shofar may also bring numerous meanings and symbolism
together, to the point that it returns to being a simple sound. Shofar is the white light of
Rosh haShanah, reminding Jews, cajoling God, and, Jews hope, issuing the sound of
Conclusion to Part II
The holidays, this section has shown us, make Jews pause their ordinary lives to
educate themselves about their relationship with God. The positive requirement to rest
on Shabbat proves that the goal is not relaxation so much as a refreshing break to prepare,
a hiatus that allows Jews to step back from their activities of the rest of the week, to attain
perspective on what has been accomplished. The other holidays, days of feasting and
celebration, each teach their own lessons, both in the fact of celebrating that day as well
as bt the particular mitsvot that apply to that day. Yom Kippur, the exceptional holiday
that bears some resemblance both to Shabbat and the other holidays, seeks to allow the
soul, ordinarily intertwined with the physical, the sole expression in that person’s life for
That educative motif opened a possible explanation for why the Torah did not
include women in many of the specific obligations of the holidays. Were the ritual itself
a central part of a well-lived Jewish life, we would have no explanation for the Torah’s
lack of concern about women’s observance. Having realized, through our study of the
laws in question, that these observances come to teach specific lessons, we have
suggested that the Torah did not insist on teaching those lessons to all people in the same
way. Women were allowed a freer hand in fulfilling their overall obligation to achieve
the lesson of the holiday; they had the same general experience of the day as men, but
could shape their specific observance more to their own personal needs and inclinations.
As we had hoped, analyzing some of the laws of these days enriched our
understanding of what the religion meant its adherents to experience and to learn from
philosophical mitsvot, and will be true of the next sections as well. Those sections will be
briefer, but will round out the life of the Jew into a more complete whole than just what
we have seen so far, the need for certain beliefs and awarenesses and the regular
By grouping the mitsvot in Maimonides’ list thematically, we have seen that the
philosophical ones and the holiday ones—those that taught appreciation of God and those
that commanded the observance of certain days of remembrance and education-- account
for over half of the sixty mitsvot that apply in all times and places. No such large
categories unify the other mitsvot on the list; by force of necessity, we have divided them
Those categories themselves already tell us a great deal about Maimonides’ view
of Universal Positive Judaism. That some of the mitsvot apply to food, some to society,
and some to building a family will perhaps not surprise anyone with even a passing
familiarity with the religion. Some of the timeless and universal mitsvot, though, have
their roots in the Temple or involve how ordinary Jews must relate to priests. Fleshing
out these categories will allow us to more fully portray what the religion meant by
minimal observance, and what kinds of messages it deemed essential to a proper Jewish
life.
To anticipate, these groups of mitsvot will show that a Jewish life involves
stepping outside oneself in numerous ways. In food, the Jew must eat with an awareness
of what he or she is ingesting; it is that awareness that lies at the heart of the positive
element of the regulations about eating once-living creatures. The Jew must build a
family dedicated to propagating both the population of the world as well as the ideals of
the religion, must partake of a society that creates a safe environment for the religious,
economic, and physical growth of its members, and must maintain both a relationship
with priests and a memory of the Temple and the observances that occurred there. Only
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by discussing each of these pieces more fully will we a proper picture of a full Jewish life
come together.
Before starting on the first of our subunits, we must note slight adjustments
between this list and the one included in printed editions of Maimonides’ work. The
usual list inexplicably includes mitsvot 141 and 172, the obligations to forgive loans
during a shemittah year and to listen to a prophet, as part of his list of sixty.155 Yet
Maimonides limits the Biblical obligation to forgive loans during a shemittah year to the
time when the parallel agricultural shemittah and Jubilee are in effect, a situation that has
not occurred since the destruction of the First Temple.156 The obligation to listen to a
prophet also does not belong, since prophets do not exist in every time and place, and
Maimonides was here listing those obligations that apply anywhere and everywhere.
In addition, Maimonides’ list omits at least two mitsvot that clearly belong, nos.
146, the obligation to slaughter animals properly before eating them, and 151, the
obligation to check for the signs that particular hagavim, insects, may be eaten. Some
might argue that Maimonides excluded 146, the obligation to slaughter meat, since it is
only conditional—a vegetarian, for example, would never have to fulfill it. However,
Maimonides does count mitsvah 147, the obligation to cover the blood of certain animals
Similarly, since he counted the obligation to check the signs of animals, birds, and
S. Frankel, in his more critical edition of the Sefer haMitsvot, substitutes 146 for 141;
155
Maimonides assumption, Laws of Festivals 6:18, that eating meat is essential to the full
157
joy of a holiday, at least for men, may have led him to also assume that meat-eating was a
necessary part of life.
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fish, there is no clear reason to leave out insects. We have therefore made the appropriate
This section, depending on one’s perspective, serves either a minor role in our list,
Temple. In practical terms, we can correctly say that priests were functionaries of the
Temple, and that in its absence, their special role largely ceased. True, priests are still not
allowed to become ritually impure, which prevents them from going to funerals, but by
and large Jewish priests today are undifferentiated from the rest of the community.
The mitsvot we will review in this section show that this perception errs in both
theory and practice. Priests, with or without a Temple, serve an important role in Jewish
society, one that will become more clear after we review the particular observances in
Maimonides’ list.
Since this mitsvah only obligates male priests, who are required to bless the
Jewish nation on some kind of a regular basis, as we will discuss, its relevance to this list
seems at least questionable.158 Reviewing several rules of this priestly blessing, verifying
which are more and less central to the observance, will help us answer this question, at
the same time making us more aware of the mitsvah’s theological ramifications.
The priest’s washing his hands just before the blessing might seem essential to the
ceremony, especially since it is a highly visible aspect of the ceremony in the synagogue.
We might think that Jews must make an effort to hear the priests’ blessing, but that is
158
During the cantor’s repetition of the service, a synagogue functionary will interrupt the
cantor to advise the priests and the Levites (who wash the priests’ hands) that it is time to
go wash hands. Despite its high profile presence, however, several authorities dismiss
the need for any sort of washing if the priest had washed his hands upon arising in the
morning and been careful with them since.159 It is in deference to those opinions that no
Another high profile, seemingly central, but actually incidental aspect of the
ceremony is the priests’ removing their shoes. Rather than being part of the Torah’s
vision of priestly blessings, the priests take off their shoes because of a Rabbinic worry
that a priest wearing shoes with laces might, in retying laces that had come undone, miss
his opportunity join in blessing the Jewish people. Once again, then, this rule cannot help
disfigurements that prevent a priest from joining the other priests in blessing the people.
Various imperfections disqualify a priest from active service in the time of the Temple,
but for the blessing, halakhah only prohibits disfigurements that will distract listeners
from the blessing itself. As a result, a priest who is dash be-iro, well-known to the
members of his city, who are familiar with his particular abnormality, may recite the
159
See, for example, Mishnah Berurah 128:20.
160
See bSotah 40a, and Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim, 128:5. Shoes that do not have
laces, therefore, should be permissible. The common custom is to take off leather shoes
even if they do not have laces, only because they look too similar to laced shoes. On
Yom Kippur, when Jews do not wear leather, priests whose footwear lacks laces indeed
do not need to remove them; priests wearing lace-up footwear, however, still do. Most
importantly, though, none of these issues go to the crux of the mitsvah, since they all
stem from a Rabbinic ordinance geared towards preventing a priest’s inadvertently failing
to fulfill his obligation.
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blessing.161 Apparently, part of the ceremony is not only that the priests should recite the
Even more relevant, any priest who had not left his seat to ascend to the place
where the priests stand to issue the blessing (the dukhan) by the time the cantor reached a
particular point in the repetition of the service (Retsei) was not allowed to go up after that
point.162 That means, for example, that if a priest, for whatever reason, arrived in the
sanctuary after the cantor had passed Retsei, he could no longer join the other priests for
that day’s blessing. That law suggests a connection between the recitation of Retsei—a
prayer for God to be pleased with the Jewish people’s prayers, to accede to their
Another misleading rule that obscures the true intent of the obligation is the
practice to only recite these blessings during morning prayers and the Additional prayer
recited on holidays. Rather than limiting the importance of the priestly blessing to those
services, the rule stems only from a worry about inebriation; on fast days, where the
worry does not exist, the priests would bless the people in the afternoon prayers as well.
Even only these three facts of the priestly blessing—that it requires focus by the
priests and the audience, that it is connected to Retsei, and that it should happen at all
included it in the list. The need for focus suggests that the priests are not only asking
God to bless the people, but are also making the people aware that God is blessing them.
Retsei is in some sense a summing up of the prayers to God, a final request that God
161
See bMegillah 24b and Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim 128:30.
162
Ibid, 128:8.
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accept the service already expressed in the prayers. Making that the moment when the
priests start ascending to the stage means that they are responding to the cantor’s call for
God to hear the people’s prayers. As God’s representatives, the priests answer that
That view, in turn, tells us why it should be true of all prayer, since Jews need that
reassurance of God’s positive response each time they pray as a community. The mitsvah
may reside with individual priests, then, but it serves to make communal prayer a two-
way street, in which Jews call out to the Lord, and He, through His agents, responds.
The mitzvah requires Jews to show honor to the male descendants of Aaron the
High Priest, although the required forms of honor are left unspecified. Examples the
Talmud gives include liftoah rishon, le-varekh rishon, ve-litol maneh yafeh, to open first
(in the reading of the Torah), to be first to bless (as in the case of a Grace After Meals
recited in a group, known as a zimmun), and to take a nice portion first (as when alms are
distributed to a group of poor people, including priests).163 Building off those examples,
we would phrase the commandment as requiring that priests should take priority
makriv, and you shall sanctify him for he offers God’s sacrifices,”164 could theoretically
have meant that the honor applies only to those priests who actually offer sacrifices; it
163
See bMoed Katan 28b, based on Leviticus 21:8.
164
Leviticus 21:8.
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would be the fact of that service that gains the priests this status. Halakhah instead
extends the honor to priests in all places and times, suggesting that the traditional reading
of the verse was that Jews must honor priests because they are members of a lineage that
offered God’s sacrifices, regardless of whether they can actually do so in the current
situation. Their right to honor, then, does not extend from their active involvement in
Temple service, but from their membership in the clan that is theoretically so
empowered.
Two other circumstances where priests retain the right to honor further prove that
it depends on lineage rather than active service. A ba`al mum, a priest who has certain
kinds of physical disfigurement, would be excluded from Temple service but not from the
honor of ve-kidashto. So, too, a priest who has committed certain sins (most prominently
repenting, but would again be a candidate for honor. The honor, then, extends from the
165
The issue of whether a priest can forego his honor also relates to the question of
whether the honor belongs to that particular priest, or extends to his entire clan. The
Mishnah in bGittin (59a-b) refers to the priest reading the Torah first as darkei shalom, a
practice adopted to foster peace among the Jewish people. the Rabbis of the Talmud
question why this is explained as darkei shalom, a Rabbinic concept, when it would seem
to be a de-oraita, a Torah obligation. Abbaye answers that darkei shalom prevents the
priest from allowing his teacher to read before him in public, since other people might
demand the same treatment as well. In private, a priest could forego this honor.
Reading this sugya narrowly, (as Maimonides seems to have, since he does not
mention mehilah, voluntary remission of honor) might lead to the conclusion that a priest
could only have relinquished his honor in the case of reading the Torah, and only to
someone greater than he in the area of knowledge of Torah. Arukh haShulhan, Orah
Hayyim 135 reads Rabbenu Tam as claiming that the Torah only required priests to
accept honor in a time when they could have worn bigdei kehunah, priestly garments.
Nowadays, when there is still some obligation to honor them, it is nonetheless of a lower
level, such that they are allowed to forego it if they so wish. Arukh haShulhan also
reports, and disapproves of, communities that simply required the priests to forego their
honor, to allow an ordinary Jew to be called up first.
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Perhaps the element of this mitzvah that troubles modern sensibilities most is
arrogating rights of respect to people whose personal qualities might not warrant it.
Perhaps God wished to insure that Jews (in general, regardless of where they were in the
world) would always be able to have a tangible reminder of His presence in their midst.
The only way to insure such a diffusion of God’s representatives was to forego the
attempt to find meaningful representation, and select people arbitrarily. The system
works not because priests, in their personal qualities, actually represent God better than
the rest of the nation, but because they are the segment of society chosen to fulfill a social
need, to remind the rest of the nation of God’s constant presence and love.
Jews do not generally observe this mitsvah at the present time, for reasons we will
Maimonides and other important medieval rabbis167 assumed that the obligation applies in
all times and places, so that it must be part of their picture of essential Judaism. Our
discussion, from his perspective, would have been practical theology; in the current
In the case of Torah reading, common custom is to ask the priests to go outside,
so that there are no priests to be called up, rather than relying on their relinquishing their
right to the honor, and that only under pressing circumstances. In other cases, however,
such as leading the Grace After Meals, there is more of a tendency to accept their right of
foregoing, although they still must be offered the right to lead the Grace.
166
See footnote 16.
Including a Mishnah at the beginning of the tenth chapter of Hullin, Maimonides here,
167
Deuteronomy 18; 3 rules that three parts of all domesticated cattle that Jews
slaughter must be given to a priest, the zero`a (the right thigh), lehayayim (the two
cheeks, from the cheekbone to the chin, including the tongue), and the kevah (the maw,
one of the animal’s stomachs). This commandment is not connected to the Temple
service, as we can show both by its coming from all slaughtered animals, not just those
used for sacrifices as well as its being permissible to give to kohanot, female priests.
Even a female priest who has married a non-priest (so that she can no longer, for
example, eat terumah, the grain-tithe given to priests), she can still receive these gifts;
indeed, her non-priest husband can accept these gifts on her behalf.168
Based on that information, we would have read this mitsvah, as one more gift
Jews gifts to priests in recognition of their role as God’s representatives among the
Jewish people. Aside from running the Temple, with the various sacrifices and forms of
worship that apply there, they also serve as representatives of God in ordinary life.169
Seeing it that way, we would say that the gift from each animal “really” belonged to God,
Maimonides’ placing his discussion of the mitsvah in the Laws of First Fruits and
Other Gifts Given Outside the Temple fits that view, since it means that he saw this
mitsvah as an example of the general principle that Jews ought to give parts of their food
to God, or His representatives, before enjoying them themselves. Just like giving an
extra tithe from bread they bake, Jews should give God (or His appointed representative)
See bHullin 131b, Maimonides Laws of First-Fruits and Other Gifts to the Priests
168
1:11.
169
It is this aspect of their role that best explains the rules on priestly marriage.
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Midrash that sees the priests’ as having “earned” these gifts through Pinhas’ killing of
Zimri and Kozbi when they publicly flouted the laws against Jews fornicating with
Midianites.170 Seeing the gifts as some kind of lasting reward or memory for Pinhas’
courage seems to mean that the Bible wished Jews to continuingly remember Pinhas’ act,
and to view the priests as the continuity of the tradition of those who would appropriately
resist those who publicly violate the law of God.171 It would be priests as guardians of
This obligation applies to all Jews descended from one of the non-Levitical tribes
of the people, but halakhah does not clearly decide whether the Levites, not priests but
also not ordinary Jews, are also required to give these gifts to a priest. The verse in the
Torah refers to the am, the nation, and the Talmud does not resolve its doubt as to
170
Commentary on the Torah), Deuteronomy 18:3.
171
Whatever the reason for the mitsvah, it would seem simple enough to observe
(although financially somewhat costly). Beginning with Rashi, however, a continuing
minority of decisors, and seemingly a majority of practitioners of Jewish law, have relied
on a statement regarding reshit ha-gez (the obligations to give the first sheep-shearings to
a priest) to clear themselves of this obligation outside of the Land of Israel. In that
discussion, bHullin 136b, R. Nahman b. Yitshak reports that in his time everyone
followed R. Ilai, who ruled that reshit ha-gez did not apply outside the Land of Israel.
Rashi there comments that the same applies to the law of giving the thigh, cheeks, and
maw.
Despite the many problems with that view, chief among them that the Talmud
never entertained that possibility when it discussed the laws of these gifts and,
furthermore, that it reported cases of rabbis giving these gifts in Babylonia, it became
general practice. Some suggested that Jews stopped giving gifts because post-Talmudic
priests cannot establish their lineage well enough to prove they have the right to levy
these gifts, but that view is generally rejected (Jews still, for example, redeem their first-
born sons from priests, although the same lineage issues should apply).
Several leniencies built into the laws of these gifts perhaps eased its falling into
disuse. First, in contrast to other gifts owed to a priest, the rest of the animal does not
become prohibited until the gift is given. In addition, the Talmud says that if no priest is
available, the owner of the animal can set aside money for the value of the special parts
and then eat them.
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At the theological level, the Talmud’s doubt seems to focus on the extent to which
the Levites need to look to the priests for certain kinds of guidance or example. If am,
nation, includes the Levites, it would mean that they, too, are obligated to treat the
priests, at least for the purposes incorporated in this gift, just like any other Jew would. If
it does not, however, the Levites are being seen by the Torah as a markedly separate
group, one that does not need to relate to the priests in order to learn the lessons of these
gifts.
That could be true regardless of which of the explanations for the mitsvah we
accept. For the view of priests as God’s representatives, the Torah might be informing
us that Levites do not need that same guidance. After all, although their Temple service
is not as central as the priests’, the Levites, too, were meant to dedicate their lives to
God’s service in various ways. It is for that reason, for example, that they did not
received a specific share in the Land of Israel, but were given 48 cities spread throughout
the other tribes. While it would have been plausible to say that they nonetheless had to
look to priests for even greater awareness of God, it is also plausible that they would not.
So, too, if Pinhas earned these gifts for the priests by killing Zimri for his public
willingness to defend God’s standards, the Levites could plausibly excuse themselves, as
they had already performed a similar service at the sin of the Golden Calf.
In this section, we have seen the Torah outline three positive obligations that
establish a continuing presence for priests in Jewish lives, two of which have fallen into
bHullin 131b; Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De`ah 61:23 codifies the doubt, ruling that
172
Levites need not give these parts to the priest, since in matters of monetary doubt the
person trying to levy money must prove his point.
116
disuse in many segments of the Jewish community. Sephardic Jews, and all Jews in
Israel, still hear priests’ blessings on a regular basis. In those societies, priests are singled
out daily as those through whom God has chosen to express the special connection
The narrow rules of honoring priests are more frequently observed. They are
called up to the Torah first, and, in many Jewish homes, will be asked to lead the Grace
After Meals when enough people are present for a zimmun. The broader ramifications of
the mitzvah, to honor priests more generally, finds little expression in practice, however.
Finally, the third mitzvah, as we just discussed, is either ignored or avoided in various
ways.
At the theological level, though, studying this issue makes us aware of a Biblical
desideratum for regular Jews as well as for priests. The specific obligations combine to
remind regular Jews that the Bible assumed a need to have a regular relationship with
human beings who could, in the eyes of the beholder, represent God. It was not enough,
in the Biblical and halakhic worldview, to discipline oneself towards God; part of that
discipline had to involve relating to others as human stand-ins for the Divine.
The obligations also indicate that priests need to look at themselves differently
from other Jews. Rather than being a reminder of a gloried past, a way to get the first
chance to read the Torah portion, or an encumbrance in the way of attending funerals and
marrying certain women, the priesthood in our reading becomes a continuing status and
standing among the people. It is not only when they are called up to the Torah, or to the
stage to bless the people, that priests serve a specific national purpose; throughout their
day and their lives, ideally, priests have a role to play in focusing the attention of the
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In their ordinary observance, the three mitsvot we have grouped in this section--
54, 73, and 94, the obligations to be happy on the holidays, to confess sins, and to fulfill
promises—have little in common. We might have been tempted, in fact, to group them in
other of this work’s categories, such as by including simhat ha-regel, happiness on the
holidays, with the other mitsvot regarding the holidays, repentance with mitsvot related to
God, and fulfilling one's words, whether in terms of God or not, to mitsvot vital to
running a society.
emphasize their connection to the Temple rather than to the other categories we just
suggested. After reviewing the three obligations, we will be able to understand their
implicit lessons about the Temple and its continuing presence in Jewish life more fully.
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Readers may think that the role outlined here for priests has been taken over, at least
for many Jews, by rabbis and scholars of Torah. It is to them, perhaps, that many Jews
have transferred the respect and the concomitant expectations of Godliness that were
originally accorded to priests. There is, of course, an obligation to respect rabbis, but not
in the same way or for the same reason as the honor given to priests.
Scholars garner respect by their scholarship or wisdom, and generally only retain
it if their personal character matches their wisdom. This has the advantage of insuring
that the respect is earned rather than born into, but can lead to the impression that God
can be approached only by those talented intellectually or textually.
Priests are more ordinary in their talents, and project more of an image of the
universality of worshipping God. Presumably, priests had no higher a percentage of
smart people than did the rest of the nation. Going to a local priest with parts of one’s
slaughtered animal, hearing a blessing from him, or giving him honor, stressed, each
time, that God could be served by a wide variety of people, of widely varying talents and
interests.
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connected to the holidays, despite its applying independently of any actual sacrifice. The
previous two mitsvot were the obligations to mark one's appearance at the Temple by
burnt completely for God. Only men were required to bring these two offerings, but all
adult Jews had to also offer another, third, sacrifice. Like the hagigah, this was a
shelamim, meaning that it was shared among the altar, the priests, and the person who
brought the sacrifice (who could share his portion with friends and family as well).
Originally, then, the mitsvah of simhah, of joy, on the holidays, could only be
fulfilled by eating a sacrifice in the Temple. As the Talmud says, 174 in the time of the
Temple, there was no simhah other than eating the meat of this sacrifice. In the absence
of a Temple, one view would see Jews as forced to find completely different methods of
achieving joy. In the Sefer haMitsvot, for example, Maimonides follows the simplest
reading of the Talmudic text in only mentioning drinking wine as a contemporary avenue
support) adds meat to the list of ways in which men can create the desired joy even post-
Temple.175 He thus assumes that eating meat itself leads to some kind of joy; the Talmud
only wanted to point out that meat-eating today does not fully recapture the eating of the
it was in the times of the Temple, even according to Maimonides. While men might be
174
bPesahim 109a.
175
Laws of Festivals 6;18.
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able to experience some of that joy by eating meat, Maimonides (and the Talmud)
assumes that meat-eating affects women differently from men. For women, therefore, the
Talmud prescribes other forms of joy, giving the specific example of purchasing new
clothing. Maimonides does not mean that Jewish law requires women to buy new
clothing for a holiday; his statement records his, and the Talmud’s, understands of what
Certainly there is room here for personal variation, but the categories point us in
the direction of the broader experience being sought. For women, a new dress was
physically pleasurable—there is a physical feel to new clothing that gets lost over time.
For men, in Maimonides’ time anyway, eating red meat was an unusual physically
pleasurable experience. Combining the two, Maimonides’ seems to have read the
Talmud as meaning that the joy of a holiday involves engaging in some kind of permitted
In Temple times, that physical experience consisted of being at the Temple and
eating meat there “with” God. Post-Temple, each Jew has to find a way to replicate that
experience to the best of their abilities, to find another way to physically enjoy the
joy adds another element to our understanding of the role of the holidays generally, that
of providing physical joy. Some might see that as a concession to human needs, such as
Sefer haHinukh’s suggestion that God ordained holidays to provide a useful outlet for the
176
Mitsvah 488.
120
In a similar vein, Maimonides noted that holidays foster good relations among the
members of a nation (celebrating together gives a sense of unity and common purpose),
as well as helping inculcate certain ideas and ideals in the citizens.177 Both of these rabbis
seem to assume that if humans had no inherent need of celebration (or the national unity
such a celebration creates), God might not have ordained the holidays at all.
an alternative to the meanings offered until now. Like in the mitsvot of relating to priests,
the Torah might have wanted Jews to relate to God in physical ways as well as spiritual
or intellectual ones. That might be why the Torah chose to obligate Jews to have a
Temple at all, a stunning physical structure organized to give a sense of the tangible
presence of God. Particularly when we recognize that many people are not capable of
focusing on the intellectual or spiritual on a regular basis, we could view the Temple and
its service as a way to help those who lived physical lives come as close as possible to
Moving to the simhah sacrifice, the joy of the holiday can also serve to help a Jew
physically celebrate the bounties of his life, both historical and agricultural, with God.178
With the loss of the Temple, the challenge of celebrating with God became greater, as
Jews no longer had a building that they could identify as containing God’s presence any
more than any other. The solution offered by the Talmud was to increase one’s physical
awareness of God on the holidays, to create a physically pleasurable experience that the
Rabbi Joshua Berman has suggested that the shelamim sacrifice in general was a way
178
for a Jew to eat a meal “with” God, an idea that dovetails with this one.
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Reminding ourselves that Maimonides viewed joy of the holiday in its original
light showed us more about the mitsvah than we might otherwise have realized. Rather
than just being a question of being happy on these days, the mitsvah is to use these
holidays as times to use all of one’s senses, particularly the physical—sometimes viewed
as the most removed from God-- to celebrate the bounties of life with the Creator Who
provided them. The original model of that joy was the Temple, where the physical and
spiritual were closely linked. Post-Temple Jews have to recreate that linkage as best they
Like the obligation of holiday joy, the requirement to verbally articulate one’s
sins has its roots in the Temple, where such articulation was required as part of offering
the sacrifice meant to atone for the sin. As a necessary part of repentance, however, vidui
(as this verbal articulation is called in Hebrew) exists completely independent of sacrifice
as well. Trying to understand Maimonides’ focus on vidui, the articulation of the sin, as
well as his placing it in the context of sacrifice, will help us more fully understand its role
in a Jewish life.
Atonement comes at the end of repentance, with vidui being the final step of one
and the beginning of the other.179 The sinner is required to verbally address God, to admit
179
Vidui does not always, or even usually, effectuate complete atonement. The Talmud,
bYoma 86a, defines four types of atonement, for different levels of sin. The atonement for
neglecting to fulfill a positive commandment, unless there are other exacerbating factors,
comes purely from sincere repentance and vidui. This supports our general assumption
that positive commandments are what lead a Jew to a closer relationship with God.
While they are obligatory, all that needs to happen to make up for a failure to fulfill one
of these commandments is sincere regret. In contrast, violating prohibitions—which set a
minimum level of behavior for the Jew, not bring him to higher realms—require greater
efforts to atone.
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his sins, express regret for them, and undertake not to repeat them in the future. That
requirement, Maimonides takes pains to emphasize, applies to all sins, and in all places,
meaning that this aspect of a Jewish religious life is independent of the Temple and of the
Land of Israel.
Maimonides’ emphasis on the last of the several steps of repentance piqued the
interest of his rabbinic readers. Some decided that Maimonides did not see repentance
itself as an obligation, just that one who repented needed to articulate that repentance
verbally.180 That would mean that God never ordered sinners to repair their relationship
with Him, He merely told them how to do so when the spirit so moved them. Other
authorities clearly asserted a general obligation to repent as soon as one is able, 181 and
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchick pointed out that the heading for the Laws of
Repentance, where Maimonides lists the commandments he will discuss in that set of
laws, defines the mitsvah as being that the sinner repent from his sin and confess. That
Violating a simple prohibition, such as eating pig, means that the sinner cannot
achieve full atonement until Yom Kippur. More serious sins, such as those for which the
punishment is death or karet, will need repentance (with vidui), Yom Kippur, and
yisurim, moments of suffering, to fully erase the sin. Last, those who desecrate the Name
of God only achieve full atonement when they do all of the above and maintain their
penitent state until death. Violating a simple prohibition, such as eating pig, means that
the sinner cannot achieve full atonement until Yom Kippur. More serious sins, such as
those for which the punishment is death or karet, will need repentance (with vidui), Yom
Kippur, and yisurim, moments of suffering, to fully erase the sin. Last, those who
desecrate the Name of God only achieve full atonement when they do all of the above
and maintain their penitent state until death.
180
Minhat Hinukh, Mitsvah 364.
181
For example, the thirteenth century R. Yonah Gerondi in the first section of his Gates
of Repentance.
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locution asserts a mitsvah to repent, leaving the question as to why Maimonides focused
Many have answered that question in the context of the Mishneh Torah itself and
Maimonides’ self-imposed rules for how he codified laws;182 the presentation in the Sefer
haMitsvot suggests another element to the answer. Maimonides spends more time on this
mitsvah than most others, and the bulk of his discussion involves proving that vidui
applies to situations other than sacrifices and other than just in the Land of Israel. His
concern, then, seems to have been emphasizing the broad applicability of vidui rather
than separating it from the process of teshuvah. In other words, Maimonides might have
stressed vidui not because it was the only part that was obligatory, but because it was the
only element of the process that readers might not have realized was absolutely
necessary.
the atonement achieved in the Temple, but less so outside of the Temple. Maimonides’
focus on vidui emphasized to Jews that the atonement achieved by repentance, by sincere
required verbal articulation just as much as the atonement found in the Temple.
Saying the words of vidui, Maimonides was signaling, is not just a magic formula
uttered in the Temple, it is a necessary part of any repentance process. Although God
182
Rabbi Soloveitchick, for example, claims that in the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides
describes the ma`aseh hamitsvah, the act of a mitsvah, which, for mitsvot that happen
primarily internally, can differ from the kiyum hamitsvah, from the central intention of
the mitsvah. Similarly, the act of sitting shiva does not exhaust the obligation of
mourning, which necessarily involves internal feelings. Since there is no other external
act of repentance, Maimonides focused on the vidui.
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knows human thoughts and can recognize the sincerity of one’s repentance even without
verbal articulation,183 Maimonides stresses vidui to remind readers that the verbal
articulation, but atonement seeks to wipe away the past, to expunge the record of one’s
sins. People can reject their past simply by living differently in the future, but to wipe
away the past requires dredging it up, verbally and articulately, and then laying it to
permanent rest. Psychologists, proponents of the talking cure, have recognized this truth
for over a century; the requirement of vidui shows that halakhah realized it long ago.
30) 94—To Fulfill That Which One Has Accepted Upon Himself
Synopsis: The obligation to be true to one’s word, as an outgrowth of that obligation
regarding commitments to the Temple.
Maimonides here gives broader ethical ramifications to what could easily have
been a narrow, technical mitsvah. The relevant Biblical verses warn Jews to fulfill any
nedarim, vows, they may take.185 In Numbers, the Torah says, ke-khol hayotsei mi-piv
ya`aseh, he should act according to whatever comes out of his mouth, while in
Deuteronomy the verse says motsa sefatekha tishmor, that which comes out of your lips
you must keep. Maimonides takes these verses to indicate a general obligation to fulfill
183
As Maimonides himself assumes in Laws of Repentance 2; 2.
184
Minhat Hinukh points out that the Talmud assumes that one can achieve partial
atonement even without vidui. The Talmud validates a betrothal that was explicitly
conditioned on the man’s being a tsaddik, a wholly righteous man, since even an evildoer
may have repented in his thoughts. Even completely internal teshuvah, then, takes
enough effect to change the person’s status from evildoer to tsaddik; it is only full
atonement that requires vidui.
185
Numbers 30:3 and Deuteronomy 23:24.
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whatever a Jew accepts upon him or her self, whether a sacrifice, an oath, or even just a
While he does not include all verbal commitments in the Biblical obligation,186 the
categories just mentioned apply fairly broadly. A verbal declaration of intent to offer a
particular animal as a sacrifice or to donate some object to the Temple creates a Biblical
obligation to follow through. A promise to give charity works the same way- simply
significantly different view of the mitsvah. First, he thinks the two verses represent
separate mitsvot, with the first applying to general promises or oaths, while the second
only applies to statements that commit objects or money to the Temple and its properties.
particularly in light of his statement at the beginning of his glosses to the work that he
does not necessarily accept the number 613 as the Talmud’s absolute assertion about the
186
Halakhah divides oaths into two categories, neder and shevu`ah. The difference
between the two is unimportant for our purposes, but shevu`ah refers to a shevu`at bitui, a
promise to actively perform or to refrain from a certain action. One could, for example,
declare one’s intention to eat a certain food the next day (or to refrain from that food) and
create a de-oraita obligation to do so. As long as the verbal declaration fit the form of a
shevu`at bitui—meaning it had the word shevu`ah or other similar words, as well as a
direct mention of God’s Name, or sufficiently close references to the Creator—the verses
mentioned above tell us that that person is now as obligated to fulfill his promise.
Maimonides delineates two kinds of nedarim at the beginning of Laws of
Nedarim, those in which the person promises something to God or the Temple (a
sacrifice or a donation that will support the upkeep of the House) and those, more
common, ones where the person manufactures a personal prohibition of a certain item or
act. There, too, the prohibition will take on both negative (Mitsvot Lo Ta`aseh 157) and
positive de-oraita status. In contrast to shevu`ot, Maimonides does not require a
particular terminology for a statement to qualify as a neder; even without either in the
word neder or mention of a Divine Name, the statement “Apples will always be
prohibited to me,” qualifies as a neder, and the person will have to fulfill that
declaration.
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number of commandments found in the Torah. Here, the question of whether these were
the same mitsvah or not was worth arguing, I would suggest, because it goes to the
For Maimonides, keeping promises made in the context of the Temple led to the
made to the Temple from those made in general, sees them as separate issues. For him,
the timeless and universal obligation to fulfill vows did not have its roots in the
Nahmanides raises a more substantive point when he claims that oaths require a
certain verbal form to become binding. Where Maimonides had said that a simple
much as had been the case with other oaths. For Maimonides, a neder consists of a
declaration.
Maimonides’s view of neder matches his statement that the Torah really means to
obligate Jews to fulfill all the commitments they make. It is not primarily a technical
issue of certain kinds of declarations but the desire, originating in a Temple context, that
The three mitsvot with their roots in the Temple do not serve so much to remind
Jews of the Temple on a regular basis, as we had seen in the case of mitsvot relating to
priests. Rather, they show that the rules of how to act within the Temple taught Jews
tangibly on the holidays, articulating remorse for sin, and being true to one’s word—even
The Temple, even in this brief acquaintance with it, turns out to have been more
than a place to offer animal sacrifice, it was a place where an ideal life was lived, with
ramifications that went beyond the narrow confines of that building. The loss of the
Temple means the loss of the specific building, but also of the place where those lessons
MITSVOT OF FOOD
31)146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152—Slaughtering Animals, Covering the Blood,
Determining the Signs of Animals, Birds, and Fish
Synopsis: The obligation for a Jew to verify beforehand that the once-living creatures
that he or she eats meet the qualifications the Torah established for permissibility.
Although these mitsvot are not directly related to each other, they are all
connected to the preparation of once-live food for eating. The simplest view of them
equates them to the prohibitions, saying that these mitsvot are meant to safeguard a Jew’s
food intake to make sure it includes only certain foods and not others. 188 Maimonides’
The first of these mitsvot is fairly straightforward, that a Jew must slaughter those
animals he wishes to eat. That slaughter entails specific rules of where on the animal the
act of killing has to take place, the action that must be involved in the killing, and the
various ways in which the killing may be ruled invalid, rendering the animal
impermissible.
Those rules do not clear explain why such killing is necessary. They may be there
to insure that the killing of the animal takes place with a minimum of pain or guarantees
that the maximum possible amount of blood is removed form the animal in death, but
there may be some other value as well. Here, we would just note that the Torah’s rules
force the killing of animals to be handled at close range, with the animal under the
person’s control (since jerking or moving will invalidate the act), a first example of the
The second mitsvah demands that one who slaughters a non-cattle animal, such as
a deer or a bird, cover the blood after the slaughter. Nowadays, ordinary Jews generally
do not observe this mitzvah, since people no longer slaughter their own animals. As a
theoretical reality, though, the mitzvah seems oriented to making Jews aware of the blood
Phrasing the obligation in terms of awareness of the event explains why the rule
only applies to wild animals and birds; slaughtering a domesticated animal, or a store-
bought one, always engages the awareness of the person killing the animal. Killing
captured animals, where no prior relationship existed, might become a thoughtless act,
since the person slaughtering the animal might have no engagement in the blood that is
being spilled.
The Torah ordering Jews to be fully aware of what they are doing as they kill animals
does not mean the Torah wished to discouraged such killing; it just stresses that such acts
should not occur carelessly or thoughtfully. It can be appropriate to kill animals for food
in the Torah’s view, and yet only be appropriate if the proper care and attention is given
to the act. This would be in contrast to plant life, where the Torah has no particular stake
in thoughtful harvesting.189
The other mitsvot in this group are those that demand that Jews determine which
types of animals, birds, insects, and fish should be considered kosher.190 As Maimonides
Although, even there, the rules of the gifts, to the priest, Levites, and poor, that must
189
notes, for each of the four categories, animals, birds, insects, and fish, the Torah
specifically names some prohibited and permitted examples. For the permitted ones, the
Torah says, “these you shall eat,” a phrasing Maimonides, following the Sifri, the
positive commandment.
In that reading of the Sifri, aside from avoiding animals that lack the indicators of
in the context of eating-- going to a zoo or a wildlife preserve and determining which of
those species were permissible (even though there was no way to eat them), would not
Sefer haHinukh191 notes that eating meat from an animal without determining
whether it has the proper signs neglects this positive commandment even if the animal
later turns out to have been of a kosher species. In this case, the prohibition was not
transgressed, but the positive commandment, to be cognizant of what one eats, was
neglected. It is, then, a commandment that is either fulfilled or not by the time the food
enters the mouth, whereas the prohibition depends completely on the act of eating.
Sefer haHinukh comments that he only included this mitsvah because he had
decided to follow Maimonides's list of the mitsvot, but that he in fact agrees with
While the Torah provides signs for the permissibility of animals—those that chew their
cud and have cloven hoofs— it does not give a parallel list for birds, simply listing names
of some that are permissible and some that are not. The Rabbis, based on the Torah’s
lists, derived principles for determining the permissibility of birds, although the general
preference is to eat only those birds about which there was a tradition of permissibility.
The Torah defines certain physical characteristics of insects’ legs and wings that would
make them permissible. Fish need to have fins and scales.
191
Mitsvah 153.
131
Nahmanides, who does not count this mitsvah for the reason that we have mentioned
before, that the Talmud will refer to an act as involving both an aseh and a lo ta`aseh, a
positive act and a prohibition, as a bookkeeping issue, allowing for proper comparison
For Nahmanides and those who agree with him, the Bible ordains remarkably few
positive commandments regarding food hat apply to Jews in all times and places. While
there is an obligation to say Birkat haMazon, we have already seen that that has more to
do with reminding oneself of God’s presence in the world than with the actual experience
of food. Food might cause religious damage to a person, according to Nahmanides, and
was therefore guarded by various prohibitions, but outside of the Temple bore little
Maimonides might have agreed regarding most food, but when it came to the
higher life forms whose eating required a specific act of killing, the mitsvot Maimonides
includes point towards a concern with mindfulness around the eating of those species.
Aside from reminding Jews that food comes from God, as in birkat haMazon, the mitsvot
focus attention on the use of animal life for food purposes. The killing of birds and
animals, higher life forms than fish and insects, require an additional level of
The same would apply to the rules about the kinds of animals to eat. While the
This follows the lines of a Midrash Rabbah that Maimonides quotes in Guide III:26. In
192
paraphrase, the Midrash says, "And what does God care if we slaughter an animal from
the front of the neck or the back? Say, rather, that the mitsvot were only given to purify
human beings." Some important element of the mitsvah of slaughter, the Midrash
implies, might have been fulfilled even if the obligation had been expressed differently,
such as from the back of the neck.
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specific signs that create a prohibition against eating some animals may indeed inform us
as to the animals that the Bible viewed as fit for human consumption, the commandment
to check the animals’ signs seems more focused on making a Jew aware of his eating than
That the Torah called for such awareness only in the case of once-living creatures
seems connected to the meaningful similarity between higher life forms and animals. In
line with that similarity, such life should not be casually brought to an end, nor should
such animals be casually used for human beings’ purposes. In demanding that Jews pay
attention to which types of animals they are allowed to use, the Torah tries to insure that
animals killed to support human life are at least not destroyed callously or unthinkingly.
BUILDING A SOCIETY
The next, and next to last, group of mitsvot in Maimonides’s list are those related
to building a proper Jewish society. These obligations include following the majority
when a debate arises among scholars, removing sources of danger from public (and
private) places, giving charity, loving other Jews, loving converts, insuring the propriety
of weights and measures, honoring Torah scholars, and honoring and fearing parents.
Even before we review them in greater detail, the list already shows the outline of
the society the Torah commands Jews to develop. It is a society that has a decision-
insure the physical safety of its citizens, provides at least some safety net for the less
fortunate, promotes good social bonding throughout all segments of society, seeks
financial justice in the dealings of its members, and establishes a social hierarchy that
places the study of Torah at the center of the social value system. After fleshing out each
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of these obligations, we will be able to summarize the social vision of these mitsvot
see it as an example of the Torah being ahead of the curve in anticipating institutions that
people were eventually going to come up with on their own. The halakhic version of
majority rules, however, goes farther than the ordinary use of the principle, for most
The easiest part of the mitsvah to swallow is its import for the technical
experience of deciding a dispute; that majority rules in such cases corresponds well with
modern intuitions of judgment. Yet the mitsvah also applies to all issues of Biblical and
legal interpretation, an even broader category than those covered by the United
As Maimonides lays it out, in the Sefer haMitsvot and in the Mishneh Torah, in
the time of the Sanhedrin, all disputes— including those of how to interpret Torah law—
were resolved by some court, if only by the Sanhedrin as a court of last resort. Although
there were several layers before reaching the top, lasting disputes would nonetheless be
The purview of these questions could be any issue of Jewish law, which our
investigation even just of positive mitsvot (particularly the more philosophical ones) has
shown to cover quite a lot of how to live one’s life. Maimonides’ vision of the Sanhedrin
would translate into a more unified view of what Judaism means than currently reigns.
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belief or life-path—Maimonides would have expected the Sanhedrin to weigh in with the
might easily have meant that the Sanhedrin would lay out the parameters of a reasonable
Jewish life, parameters broad enough to include people of differing talents, interests, and
foci in their service of God.193 They might codify, for example, the obligation to love
God, but recognize a multitude of appropriate ways of doing so; the Sanhedrin would not
be there to impose a rigid vision of the system, but it would define the outer limits of
acceptability.
Some will find disconcerting the idea of a central body, however large and wise,
making decisions about the nature of that society as a whole. In the U. S., the Supreme
Court is limited in its purview in many ways; Justice Rehnquist’s belief in states’ rights
has expanded the range of issues where the Supreme Court or some of its members would
Making matters worse, Maimonides assumes this mitsvah applies in all times and
places, meaning that he saw it as still somehow relevant today. From his perspective,
apparently, questions that arise among Jews even today should be brought before a group
of competent authorities, with the majority ruling the decision. Jews do not generally
Prof. Isadore Twersky, a”h, often noted Maimonides’ repeated use of the term ke-fi
193
koho, according to his abilities,—over twenty times in the Mishneh Torah. As he read it,
that was how Maimonides signaled room in halakhah for personal differences of talent,
capability, and interests in one’s worship of God.
135
follow that view today, except in resolving specific disputes, relying on several
practice, we realize that it would require the leaders to carefully distinguish the required
from the recommended, law from custom, religious obligation from societal practice.
Not every good idea would be fodder for the majority of rabbinic scholars to impose as
law, and the Sanhedrin—or whatever group of rabbis was serving as the deciding body--
On the other side, it would require laypeople to submit to the judgment of a group
of rabbis on central and important life issues. To the extent that a majority of that
rabbinic body agreed that Jewish law required or prohibited some course of action, the
Jewish community as a whole would be obligated to follow their view. That scenario
alone tests the limits of the imagination, offering a stark example of where current
realities sit far from the ideal Jewish society, at least as understood by Maimonides. 195
194
Sefer haHinukh, mitsvah 78, points out that the question of following the majority
only applies to scholars of equal stature and rank. Minhat Hinukh notes that the Talmud
suggests that Beit Shammai were allowed to ignore the rulings of Beit Hillel because
they, Beit Shammai, were greater scholars. One way to avoid being forced to follow the
majority, then, is to claim that one is following scholars of greater stature, who therefore
need not be bound by the majority of those around them.
Minhat Hinukh also notes that some only apply this rule when the scholars in
question have fully debated their views in person. Just reading various writings and
tabulating the positions taken by scholars operating independently is not enough to
develop a majority. For our purposes, unless a body of scholars of the highest stature has
fully argued a point, there is not yet an obligation to follow the majority view.
195
Surprisingly, the presentation in the text may have underplayed how Maimonides
would have seen this mitsvah implemented. In the next mitsvah, Maimonides sees an
obligation “to appoint judges and officers who will force us (he and his Jewish audience)
to perform the mitsvot of the Torah, and return those who are straying from the true path
against their will, and command us to do good and return from evil,” and so on. In
Maimonides’ vision, religion, or at least public adherence to certain religious norms, was
imposed and enforced from the top down, another difficult concept in the current political
136
We might assume that the mitsvah of building a fence, what the Torah calls a
ma`akeh,196 is limited to that simple act, placing fences around certain kinds of roofs.
The broader application of the mitsvah, however, focuses our attention on a more general
issue, the requirement in halakhah for Jews to insure that they are not the cause of public
dangers.
On the narrow issue of fence-building, several rules show that it was a mitsvah
directed at private Jews in their own homes. The basic obligation is to erect a fence that
rises at least 36-40 inches197 from the roof of any house that is at least that tall, and that
encompasses an area of at least 36-64 square feet.198 The fence must be able to hold a
person’s weight, meaning that it present an actual barrier to falling, not just a reminder to
be careful.
Only structures meant for living qualify as houses for the purposes of the mitsvah.
For that reason, Maimonides199 exempts storehouses and barns, although other authorities
atmosphere.
196
Deuteronomy 22:8.
The fence must be ten tefahim high; a tefah is currently assumed to be between 3.6-4
197
inches.
The Talmud speaks of four amot by four amot. An amah is somewhere between 18
198
and 24 inches, so four amot is 6-8 feet, leading to an area of 36-64 square feet.
199
Laws of Murder and Safeguarding the Soul 11:1.
200
See Kessef Mishneh ad loc.
137
The Talmud infers from the verse’s reference to your roof that communal spaces,
such as synagogues and study halls, are exempt.201 Rashi explains that these places do
not belong to anyone, since any Jews (from anywhere) have the general right to use it.
That means that ma`akeh requires a specific owner on whom to place the obligation.
Since halakhah viewed a synagogue as a place that belongs to the Jewish people as a
whole rather than a partnership of its members, it had no specific owners upon whom the
Reading the Biblical text alone would suggest that we have exhausted its legal
implications. Several sources, however, showed Maimonides that the issue of removing
all dangers from Jews’ dwelling places was the real intent of the mitsvah, leading him to
define it that way in the Sefer haMitsvot. 202 Among them was a statement in the Sifre
that led Maimonides to expand the mitsvah to also obligate a Jew to put up a protective
201
bHullin 136a, using the word gagekha, in Deuteronomy 22:8. Maimonides explains
that these places, too, were not made for living, but that does not explain the inference
from gagekha. It was also factually untrue for at least some places in medieval and
modern Europe where the poor often spent winter nights in a local synagogue or study
hall.
202
The Talmud and the Sifre cite the words ve-lo tasim damim be-vetekha, you shall not
put blood in your houses, which would see these acts as violations of a prohibition.
Maimonides, however, refers to a person who fails to take care of such matters as having
neglected an `aseh. One possibility, based on the Sifre closing its discussion by saying
that ve-asita ma`akeh was an aseh, and ve-lo tasim damim was a lo ta`aseh. Maimonides
may have understood that summary statement as indicating that the two obligations are
coterminus, that all that is included in one is included in the other.
Others note that Maimonides cites a new verse, hishamer lekha u-shemor
nafshekha be careful and guard your soul, in articulating this obligation, and suggest that
Maimonides may have meant that as the source of the `aseh. However, Maimonides
never offers it as a new aseh, and it is not clear that it creates the obligation. I suspect
that this verse (and Talmud’s use of it in a story in Berakhot 32b where a Roman general
uses it to chastise a Jew for endangering himself by not answering the general’s greeting)
expanded Maimonides’s understanding of the prohibition of ve-lo tasim damim, which in
turn expanded the meaning of ma`akeh.
138
barrier around any place that a person can fall from and be killed. Then, perhaps because
of a Talmudic statement that sees the verse as asserting an obligation not to raise an evil
dog or own a shaky ladder,203 Maimonides requires removing any dangers that could lead
to loss of life.204
Torah, that each Jew, insure that his private domain is free of dangers to people’s life.
Regardless of whether those people had the technical right to be in that place or not, the
Torah wanted to avoid one Jew losing his life because of the dangers another Jew chose
to harbor in his private home. Any such dangers, the Torah is telling us, become the
obligation of that Jew to cordon off, so that other people are not affected by his insistence
203
bKetubbot 41b. Maimonides does not refer directly to that source.
204
Laws of Murder and Safeguarding Oneself 11;4.
139
34)195 & 197—To Give Charity and To Lend Money to the Poor
Synopsis: The obligation for all Jews to participate in insuring the economic well-being
of all members of society, including those non- Jews who join as associate members.
We may find it obvious that charity sits at the bedrock of a well-run society, but
the particular parameters that halakhah sets up for it are nonetheless revealing.205 All
Jews are required to give charity, such that even one being supported by others must give
at least some minimal amount. There are also established priorities for charity: relatives
come first, neighbors (or the poor of one’s city) next, and those who live far away only
after that. The poor of the Land of Israel are an exception, in that they have a clearer
Before discussing other relevant issues, let us note what these rules alone say
about the Torah’s ideal for a charitable society. First, all members of society, even those
forced to accept help for their own sustenance, must care about others’ needs in addition
to their own. Second, halakhah assumes that charity begins at home, with those closest
to a person taking priority on that person’s charitable giving. Yet the exception for the
poor of the Land of Israel reminds Jews at all time of the centrality of that Land in Jewish
A brief discussion of how much to give and in what way to give it will suffice for
our consideration of the religious intent of these mitsvot. Each Jew is required to give at
least a minimal gift to every legitimately poor person who asks for it; the ideal would be
Those needs, interestingly, are defined by the standard of living to which the poor
person was accustomed before becoming poor (or, if that person had always been poor,
the standard of living common to people of his/her social station). A formerly wealthy
205
The rules of charity are well-summarized in Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De`ah 249-250.
140
person would have the right to a different level of communal funds than a person who
Charitable giving, then, seeks not only to keep people alive, but to replace what
they have lost. It also means that halakhah’s definition of material needs depends on
prior accustomization; a person of wealth apparently needs more (or differently) than
someone else.
Assuming, as is usually the case, that one person cannot cover all the needs of the
poor who present themselves, halakhah sets a fifth of one’s income as the upper limit on
what a person is allowed to give to charity. 207 Giving more, the Talmud implies,
bespeaks an unseemly confidence that one will always have money as needed, when
disaster can strike at any time.208 While the mitsvah speaks of taking care of those to
whom life has dealt a difficult economic hand, permanently or temporarily, halakhah also
206
Although I do not know where it is discussed, it seems likely that dei mahsoro, the
requirement to fill what is lacking for a particular person, applies only to those who are
not responsible for their fall from wealth. A person who suffered business reversals that
were out of his control should have more of a claim on charity dollars than one who lost
his fortune because of misdealings, drugs, laziness, or other unacceptable causes.
207
See, for example, bKetubbot 50a.
208
Most people find one-fifth a challenging percentage of one’s income to donate to
charity. Those who find one-fifth a restriction can recategorize some donations
commonly considered charity. Helping fund cancer research, for example, is generally
seen as a form of charity; a person seeking ways to give more money to charity, however,
could reasonably argue that charity involves only what is given away to the poor.
Investing in medical research can be seen as a prudent investment in one’s safety,
readying medicine for oneself in case of contracting that illness.
The same might be said for speculative investments intended as a way to help
stimulate a poor country’s economy; on one level, the contribution is charity, since it
gives work to people, some of whom are poor; as these investments also often fail, they
do not intuitively qualify as business ventures. Someone interested in spreading around
more of his or her wealth could, however, argue that these are not charity, they are the
most speculative part of a diversified portfolio.
141
wants people to recognize that the distance between them and poverty is not as concrete
A related mitsvah speaks of lending to the poor before they need to accept alms.
Maimonides calls this the highest form of charity, since it helps the poor person before he
that lending to the poor is an example of charity; in fact, though, Maimonides counts it
separately in the Sefer haMitsvot and opens his Laws of Lenders and Borrowers210 by
letting us know that lending money can replace “real” charity, meaning it can obviate the
need for outright gifts to the poor.211 Seeing Maimonides place it in a section of the Code
that codifies the laws of lending and borrowing generally reminds us that economic
activity sits just a little ways down the continuum from outright charitable giving. Gifts
to the poor are clearly charity; lending money to a poor person is a form of charity that is
also an ordinary economic activity; and, finally, buying and selling goods is mostly an
ordinary economic activity, but at the same time supports the seller (and any of his or her
employees), keeping them away from poverty. While the two areas seem sharply
distinct, these mitsvot show us that people help each other economically all the time, just
209
Laws of Gifts to the Poor, 10; 7.
210
As does Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 97.
It also suggests that the Torah spoke of moneylending primarily as a way of helping
211
those in need, not in terms of business, which provides some support for Jews’ having
found ways around the laws of interest over the years, at least for business loans.
142
Jewish law’s discussion of whether to give charity to non-Jews yet again expands
our understanding of halakhah’s vision of charity. The Talmud rules that Jews should
support poor non-Jews along with Jews mipnei darkei shalom, because of the ways of
peace.212 R. Moses Isserles, in his glosses to Shulhan Arukh limits that obligation to cases
where there are Jewish poor present; he assumes that the Talmud’s reference to
supporting non-Jews with Jews is an absolute necessity for the obligation.213 The
Shulhan Arukh itself, however, allows supporting non-Jewish poor generally, since that,
idol worshipping non-Jews. The Talmud envisioned another type of non-Jew as well,
one who publicly accepted the obligation to keep the seven Noahide commandments—
the laws that the Talmud believed God had ordained for non-Jews-- out of recognition of
Such non-Jews, in the time of the Sanhedrin, gained the status of gerei toshav,
fellow-travelers of the Jewish people.215 The Torah obligates Jews to support such people
equally with ordinary Jews.216 Were there a Temple and Sanhedrin today, in other words,
212
bGittin 61a.
213
Yoreh Deah 251; 1.
214
151;13.
The question of who is an idol worshipper is too complicated for the present context.
215
Moslems are generally not considered idol-worshippers; the status of Christians is more
complicated, depending on their understanding of the Trinity, and, probably, on their
bowing before religious icons. Interested readers can read David Berger’s article in the
forthcoming volume of the Orthodox Forum discussing Jewish attitudes to non-Jews.
216
Leviticus 25;35.
143
Jews would have to support Arab poor (assuming they were willing to publicly declare
their understanding that the Jewish God is the real one and to accept upon themselves the
seven Noahide commandments; neither of those declarations contradicts Islam) just the
Maimonides thought that the status of ger toshav could not be created without a
Sanhedrin, so that the obligations of charity to non-Jews remain in the “ways of peace”
realm.217 At the ideological level, however, the Torah seems to be saying that charity,
another form of economic endeavor, is the right of all people who recognize God’s
existence and are working to fulfill their own obligations and desiderata vis a vis that
God. The bond of one Jew for the other may be stronger than his or her bond with the
rest of humanity on some issues, but in the question of providing financial support, the
laws of charity seek to insure that all humans who worship their Creator appropriately for
These mitsvot complement the previous two, since they offer a particularistic
message to counter the universalistic one we discovered in the obligation to give charity.
Since these are the positive counterparts to prohibitions against mistreating either of these
kinds of people, they seem to see this love as promoting a positive value, not just
217
Rabad, Laws of Idol Worship, 10:6, disagrees with Maimonides on this issue; at least
on the question of allowing non-Jews to live in the Land of Israel (assuming there was
Jewish control over the Land), he claimed that it was possible to create the status of ger
toshav even without Sanhedrin or Temple.
144
To take the first one first, the mitsvah to love one’s fellow Jew, encapsulated by
the Torah’s command, ve-ahavta le-re`akha kamokha, you shall love your fellow as
seeks to remind Jews that they bear a responsibility to cultivate the types of emotions for
fellow-Jews that they instinctively have for family members and close friends.
Love, the Torah is saying, should not only depend on an actual relationship
between people; for the nation that serves God and attempts to be the beacon of His rule
in the world, membership in the nation should be enough to inspire feelings of love for
Maimonides points out that many of the obligations to acting kindly towards others are
thought of as being of rabbinic origin; visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved,
celebrating with a bride and groom and helping those who cannot afford to get married
all technically qualify “only” as rabbinic commandments. Yet, as he points out, these
acts fulfill the mitsvah of ve-ahavta le-re`akha.219 The mitsvah thus implies a whole code
of conduct in which care for others’ property, honor, and feelings, is a religious
lulav.
practical one makes the underlying goal of the mitsvah unclear. Some authorities, such as
218
Leviticus 19;18.
Laws of Mourning 14;1. This might be another example of the Rabbis codifying,
219
defining specifi practical examples of a mitsvah in the Torah, an idea we have already
seen before, such as in the definition of Hol haMoed or of the innuyim of Yom Kippur.
145
the Sefer haHinukh, focused on the external, classifying this as a political mitsvah,
insuring that Jewish society functioned smoothly and justly.220 In that version, the
commandment does not focus on the individual Jew’s development, just the society such
emotional bonding will create. Similarly, in mitsvah 431, the Hinukh sees part of the
value of loving converts in the impression that will create among non-Jews, which (if that
were the whole picture) would again externalize the value of the mitsvah.
Others see these mitsvot in terms of how they shape the person who adopts them.
Solomon ibn Gabirol’s 11th century Sefer Tikkun Middot haNefesh incorporates the
mitsvah in his discussion of rahamim, the trait of compassion for others. The late 15th
century Orhot Tsadikim includes this mitsvah in the discussions of love, of compassion,
of hatred, and of joy, seeing Jews’ love of others as contributing to the proper
Maimonides includes the obligation to love one’s fellow Jew in his Hilkhot Deot,
Laws of Character Traits.221 So, too, the Hinukh adds (to his statement that non-Jews will
recognize that Jews are a Godly nation by how they treat converts) that in developing the
character that will love converts, Jews will merit Divine love and presence as well, which
obviously focuses on the character issue. A significant group of Jewish thinkers thus saw
the mitsvah as more than just practical, as the Torah telling Jews the type of character
someone else, notes that the Torah did not require Jews to feel the same love for a
220
Mitsvah 243.
221
6;3.
146
purposeful sinner. In a mitsvah that did not make Maimonides’ list of sixty,222 the Torah
requires Jews to point out to their fellow Jews sins that they are committing. In
explaining how to offer those critiques, Maimonides urges first doing so gently and
privately.223
If, in an issue that has to do with one’s service of God, the sinner simply ignores
or rejects the advice, Maimonides allows and perhaps expects Jews to publicly rebuke the
person, as did the prophets of old.224 That whole issue is extremely complicated and
deserves treatment of its own, but Minhat Hinukh understands that the responsibility to
publicly upbraid the person suspends at least some elements of the requirement of love, at
least for the particular sin being committed, at least until the sinner repents.
Should those willful sins be of a broad nature, that dislike might need to be
generalized as well. There, too, technical issues cloud the discussion, but it does seem
worthwhile to stress that the obligation of love was based upon a shared dedication to
rejected the commandments cut themselves off from the love the Torah ordained for all
On the other hand, even serious sin, once repented or atoned, was not a barrier to
that love. The Talmud assumes a requirement to incorporate love within the capital
punishment given to certain kinds of criminals. The phrase beror lo mita yafa,225 find
Mitsvah 205. Maimonides’ list only encompasses those that a Jew necessarily
222
encounter s in life; a Jew who was never hurt by anyone else and never saw them
transgress Jewish law would never have to rebuke them.
223
Laws of Character Traits 6;7.
224
Ibid. 6;8.
225
See, for example, bPesahim 75a.
147
him (a Jew convicted of a capital crime) a good death is seen as an extension of the
obligation of ve-ahavta le-re`akha kamokha. Even with a sinner, a bedrock love remains,
although thick layers of hatred for that person’s actions might force that love deep
underground.
The mitsvah of loving converts mostly emphasizes the same lessons as that of
loving any Jew, just that it is harder to fulfill with converts, since they do not naturally
“belong” in the same way as other Jews. The lesson of learning to love people simply
because of a shared dedication to the service of God as Jews—without any shared history
or blood-- is that much harder, but that much more important, to learn. In addition, the
Sefer haHinukh suggests expanding the lesson of this mitsvah to increasing one’s
compassion for anyone who is weak and defenseless, or who does not feel fully part of
the group. From his perspective, love of converts should serve as a paradigm for
We might add that the reason the Torah gives for the mitsvah, ki gerim heyitem
be-erets mitsrayim, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt, suggests another
character element of a Jew’s life. Human beings naturally want to be “in,” to be part of
the accepted and popular crowd, and will sometimes twist themselves in horrifying
The Jew’s obligation to love the stranger, and to do so by remembering that he,
too, was once in that position, suggests that the Torah was interested in retaining that
Rather, any time that another person is bearing that discomfort, the Jew is expected to
148
empathize, since he, too, underwent the exact same feeling of loneliness, of not
belonging, of lacking a welcoming society around him. In remembering, the Jew will
then ease the discomfort of the stranger, or whoever else feels the isolation the Torah
At first glance, this mitsvah seems simple, both in its rules and its place in the
halakhic system. The basic commandment, which the Torah states both positively and
negatively,226 is to own only accurate measuring tools, whether for dry or liquid measure,
and not to cheat anyone by using false measurements. The rule applies only to
bathroom scale in one’s home, for example, would not run afoul of this issue.227
Even within a business context, Maimonides allows using a measure that is off by
less than a sixth, since halakhah assumes in several places that Jews implicitly forgive
errors of up to one sixth.228 Rabad adds, however, that that is only if the seller did not
misleadingly imply or claim that the measure was fully accurate. The mitsvah thus seems
to address the need for accurate measurements in a business context, and only as long as
226
Leviticus 19;36 and Deuteronomy 25; 13-15.
227
Another example is when the government places a seal on measuring tools that have
been inspected; since one’s home measure do not bear the government seal, it would be
permitted to own them without violating the Torah’s prohibition. Minhat Yitshak,
10;149, was asked about a charity that lent various medical equipment, including scales
for infants and tape-measures, that were no longer accurate. He preferred that a note be
affixed to such items to announce that they are not considered accurate, but he basically
permitted owning and lending them as long as they were not being used in a business
context.
228
Laws of Theft 7:5.
149
there is a victim; if the other person realizes the measurements are reasonably inaccurate,
Realizing that the mitsvah codifies a different form of theft,229 does not explain the
level of seriousness both the Bible and the Rabbis attach to this mitsvah.230 First, the
Torah does not lightly provide both a prohibition and a commandment to an issue unless
it sees some value in the positive commandment. Second, the Talmud points out that the
Torah here warns against using false measures even in a mesurah, a very small measure.
The Torah objects to willful mismeasuring of even tiny amounts, a concern with detail
Beyond the Torah’s concern for accuracy, the Sifra makes two points about this
mitsvah that heighten its seriousness. First, the verse warns against committing avel ba-
mishpat ba-midah etc., which loosely means not to do wrong in weights. Literally,
however, the words mean not to pervert justice with weights, from which the Sifra infers
a parallel between the act of weighing and measuring and the act of judging. Just like
perverted justice is seen as hurting Jewish society at large, so, too, the Sifra views
Second, in a comment Maimonides quotes in the Sefer haMitsvot, the Sifra notes
that the Torah connects this commandment to the Exodus from Egypt. The Sifra
therefore comments that one who accepts this mitsvah demonstrates his belief in the
Exodus, and one who denies this mitsvah inherently denies the Exodus.
As is suggested by the context in which the Bible places it, in Leviticus 19, by
229
Maimonides’s placing it in Laws of Theft, and by Sefer haHinukh’s claim that this
mitsvah is obvious to any person of intellect in that it teaches honesty and distancing
oneself from theft.
230
Sifra Kedoshim 3:8.
150
Comparing this form of theft to the ordinary variety, where a thief simply sneaks
into a house and takes items that do not belong to him, explains why tradition was so
much more strongly negative about this kind of theft. Everyone recognizes the wrong in
the thief’s act, whereas the person who falsifies measurements seems to be an upstanding
citizen. In hiding the act of theft from its victim, the mismeasurer weakens people’s
ability to trust everyday social and commercial acts, meaning that he damages the fabric
of society more seriously than a regular thief. That is not because of the amounts of
money involved (although that can be a problem as well), but because people’s trust in
Seeing the falsifier of weights and measures as one who undermines the workings
of society as a whole explains the comparisons in the Sifrei. Like here, the loss to society
when a judge perverts a financial case is greater than the cost of the actual money
misappropriated. The loss stems from the loss of public confidence in the judicial
system, lessening that society’s ability of to rescue those who have been cheated.
The application to the Exodus seems clear as well. Jews are not supposed to view
mitsvot as a set of really smart laws promulgated by a really smart man, but as divine
rules with roots in the Exodus. A person who secretly tries to cheat the system, as if it
were a human one, inherently denies the foundations of Jewish society. Perhaps for that
reason as well, the Talmud specifically requires beit din, the representatives of society, to
In the previous discussion, we saw Sefer haHinukh suggest that the lessons being
taught by the mitsvah of loving converts should lead people to have compassion on all
231
bBaba Metsia 89a.
151
those who are not protected by society as a whole. So, too, here, we would suggest that
the ramifications of the mitsvah of proper weights and measures extend to include all
unseen acts that reduce people’s trust in others and in the system.
While nowadays weights are less significant for many businesses, accounting
practices, for example, are much more important. The Torah elsewhere prohibits adding
to its laws, but on an ideological level, we can reasonably say that fiddling with
accounting practices parallels what concerned the Torah about false weights and
measures (as does point shaving at sporting events, for another example).
Once again, a mitsvah fairly narrow in its original presentation ends up making
broad ethical and religious statements that the Jew must keep in mind throughout his or
her business life. As we find the ramifications of each of these mitsvot, we hopefully also
continue to confirm for ourselves that Maimonides’ list of sixty indeed captures essential
Leviticus 19:32 reads “Mipnei sevah takum, vehadarta penei zaken, In the
presence of an old person you should rise and you should honor the presence of a sage.”
The basic obligation, to stand up before a hakham, a wise person, applies even to wise
people who are not one’s own teacher. Jews must stand when such people enter their
personal space, known as their daled amot, about six feet. Once they pass, the obligation
The obligation extends to wise people and to those who are notably elderly, as
long as the latter are not evildoers. The Talmud even entertains an opinion that
152
Maimonides seems to accept as a matter of practice, that Jews should verbally honor
elderly non-Jews (meaning that there is no need to rise, but one should say something that
shows respect) and offer them a helping hand.232 Wisdom or age earns the right to honor.
The standards of required respect rise even higher when it comes to one’s own
main teacher, the person who rov hokhmato mimenu, from whom most of one’s
knowledge is derived.233 One who has such a rebbe owes him respect and fear
approaching that of God, and outweighing even that of a parent. Such students must rise
from the time they see their teacher and remain standing until he either disappears from
view or reaches his place and sits down. Other types of honor include the rule that the
student must secure the teacher’s permission before becoming a rabbi on one’s own, one
of the sources of modern ordination, and also the rule that the student may not offer a
For the many who do not have a teacher like that, the obligation remains only to
rise for all scholars. This might seem insignificant, except that halakhah gave Sages the
power of nidui, meaning any individual Torah scholar of sufficient stature had the right to
excommunicate those people he felt had mistreated him. While Maimonides discourages
using that power in response to personal insults, the granting of the power itself shows
that the Rabbis of the Talmud placed remarkable value on respect for scholars.234
232
bKiddushin 33a, Laws of Torah Study, 6:9.
233
The figure of the rebbe muvhak, the main teacher, is less common today when people
tend to attend many institutions of study, learning from various teachers. In the Talmud’s
time, students entered the school of a particular rabbi when young and did not leave until
the bulk of their education had been completed.
Laws of Talmud Torah 7;13. Chapters 6 and 7 collate various statements about the
234
Perhaps focusing on the reasons offered for the mitsvah will help us understand its
importance. Maimonides offers two reasons for honoring Sages. First, he says that
standing for Torah scholars teaches busha ve-anavah, embarrassment and humility.235
Bushah here does not have the negative connotations it does in English, but refers to an
appropriate and laudable shyness and hesitation before acting for fear of doing wrong.
For that explanation of the mitsvah, however, it is almost irrelevant before whom Jews
rise, since the value is only in their having to demonstrate respect for some class of
people. Had God wanted to order Jews to rise for another segment of society, it would
nonetheless have served their personal development, since that, too, would have reduced
explicit statement in the Guide suggest another reason as well. 236 While he re-records the
comment about busha ve-anavah, he also says that unless people already respect Torah
scholars, they will not listen to them when it comes to matters of character or action,
which he assumes is a central function of the Torah scholar. The mitsvah of honoring
such people, then, was as a way to make sure that Jews respected their opinion in matters
of Torah and halakhah. Without that respect, people will not follow (or solicit) much-
needed advice about how the Torah and God want them to live their lives.237
In the fourth chapter of Shemonah Perakim, his introductory essay to the commentary
235
on Avot.
236
Guide III;36.
237
A story on this very issue. A doctor was once set upon by robbers, who were about to
steal his medical bag for the drugs and money they knew were inside. He begged them to
leave him the rest of the bag, explaining that he needed his medications to heal sick
people. Nonetheless the robbers took the bag, took the drugs they could use, and threw
the rest of it in the river. Soon after, one of the robbers became ill. Somewhat
embarrassed, he went to the doctor to beg his forgiveness and ask for his help. The
154
All of these reasons, however, do not fully explain why the elderly are part of the
mitsvah. Were the commandment only to honor Sages, each of these suggestions fits
well; however, the Torah speaks of honoring the elderly, which tradition saw as including
even those who were young but had attained stature in their knowledge of Torah; the
implication of the Biblical phrasing stresses the age factor, not the Torah knowledge
factor.
Thinking about elderly non-Jews perhaps will clarify the issue. When the Talmud
reports that R. Yohanan stood for elderly non-Jews, it quotes him as noting how many
adventures and experiences had happened to such people.238 He assumes that his
comment sufficiently explains his standing, meaning that the need to stand relates to the
life experience of the person for whom one is standing. Torah scholars may more quickly
assemble enough such experience to deserve honor, but most elderly people do so as
well.
Sefer haHinukh’s reasoning is close to that, since he says that the mitzvah reminds
Jews to demonstrate respect for those who have succeeded at using their wisdom to find
God, the reason people were created.239 Standing for Torah sages, in this view, reminds
the ordinary people that such scholars have come closer to the ultimate goal of existence
doctor readily forgave him, but told him that the medication he needed to give him was in
the bag that the robber had stolen from him.
So, too, the remedy to some spiritual ills (or, the key to finding the next positive
avenue for spiritual growth) often lies in finding proper advice from those who have
spent the time and effort to gain the relevant insight. The mitsvah of standing before
Sages tries to insure that when such situations arise, Jews are ready to listen to those who
will have the answer to the question at hand.
238
bKiddushin 33a.
239
Mitsvah 257.
155
than those who have not consistently applied their intellects to the search for God.
Applying that to the elderly might mean that the Torah assumed that their years on earth
have presumably given them enough greater understanding of God to deserve the honor
If so, we would suggest that the Torah’s call for standing is a call to recognize
that life teaches lessons on how to live it; it behooves the young to respect their elders for
the lessons they can teach. Rather than being about respect for its own sake, the mitsvah
is about training oneself to be ready to learn from those who have valuable advice to
share. They might not seem to be fountains of useful knowledge, but the Torah is
requiring Jews to look to them as such, to at least have the wisdom of old age in the mix
logical to pair them, as indeed do the Sefer haMitsvot and the Shulhan Arukh.240
However, the Bible separates them, with kavod, honor, being included in the Ten
Commandments, and yir`ah, fear, being mentioned in the beginning of Leviticus 18. The
Bible’s placement of the two cautions us to look at each separately, after which we will
hopefully be able to show how they combine to produce one meaningful whole.
ma`akhil u-mashkeh, malbish, u-mekhaseh, makhnis, umotsi, giving food and drink,
covering and clothing, taking in and out. Extrapolating from that list, kibbud appears to
240
Yoreh Deah 240.
156
mean taking care of a parent's needs, not any particular honor that one bestows upon the
parent.241 A child honors the parent by making sure that the parent is cared for, by
fending for the parent when he or she cannot so fend for themselves.
Honor as an issue of care might sound like a quid pro quo-- parents cared for the
child when young, so the child has to return the favor, but several halakhot show that that
is not true. First, by pure halakhic standards, the obligation is only to provide services
from the parent's funds, whereas the parents also used their funds for the child. While the
Rabbis insisted that children who were financially able had to help a parent who did not
have money, the Torah did not require it.242 In addition, halakhah never discusses
whether this parent had actually provided for the child financially or otherwise, ignoring
union who is forever excluded from marrying ordinary Jews because of his or her
parents’ wrongful union, must nonetheless demonstrate kavod, despite their consigning
Turning to the obligation of yir’ah for a moment will help us understand both
obligations further. Yirah is defined as not sitting or standing in the parent's place, not
speaking before the parent, not contradicting the parent, not calling a parent by his/her
first name (or even, if it is an unusual name, calling someone else by that name), and not
entering into a discussion in which a parent is partaking, even to support the parent's
point of view. All of these suggest that a child is supposed to view the parent with a
certain amount of fear; indeed, Maimonides says that the mitsvah is to act towards the
241
Some of the defined aspects of mora, fear or awe, will in fact seem more like what we
might have assumed for kibbud.
242
That leaves open, for example, the possibility of using charity funds to support a
parent, although the Rabbis frowned on that solution.
157
parent as one would towards someone who could punish them for mistreating them. It
should be obvious that the fear in and of itself is not the Torah's goal, so that here, too,
A couple of Rabbinic statements will clarify how the Rabbis understood the
Torah's goals. the Rabbis point out that Scripture uses the same terms for these mitsvot as
they do for parallel attitudes towards God.243 Thus, the verse warns kabed parents, and
elsewhere says kabed God; so, too, it warns ish imo ve-aviv tira’u, every one of you must
fear his mother and father, and et Hashem Elokekha tira, fear the Lord your God. By
connecting the two to each other, the Rabbis imply that the relationship to parents should
person’s creation, parents have a right to treatment akin to that given to the third partner
in the Creation.244
Recognizing that the commandment of fear stems from parents’ having created a
person also fits with the Sefer haHinukh’s assertion that this mitsvah inculcates gratitude,
a gratitude he explicitly assumes will lead to greater gratitude to God for His continuing
kindnesses. The honoring of parents thus only partially focuses on the parents; aside
from their own rights to honor, they serve as a convenient vehicle to teach a better
Maimonides's phrasing of two more laws supports this idea. Halakhah prohibits
interfering with a parent, even if the parent’s ill-advised actions will cost the child
money. In the extreme example, Maimonides prohibits a child from interfering with a
243
bKiddushin 30b.
244
The image appears in the Talmud, ibid.
158
parent who was about to throwing a bag full of the child's money into the ocean.245 He
phrases that by saying that the child must sit silently and accept the gezerat hakatuv, the
decree of Scripture. Similarly, Maimonides writes that if the parent embarrasses the child
publicly, the child may not reply, but must maintain his fear of the King of Kings.
Note that Maimonides’ justification in both cases relies on the child’s obligations
towards God, not towards the parent. In both situations, then, the goal is to see this
Some of the mitsvot just reviewed would arise in any discussion of building a just
society, Jewish or not, and some teach non-obvious lessons about Jewish society.
Decision procedures such as majority rules, insuring the honesty of businesses,246 setting
up a financial safety net for those who fall on hard times, and removing dangers from
places where people might get hurt are necessary parts of any society; the interest of the
Jewish version lies in the choices it makes in how to express those well-recognized
values.
While all societies want to promote good feelings among their members, for
example, the bond that Jewish society demands goes beyond the ordinary human
appreciation for those who share one’s physical and social space. Because of their shared
commitments, even Jews who do not know each other are meant to bear a greater love for
Laws of Rebellious Ones, 6:7. Others, noting that the obligation of honor does not
245
Although there, we noted that the Torah thinks of it as an exercise in justice, not only
246
honesty.
159
The contrast stems from the different roles that ordinary neighbors and Jews play
in others’ lives. Neighbors provide social, physical, and economic comfort to each other
in numerous ways, creating a debt of gratitude and an obligation of the good feelings that
extend from that gratitude. Jews, however, aid each other in hastening the advent of
tikkun olam be-malkhut shakkai, of establishing God’s rule in the world; that should, as
Recognizing why Jews are supposed to love each other fortifies the understanding
of the separate mitsvah to love a convert. A convert has decided to not only strive for
closeness with God but to join the people whose mission is to bring that awareness of
God to the world as a whole. The love being discussed, in both cases, is the love of those
furthering the recognition of God’s rule in the world explains the ordinary mitsvot and
their special characteristics. Other mitsvot in the list do not, however, obviously
contribute to building such a society. It is not clear, for the central example, how
developing a proper attitude towards rabbinic authorities and parents foster a better
society as a whole.
The obligation to respect Torah scholars in particular seems more related to the
required respect for Torah in general than to building a well-functioning Torah society.
By placing the mitsvah of respect for Sages so late in the list-- the obligations to develop
247
This does not mean that it is better for a non-Jew to convert than to remain non-Jewish
and observe the Noahide laws; it just means that Jews feel more familial to those who
join their own particular niche in God’s world. Those familial feelings, and the need to
insure that the non-Jew recognizes that he has been accepted into the family, are what
drive the mitsvah to love a convert.
160
a lasting relationship with Torah sages and to study Torah were earlier in the list,
Torah characterizes Jewish society in all times and places. As a personal need, it would
teach each Jew to respect Torah and those who understand it best.
As a social issue, respecting Torah Sages reminds each citizen of the centrality of
Torah and its messages to the society’s goals. So, too, respecting one’s parents as
physical representations of God places the issue of God and His awareness firmly in the
In brief summary, then, the rules of Jewish society add a central principle to
ordinary human society, the recognition of God and of the Jews’ mission to further the
BUILDING A FAMILY
Four of the five mitsvot left in Maimonides’ list of sixty essential positive
commandments focus on creating the nuclear family, mitsvot that Maimonides lists in an
odd order. He first records the obligation, upon the man, to bear children. Second, he
notes that the Torah requires kiddushin, a formal act of betrothal, before marriage.248
Third, he records the Torah’s insistence that the man spend the first year of marriage with
his wife, making her happy. Finally, he mentions the father’s obligation to circumcise his
The more obvious order would have been to list these commandments as they
generally occur chronologically—kiddushin, the first year, procreation, and then milah,
exactly the order, in fact, that Maimonides adopted in the Mishneh Torah’s discussion of
was not only a way to avoid promiscuity or to build a loving relationship with another
person,249 it was also the proper context within which to fulfill the obligation of having
children. Celibacy, we find out at this point in the work, was not a reasonable option for
248
Maimonides actually rules that all extramarital relations violate a prohibition in the
Torah, see Laws of Marriage 1;4, so that kiddushin actually must precede any sexual
relations.
It may have been both of those as well; Maimonides’ placement simply alerts us to the
249
In that view of marriage, we might even claim that the obligation to spend a year with
250
one’s wife—most obviously a way of fostering good relations between the couple-- was
focused not only on marriage, but also on preparing the couple for harmonious
childbearing and rearing.
162
Until this point in our discussions, we have distinguished men from women only
by the level of rigidity the Bible adopted in defining their separate approaches to God.
Here, however, the Bible’s directing three of these five mitsvot251 at men only seems
The Talmud252 assumes that the Torah only required men to bear children, which
is particularly striking given that the man clearly needs a female partner to fulfill the
mitsvah. This is the only case we know of where the Torah commands an act that women
must necessarily join in, and yet only obligates men to do so. To explain the distinction,
the Talmud only mentions its reading of the verse; since the Bible refers to procreation as
conquering (an activity assumed to be foreign to women),253 women were exempt. Any
commandments that apply everywhere at all times has shown that the Torah only
commands acts that people would not have known were necessary on their own, either
the act in general or details of that act that shape the meaning of the observance in the
The Torah does not order Jews to breathe, to eat to keep themselves alive, to have
251
The obligation to bear children, to entertain one’s wife for the first year of marriage,
and to circumcises a son. The obligation liv`ol be-kiddushin, to enter into a relationship
with kiddushin before having sexual relations, presumably relates to Maimonides’
assumption that the prohibition of lo tihyeh qedeshah bi-vnot yisrael, there shall not be a
harlot among the Jewish people, applies to any extramarital sexual relations, see his list
of prohibitions, no. 355, and Laws of Marriage 1;4.
252
bYebamot 65b.
253
Genesis 1;28, “be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and conquer it.”
163
sexual relations in general, and so on. The Torah does not, however, command that
which a person would have done without any prompting exactly as the Torah wanted.
When the Torah commands what seem to be familiar acts, it is trying to shape or channel
The different instincts of men and women can then reasonably explain the Torah’s
participation. Women tend254 to focus on childbearing more than men, and-- at least until
recently-- assumed that childbearing and rearing was best performed within a family, so
that the Torah saw no need to obligate them in a mitsvah that wanted to produce that
reality. Men have always been, and continue to be, more likely to simply ignore or
wrongly delay this fundamental responsibility, so the Torah insures that a pious Jew
cannot.255
That idea also explains why the covenant of milah, circumcision, is so male-
oriented, applying to a body part that is exclusively male, and is only obligatory upon a
father. After all, God could have chosen an area of the body that existed in both men and
women, or at the very least, made mothers equally in charge of insuring that their male
offspring were circumcised. If we instead see this mitsvah as part of a series oriented
254
The word tend means only that a large enough majority of women do so that the Torah
would not feel the need to legislate for the minority. We make no claim that all women
are interested in childbearing, just that, taking human history since the time of the Torah
as a whole, enough women were so interested that there was no need to obligate them in
this element of human activity.
255
In that reading, we also better understand the Biblical phrasing of “fill the world and
conquering it”; for men, having children might seem like a personal issue of leaving a
legacy for the world. Those unmoved by that question, though, might legitimately
choose to focus on themselves than on a baby. The Torah’s phrase tells men that bearing
children is as much a part of what God wanted from people in creating them as any of
their other ways of conquering the world.
164
towards insuring that men also take part in building healthy marriages and having
restrict his sexuality to the family unit, and his intent to continue to listen to God’s
command in the raising of this child. As the child is born, the father makes a permanent
mark on the organ that will allow that child to fulfill these responsibilities somewhere in
his future. The father says, physically and verbally, that he has reined in his ordinary
male impulse to use that organ promiscuously, and accepted God’s view of how to use it
—marriage, children, and teaching those children that they, too, must be servants of God
in all ways.256
The Torah only explicitly enunciates the last mitsvah on the list, the obligation to
bury, for those who had been killed for capital crimes, which might have indicated that it
was a mitsvah that related to building a society; we have included it here because
numerous halakhot show that the family bore the primary responsibility for insuring
proper burial of relatives. After reviewing more details of each of these mitsvot, we will
be better able to summarize what the Torah wanted, at least as a bare minimum, out of
38)212—Procreation
Synopsis: The obligation on Jewish men to work to leave behind, at the moment of their
death, at least one male and one female offspring, descended through one male and one
female line of his own offspring.
When the Torah only obligates Jewish men to procreate, it leaves out two other
possible candidates, non-Jews and women. For the first, the mitsvah offers an interesting
Of course, the father has the same intentions when his daughters are born, but
256
inducting daughters into the familial aspect of Judaism is, again, less of a challenge, since
daughters, like adult women, tend to gravitate towards that version of life in any case.
165
example of the Talmud’s general assumption257 that any mitsvah ordained for non-Jews
but not specifically repeated at Sinai applies only to Jews and not to non-Jews. Even
though God originally ordered all people to procreate, in other words, the Giving of the
Law at Sinai meant that non-Jews were no longer required to involve themselves with
having children. As we mentioned before, the Talmud derives the distinction between
men and women from the Torah’s reference to childbearing as a way of conquering the
earth.
To place those two exemptions in their full context, we need a bit more
information about the mitsvah. Although a matter of debate between Beit Shammai and
Beit Hillel in the time of the Mishnah,258 the accepted ruling is that a man has not fulfilled
the obligation until he has fathered a boy and a girl. More interesting, perhaps, is that
Beit Hillel view the mitsvah as similar to God’s original creation; since He started with a
man and a woman, Jews should, too. To some extent, then, Beit Hillel see each Jewish
man as obligated to leave behind descendants who could, theoretically, serve as the start
The focus on insuring that the world will continue after one has passed away
explains why two other cases, in neither of which did the father leave behind a male and a
female child, nonetheless qualify as fulfillment of the mitsvah. First, a man whose
children predecease him has not fulfilled the mitsvah. That alone shows that the issue is
not the man’s life and how he lived it, but what he leaves for the world that will exist
after he has passed away. Beyond that, if he has grandchildren, one male and one female,
257
bSanhedrin 59a.
258
bYevamot 61b.
166
descended from different children of his, again one male and one female, he has fulfilled
his obligation.259 Clearly, then, the concern of the mitsvah is for the man to leave behind
at the time of his death two separate lines of offspring, one male and one female.260
Yohanan rules that a convert whose children converted with him—in other contexts
treated by halakhah as complete strangers, since a convert is seen as born anew-- can
nonetheless see them as his fulfillment of the mitsvah.261 As long as the father left behind
Jewish children born of his physical line, R. Yohanan sees them as the father’s legacy to
the world.
Phrased this way, we realize the extent to which this is a mitsvah a Jew can only
work toward fulfilling, not insure success.262 Not only is fertility impossible to take for
granted, but that all of one’s children will outlive a person is also not necessarily so.263
bYevamot 61b-62a. There are other, rejected, opinions that also offer interesting
259
conceptualizations of the obligation, but we are concerned with the accepted version of
the requirement.
The requirement that the grandchildren come from different children points towards a
260
genetic component, that the Torah cared that the two lines of offspring have differing
genetic pools.
261
bYevamot 62a.
262
Maimonides's absolving a bridegroom of the responsibility to say Shema on the night
of his wedding because he is involved with the mitsvah of childbearing, Laws of Shema
4;1, makes the same point, that it is the act of marital relations that constitutes
performance of the mitsvah since it is through that act that the fulfillment might, and
hopefully will, come. The actual children are just the standard of when one can feel that
he does not have to direct his efforts further in this particular direction.
Consider the case of a man who gave birth to seven children, none of whom had
263
children of their own (a factor the father certainly does not directly control). If this father
outlives all those children—by living to be a hundred and twenty, for example, he will
die with the mitsvah unfulfilled. Perhaps, of course, it was his responsibility to ingrain in
his children the importance of childbearing, but the contrast with our intuition still stands.
167
The mitsvah’s focus on effort rather than achievement explains why the only
halakhic ramification of having fulfilled the mitsvah is whether the person must continue
trying to have more children or can, for example, choose to preclude further childbearing,
The need for help in fulfilling this mitsvah seems to signal Jews that they cannot
alone maintain the future of humanity or insure their success at a basic human function;
inherently, they need God to guide the production of offspring to allow for population
Sefer haHinukh speaks instead of responsibility to settle the world, a specific example of
the general human obligation to care for God's world. Several of the sources already
mentioned seem to support Sefer haHinukh’s view, focusing on the world as a whole
rather than humanity in particular. Beit Hillel, for example, do not refer to a male and
female descendant as imitating Adam and Eve, but as imitating the Creation. Second, the
exemption of women stems from their not being included in the requirement to conquer
the world; preservation of the species, in contrast, seems no more characteristic of one
gender than the other. Indeed, Maimonides does not cite the references to conquering, as
Bah (R. Joel Sirkes, d. 1640) questions why the Tur, usually a technical legal
work, opens his discussion by quoting sources that emphasize the importance of the
mitsvah. He suggests that the Tur wished to emphasize that people cannot think of
childbearing as a matter of choice. Jewish men do not have children only because it is
childbearing teaches a few lessons essential to the Jewish experience of family. It shows
that male Jews bear a responsibility to concern themselves with the world’s continuity
beyond their own lives. That involvement, as far as the verse expresses it, is as much a
part of their inhabiting and conquering God’s world as their usual activities in that
direction. In addition, they must know that they cannot alone insure that continuity;
insuring that they father a living male and female descendant at the time of their death
depends also on the Will of a power beyond their control. Finally, as the next mitsvot
will show, the mitsvah teaches male Jews that such production must occur within the
context of a family.
39) 213 & 214—The Obligations to Marry with Kiddushin and to Spend the First
Year Celebrating with One’s Wife
Synopsis: These two mitsvot teach men that they must formalize their marriages
before entering into them, and then take care to develop a relationship with their wives
that will insure the good health of that marriage.
can be viewed as conditional or absolute. Viewed conditionally, the Torah was saying
only that those who choose to marry must do so with kiddushin, but was not requiring
Maimonides believes that the Torah prohibits any extramarital sexual relations; if so, the
We might assume that the kiddushin step was simply an assumed part of marriage
as the Torah envisioned it, but for the fact that Jewish law defines marriage for non-Jews
by consensually cohabiting, and the relationship ends when either party decides to
leave.264 While noting the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish marriage,
Maimonides does not offer any explanation of the Torah’s interest in an extra marital step
for Jews.
The Jewish way of ending marriage points to the answer. While non-Jews end a
marriage by walking out, Jews must have a get, a bill of divorce. A get becomes
necessary once kiddushin has occurred, even if the marriage is never completed or
consummated.
Requiring that Jewish marriages begin and end with a formal ceremony reveals an
interest, as yet unexplained, in strengthening the bonds between husband and wife,
making them aware of the seriousness of what they are either entering into or ending.
The Torah’s assumption elsewhere that Jews marry for the rest of their natural lives
In the context of divorce, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai agree that, at least for a
saw as beginning with simple bilateral consent and ending with unilateral exiting, the
bonds of a Jewish marriage were strengthened to insure that the parties would enter into it
seriously and stay in a marriage until it became intolerable in certain objective ways.
Kiddushin, a formal act initiating this lifelong relationship, provided that strengthening.
See also Laws of Kings 9;8. Non-Jews need a definition of marriage so they can know
264
when the prohibition of adultery—as forbidden for them as for Jews—is in effect.
265
bGittin 90a-b. Of course, on either side, mental or physical cruelty would be grounds
for divorce, but those are actions outside the proper bounds of interpersonal behavior
generally, not just in the context of marriage. The central point, though, is that just lack
of satisfaction was not seen as a proper reason to leave a marriage, for either party.
170
Seeing kiddushin as fortifying the seriousness of marriage segues nicely into the
next mitsvah, the obligation of the husband to stay with his wife during the first year of
community will not call a husband away from his wife during that first year for ordinary
Sefer haHinukh takes a different tack,267 describing the mitsvah as obligating the
husband to stay with his wife that whole first year, making it prohibited for him to leave
home for extended periods. That makes sense given his view that the mitsvah is there to
foster the development of a comfortable marital relationship between the two spouses,
something that takes time and presence. However, he does allow leaving home for a
Further, he reports a view that gives the woman the right of mehillah, foregoing,
to let him leave for an extended period. If she has control of this issue, it would seem
more accurate to say that the Torah obligated the husband to insure that he would pay
proper attention to his wife; Sefer Hinukh, however, does not say it that way.
Both views of the mitsvah might agree that it is about creating loving spousal
view allows for the possibility that the Torah left the decision as to what constitutes a
good marital relationship to the couple. As long as the community does not interfere
For wars of self-defense, or other wars obligated by the Torah, even a bride from her
266
with their right to spend that year together, what they actually do is no one else’s
business, allowing for variation among couples in how they develop marital happiness.
Sefer haHinukh might in contrast claim that the Torah is prescribing not only a
result, closeness, but also the method as to how to achieve that result, presence. That
would explain why any prolonged absence, even with the wife’s consent, could be
prohibited.
Those who allow a woman to forego the husband’s obligation either agree that the
mitsvah is geared towards marital happiness, or see it as protecting the woman herself. In
the first possibility, the Torah would seem to be saying that the wife has the ability to
judge which absences will prove detrimental to the health of their marriage. More likely,
though, these authorities saw the mitsvah focusing on the wife’s happiness, not the
couple’s. By insuring the husband’s presence at home, the Torah hopes the husband will
The possibility that the Torah trusts women’s view of relationships more than
men’s, which would explain her right to forego his presence, could also explain women’s
exemption from these mitsvot. If kiddushin formalizes marriage to ensure that it is taken
seriously, the Torah quite possibly did not see women as needing that reminder.268 For
men, prone to laxity in relationships and even to having children out of wedlock, a
mitsvah was necessary. So, too, if women are relationship-oriented by nature, the Torah
might have seen no reason to require them to spend a certain period of time with their
husband to cement that relationship. Men, on the other hand, might be more likely to
might have been exempted for the same reason as they are exempt from the mitsvah to
have children, as we discussed in the previous mitsvah.
172
These mitsvot, then, are exceptions to our ordinary search for reasons that the
Torah exempts women from certain obligations. Here we feel comfortable with an
answer we would not otherwise give, that the Torah saw women as more naturally
attuned to this area of life than men, obviating the value of commandments on that issue.
life is demonstrated by several sources. First, the Mishnah269 notes that the Torah uses
the word berit, covenant, thirteen times in recounting the story of God’s commanding
Abraham to circumcise himself and his family. Second, circumcision is one of only two
positive commandments which incur karet, excision, for those who deliberately and
willfully neglect to fulfill it. Third, timely circumcisions are performed on Shabbat,
when drawing blood is ordinarily prohibited. Fourth, the Talmud270 understands the
Torah to have obligated the father to circumcise his son, the community to circumcise
any boy whose father fails to fulfill his obligation, and for any uncircumcised male to see
to it that he becomes circumcised. Every Jew, for some reason, must do what he can to
Some technical characteristics of the mitzvah help explain its central religious
role. Circumcision, the cutting off of the foreskin and membrane at the tip of the penis, 271
269
bNedarim 31b.
270
bKiddushin 29a.
The obligation is to cut off the foreskin and membrane of the male organ, thus
271
revealing the tip or crown (the atarah). Historically, these were separate operations, with
173
may only be performed on or after the eighth day (including the day of birth and the day
of the milah) of the child’s life. Despite significant debate about the status of
circumcisions performed before the eighth day or at night, regnant halakhic practice is to
require a hatafat dam berit, a symbolic drawing of blood from the affected area, if the
Sameness of result, disqualification of the circumcision, does not mean that they
are for the same reason. The Talmud’s declaring that circumcision before the eighth day
was meaningless implied that the child himself was unfit for milah until eight days had
passed, as if the foreskin was not yet a candidate for removal. 273 Night circumcisions
must be disqualified for a different reason, since that same child could have been
circumcised during the day; in this case, we are forced to say that nighttime is
inappropriate for circumcision, for a reason not fully articulated in the Talmud.274
These technical rules support Sefer haHinukh’s contention that circumcision gives
males a constant physical reminder of the connection to God. Just as animals cannot be
used for sacrifice until the eighth day,275 the Torah may have generally thought that
the milah, the cutting off of the skin, leaving behind a membrane that required peri`ah,
breaking. Modern practice has the person performing the circumcision, the mohel,
separating the membrane from the organ before the cutting, so that the cut takes care of
both at once.
272
Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah, 262;1.
273
Arukh haShulkhan, Yoreh Deah 262 offers an interesting proof that the baby before the
eighth day does not yet register as uncircumcised. He cites a statement in the Jerusalem
Talmud that allows spreading oil of terumah on a child younger than eight days, where
normally an uncircumcised Jew—no matter what the reason for his lack of circumcision
—may not partake of terumah.
274
bYevamot 72b presents it as a debate about whether or not Leviticus 12;3 means to
limit circumcision to daytime.
275
Leviticus 22;27.
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newborns in the first week were not ready for any sort of relationship with God. The
exclusion of night points to milah as a public act of worship, as the Jew in full view
in one of the focal points of the human body, explains the stress on milah’s covenantal
status, on its neglect being punished by karet (which the Bible refers to as “cutting a
person off from the community”), allowing it on Shabbat (the inscribing of one sign, in
this case, being able to suspend the observance of another, different, sign), and making it
obligatory not only upon the father but the community at large. That reminder is,
apparently, not only intellectual, but was to be a part of the physical person.277
Recognizing that milah was a physical reminder of covenant makes the question
of women’s exemption both more acute and more understandable. More acute, because it
seems like God is excluding them from the kind of physical reminders that God gave to
men.278
The Midrash often notes daytime as an expression of a public act, such as with
276
Scripture’s emphasis that Abraham performed the first milah during the day, Genesis
17;23, and Noah entered the Ark during the day, Genesis 7;13. In each case, Rashi sees
the Torah as stressing that the hero performed the act without fear of the people around
him. More technically, the Mishnah that mentions the daytime requirement, bMegillah
20a, begins a discussion that points out that the large majority of demonstrative mitsvot
must be performed during the day.
277
Maimonides’ view, in Guide III;49 and elsewhere, that circumcision was meant to
teach Jews to limit sexual intercourse is too complicated to discuss here. It agrees with
the view mentioned in the text, however, that the mitsvah consciously selected a
particularly sensitive part of the body to serve as the reminder of God’s covenant.
278
bKiddushin 29a. In fact, the Talmud cites a separate verse justifying women’s
exemption from circumcising their sons As Tosafot there points out, that verse should
have been unnecessary, since milah is a mitzvah `aseh she-hazman grama, a positive
time-related commandment, a category from which women are already exempt. Tosafot
suggests that the verse was only meant for those who believe circumcision after the
eighth day may be performed at night, meaning that there really is no time element to the
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physical branding. Even without a full discussion of the Torah’s view of women’s
bodies, or women’s complicated experiences of their own bodies, the Torah’s freeing
them from this commandment allows them a freedom about their bodies that men were
rankle to a greater extent than it does with men. Rather than create such tension, the
Torah limited the obligation to those for whom it would be productive rather than
burdensome.279
so might seem like common sense rather than a religiously important activity. Consulting
mitsvah. Ritva answers that zman grama, being time related, only affects personal
obligations; where the Torah obligates the entire community, however, women would
have been obligated as well. Hence, in his view, the verse.
279
Other views of milah, such as Maimonides’ claim that it meant to teach men to limit
their sexual activity, explain its limitation to men equally well. Since men, at least in the
Torah’s view, were the ones more likely to initiate and become engulfed by sexual
activity, it would be them the Torah would command in this reminder of limitation.
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Jewish sources shows nuances to the issue that affect the conceptual underpinnings of the
commandment. First, the Torah expresses the requirement to bury in the context of a
man who has been publicly hanged as part of the punishment for either cursing God or
worshipping idols.280 The Torah then prohibits leaving the corpse out overnight, ki kavor
Tradition extends that obligation to all other deceased as well, which Maimonides
quotes in his presentation of this commandment, echoed by the Sefer haHinukh.281 The
verse asserts that a corpse left out lying around constitutes an affront to God’s honor.
The reasons for that affront are not fully clear, but seem to be connected to people’s
having a tselem elokim, a Divine element in their makeup. Since all people have a tselem
Recognizing that humans bear a Divine Image explains the prohibition against
leaving a corpse lying out in the open, but could have led to other options than burying in
the ground. The Talmud cites this verse only as a remez, a hint, to the burying of the
dead, but not as establishing the actual obligation.282 So, too, when Maimonides details
but only of a prohibition against leaving other corpses overnight, without explaining the
At the same time, the obligation to bury was strong enough to outweigh many
other considerations. For example, the Talmud discusses whether burial is a favor to the
280
See Deuteronomy 21;23, Sanhedrin 45b, and Maimonides’ Laws of Sanhedrin 15;6.
281
Sifrei, Deuteronomy, 21;23, Maimonides ibid 15;8, and Sefer haHinukh 537.
282
bSanhedrin 46a.
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deceased, in that the pain of burial provides atonement for sin, or is a service to the
relatives, helping them avoid embarrassment. Were the first reason correct, a person
might have the right to forego burial, since it was only meant as a benefit to the
deceased.283 The other view, burial as a way of safeguarding a family’s honor, renders
The Talmud never resolves the debate, which might have led to a discussion as to
which of the two reasons to adopt in practical terms. Maimonides, however, requires
burial because of this mitsvah, which the Talmud did not mention.284 That means that in
his view, regardless of that Talmudic debate, the obligation to bury overrides any human
wishes to do otherwise. That Jewish law has always assumed that burial must be in the
our attention on the underlying concern of the obligation, the proper treatment of the
283
The discussion assumes that events that occur to a deceased body also occur to the
person who had been alive, since it operates on the principle that burial (and related
events) can count as sufferings that atone for sins. Meiri accepts the literality of burial
pain, which is surprising for a Jewish thinker ordinarily thought of as a rationalist.
Commenting on bSanhedrin 46a, he adds that some troubles that befall a person are
really atonement for various sins, preparing him or her for pure reward in the next world.
The idea itself is a staple of Jewish thought on the issue and therefore unsurprising. We
mention it here because Meiri seems to accept the underlying idea that a corpse’s pains
after death can be counted among the sufferings that atone for his various sins.
284
The Talmudic debate would affect issues such as who can be required to pay for the
burial even if it does not touch on whether or not the person will actually be buried.
The double phrasing of the verse, kavor tikberenu, was seen as ruling out either of
285
Returning to the original issue, we can suggest that the need to emphasize that a
person bears the Divine Image is more acute in the case of someone put to death for
particularly heinous religious crimes. It would be easy to confuse the Torah’s decision to
put them to death and hang them with an implicit claim that that person had stifled or
excised his Divine Image.286 By insisting on that person’s burial, the Bible conveyed the
message that the Divine Image is an inalienable element of the human being, placing
obligations of treatment of the container of that Image. In the case of other people,
whose Image was not in question, the Torah would not need to make the point as clearly
or obligatorily.
That reasoning explains another halakhah that does not apply contemporarily, the
obligation of the High Priest to bury a corpse that has no one to see to its burial, known as
a met mitsvah. Although this same High Priest would not be allowed to attend a
relative’s funeral—he is the only person in the world whose connection to the Temple
was so absolute as to prohibit breaking it by coming into contact with a corpse—the need
message than just the simple human urge to properly care for deceased relatives. In the
way it is expressed in the Bible, in the level of obligation set up for it, and in the details
of its practice, it is an expression of the Biblical ideal that people carry an element of the
Divine in their persons, and that that Image must be respected even after death.
The urge to propagate inheres in our biological natures, meaning that it would
need little legislation to insure that it would occur. Our analysis of the timeless and
286
Women are not hanged, as noted but not explained in bSotah 23b.
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universal positive commandments related to family-building has shown that the Torah,
Proper propagation-- which the Torah sees as an act of imitatio Dei, continuing
God’s world as a whole or at least the human species—takes place within the context of a
marriage entered into as a permanent union, and formalized as such. That marriage is
placed on solid foundations by having couples intensively engage with each other in their
first year together, presumably so that their children will arrive to two people fully united
Marking his awareness of the importance of his relationship with God to his life
in general and to his bearing and raising children in particular, the father imprints on his
sons the sign of the covenant with God that created these obligations and that will help
them approach those obligations properly. The Jewish marriage, then, is about two
people uniting permanently to build a family that will continue God’s world, all as a sign
of connection to God.
That connection, fully realized, almost naturally leads to the obligation at the
other end of the life-cycle, that of burial. Yet burial, too, is not performed purely as an
act of family relationship, but as an act of respect towards the Divine within each person.
At each stage of family-building, the Torah takes natural impulses and imbues
them with religious elements. Women, we assumed, tend to recognize the importance of
family on their own and were therefore not included in these responsibilities; men are
being taught that family and children are not only ways to spread one’s own genes
around, but are ways to maintain the health of the world God created and wanted to
flourish.
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With that, we have completed our study of the separate categories of mitsvot
within Maimonides’ list of sixty, leaving the need only to try to put the five separate
THE END
on all male Jews in all times and places, 46 of which apply to women as well. We found,
on the male side of the equation, that more than half focused directly on building a
relationship with God, through obligations that either applied all the time or ones that
The ever-present commandments seek to insure that all Jews (male and female)
remember God throughout the year, with such mitsvot as believing in, loving, and fearing
God, and praying to Him daily. Another group of mitsvot turned the Jew’s thoughts to
The several mitsvot which left women out were those that defined a person most
exactly. Women were obligated in the holiday of Rosh haShanah, but not the hearing of
shofar, the holiday of Sukkot but not the sitting in a sukkah or the shaking of a lulav, the
holidays of Pesah and Shavuot, but not the counting of the Omer that connects one to the
other. In each case, we noted the specificity of the self-definition implied by the
commandment’s requirements.
Similar reasoning applies to the mitsvot of Torah study and tefillin, perhaps the
most central mitsvot from which women were nonetheless exempt. As we explained,
each of those also made rigid demands upon the male Jew, demands many males today
fail to fulfill for one reason or other, but which further support our contention that it was
the element of rigidity the Bible meant to avoid in legislating for women.
The direct focus on God and the relationship with God occupied one half of the
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list, but the other half fleshed out a Jewish life in important ways as well. First, we found
out that a relationship with priests was seen as a continuing part of a Jewish life, and that
some central practices of Judaism, such as repentance, have their roots in services that
Beyond that, we saw that the positive commandments having to do with food,
society, and family conveyed a different picture than we might have expected. The food
creatures (animal, fish, birds, etc.) be a mindful experience, that the Jew eating that food
Some of the laws that applied to society as a whole, such as following the
majority, were relatively obvious although necessary choices. Others, though, revealed
great differences between Jewish society and others. The commandments to love other
Jews and converts showed that the society was meant to be a true fellowship among its
members, with each one appreciating the other’s contribution to the society as a whole.
The stress on respect for parents and wise men reminds Jews of the hierarchical element
What I hope we have seen, and was the purpose of this writing, was that the
than just set up a series of obligations for Jews. They inherently convey a framework—
That framework could be more fully elaborated in several ways. First, there are
many positive commandments that are applicable currently, but are not in Maimonides’
list of sixty. For some examples, the laws of economics—how to acquire possessions,
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the responsibilities of those who watch objects for others, the rules of claims against
another, the rules of damages—still apply, but do not necessarily apply to every Jew,
since there is no requirement for a Jew to have economic interactions with other Jews.287
Second, we have not examined the prohibitions of Judaism, those that set a
baseline of appropriate behavior for a Jew, with all of its theological ramifications.
Finally, we have also not touched on the areas of Jewish law that do not yet apply for
lack of various conditions, but still give valuable insight into Judaism’s picture of the
theology. First, we hope to have rejuvenated awareness of how Judaism envision the
central positive aspects of a religious life, with the lion’s share of religious effort going to
developing one’s relationship with God. Second, we hope to have shown how Judaism
differentiates between men and women, but does not discriminate between them. It was
to make these points clear that we have offered these considerations for your
consideration.
287
In addition, these laws are more prone to adaptation than others, since halakhah
accepts the right to be matneh al mah she-katuv ba-Torah, to set up personal conditions
to handle financial matters differently than as ordained by the Torah, see for example,
Hoshen Mishpat 296;5.