In Judaism, there is a tradition that the Torah contains 613 mitzvot (Hebrew for “commandments,” from mitzvah – מצוה — “precept”, plural: mitzvot; from צוה, tzavah- “command”). According to tradition, of these 613 commandments, 248 are mitzvot aseh (“positive commandments” commands to perform certain actions) and 365 are mitzvot lo taaseh (“negative commandments” commands to abstain from certain actions). Three-hundred and sixty-five corresponded to the number of days in a year and 248 was believed by ancient Hebrews to be the number of bones and significant organs in the human body. Three of the negative commandments can involve yehareg ve’al ya’avor, meaning ‘One should let himself be killed rather than violate this negative commandment’, and they are murder, idol worship, and forbidden relations.

The Talmudic source is not without dissent concerning the number of mitzvot, however. Some held that this count was not an authentic tradition, or that it was not logically possible to come up with a systematic count. This is possibly why no early work of Jewish law or Biblical commentary depended on this system, and no early systems of Jewish principles of faith made acceptance of this Aggadah (non-legal Talmudic statement) normative. The classical Biblical commentator and grammarian Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra denied that this was an authentic rabbinic tradition. Ibn Ezra writes “Some sages enumerate 613 mitzvot in many diverse ways […] but in truth there is no end to the number of mitzvot […] and if we were to count only the root principles […] the number of mitzvot would not reach 613” (Yesod Mora, Chapter 2).

Whether dictated by tradition or Torah, Maimonides (RaMBaM), in his Sefer HaMitzvot, arranged the 613 Mitzvot in groups; the Positive Mitzvot into ten groups and the Negative Mitzvot into ten groups.
Continue reading The Taryag Mitzvot: 613 Commandments →