The 613 Mitzvot (Hebrew: תרי"ג מצוות: Taryag Mitzvot, "613 commandments") are statements and principles of law and ethics contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called commandments (mitzvot) or collectively as the "Law of Moses" (Torat Moshe, תורת משה), "Mosaic Law", or simply "the Law" (though these terms are ambiguous and also applied to the Torah itself).
Although there have been many attempts to codify and enumerate the commandments contained in the Torah, the traditional view is based on Maimonides' enumeration. The 613 commandments are either "positive commandments" to perform an act (mitzvot aseh) or "negative commandments" to abstain from certain acts (mitzvot lo taaseh). There are 365 negative commandments, corresponding to the number of days in a solar year, and 248 positive commandments, ascribed to the number of bones and significant organs in the human body.[1] Though the number 613 is mentioned in the Talmud, its real significance increased in later medieval rabbinic literature, including many works listing or arranged by the mitzvot.
Three categories of negative commandments fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor, meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it". These are murder, idolatry, and forbidden sexual relations.[2]
Many of the mitzvot cannot be observed following the destruction of the Second Temple, though they still retain religious significance. According to one standard reckoning, [3] there are 77 negative and 194 positive commandments that can be observed today. There are 26 commands that apply only within the Land of Israel.[4] Furthermore, there are some time-based commandments from which women are exempt (examples include shofar, sukkah, lulav, tzitzit and tefillin).[5] Some depend on the special status of a person in Judaism (such as kohenim), while others apply only to men and others only to women.
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Five Towns Jewish Times Online
There is, however, a certain category of mitzvos that defies such rational structuring. Generally speaking, the 613 mitzvos of the Torah fall into three ...
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