Mitzvah – Making the Place More Holy: The Ultimate in Practical Theology

The word “Mitzvah” is probably best known as part of a word that constitutes one of the main Jewish lifecycle events occurring when a child reaches the age of 13, the Bar Mitzvah (son) or Bat Mitzvah (daughter). 

But what is a mitzvah? Basically, the definitions are: a precept or commandment or a good deed done from religious duty.  

However in Judaism it is so much more about relationship than command. The beneficiary of the  mitzvah is not the person receiving the good deed, but the person doing it. That is because doing mitzvah is to make this place, Earth, more holy, adding sparks to the universe. By following the precepts it is a way of being righteous, on the right path and connecting with the Divine, bringing holiness down here. 

Judaism, the religion of the Israelites (also known as the Hebrews), is a very practical religion. Its precepts and histories are contained in a series of books (biblio) the “Bible.” In Hebrew the books are called by an acronym T-N-Kh standing for Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets) and Khetuvim (Writings) and pronounced ‘Tanakh.’

In the first part of the Bible/Tanakh, the Torah, also called the 5 books of Moses even though the first book, Genesis, occurs many years before his birth, there are 613 mitzvahs. Of these mitzvahs, 248 are positive commandments, said to correspond to the organs and tissues of the body, and 365 are negative commandments, corresponding to the number of days of the year. The number of knots on a Tallit (a prayer shawl) or Tzitzit (fringes) is 613 to remind us of the mitzvahs, there is nothing random about the practice. Everything has a precedent.

All the 613 commandments can be traced back to and onto the 10 Commandments and of all of those 10 Commandments, it is the first two that generate all the others: 

1. Anochi – I am the Lord. This is a positive precept that only the Divine is the Divine.
2. Thou shalt not – is the negative command that nothing else is the Divine apart from the Divine. In other words, you shall not bow down to any other.

Most of these commands (610) were given to the Israelites, the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob. Jacob was renamed “Israel” by the Divine. Jacob’s twelve sons formed the twelve tribes of their father, Jacob-Israel. One of their brothers, Joseph went down into Egypt and the others followed to avoid a famine. Over many generations, these Israelites went from being welcomed sojourners to being slaves. They are then liberated from slavery by the Divine. This liberation is commemorated every year, as is commanded in the Torah, as Pesach (Passover). The slaves were taken out of Egypt, across the Reed Sea and into the Sinai to become a nation, ready to enter their Promised Land. 

But why receive so many mitzvot (the plural of mitzvah) just after being liberated from slavery and on entering a desert, a liminal space and before reaching their Promised Land? Why present us with future laws, many of which (about 313) can only be enacted in our own land? In the desert we are in suspended time, space and action. We are totally dependant, like children, for food (Manna) and water and directions. We are not free to do anything, yet. 

Sefer/Book of the Torah	Number of Mitzvot
Bereisheit/Genesis	3
Shemot/Exodus	111
Vayikra/Leviticus	247
Bamidbar/Numbers	52
Dvarim/Deuteronomy	200

The early story of the Hebrews, told in Genesis of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and the Matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah) occurred before the giving of the Torah. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs are said to have walked in God’s ways. In fact, the first words G-d says to Abraham is ‘Lech Lecha,’ go, go to yourself (your ways) away from those of your family, customs and peoples. The Torah expounded on these ways, and develops laws, Halakha, a word from the same root as Lech Lecha, to walk or to go the right way, to live in relationship with each other and the Divine. Perhaps the Patriarchs and Matriarchs did not need such explicit commands, being able to derive how to live from just understanding two ideas, I am and Thou shall not. In fact, the relationship shown to us is between the Creator and those created, a two-way relationship, where G-d learns from us too and there are instances throughout the Torah where laws are modified by G-d after requests from us. The relationship between humans and G-d is not just awe/fear, but also love, made very explicit in the often plagiarised/appropriated mitzvah ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:17-18), a law that Hillel (110BCE- 10CE) claimed as central to Torah. These mitzvot are given by a loving and merciful G-d, as described in the 13 Attributes of Mercy which we read every year from a section of Exodus we call the portion Ki Tissa (Exodus 34:6-7) to bring us closer to G-d’s ways. 

Most of these mitzvot, given as they are in Sinai, are part of the liberation from slavery to freedom. It is hard to move “from” slavery “to” freedom. Many of us are stuck. There is a “from” and a “to.” Most of us think that freedom is to be free “from” things, from restrictions, from rules, from boundaries, but the example in Exodus is very different. It is a freedom “to”; a freedom to choose (slaves do not have that freedom); a freedom to responsibility; a freedom to justice; a freedom to independence; a freedom to agency; a freedom to choose how to act. These are difficult, complex ethical places to be. Only truly grown-up individuals understand the amount of work it takes to be righteously free. 

Judaism has spent 3000 years discussing these mitzvot, how to do them, when to do them, who has to do them, where they need to be done, but not really why they need to be done as they are assumed to be righteous, loving mitzvot. The best way to discuss them is shown in a volume of work known as the Talmud. In the Talmud, the laws are pulled apart (analysed) and put together (synthesised) to try to resolve how to live in societies then and now (halakha). If they cannot be applied to the now, they are useless. All the arguments of previous generations, from Hillel and Shammai (50 BCE) up to the medieval period around the time of Rashi, are left on the page because nobody knew what the future would bring and what understandings and interpretations would be needed. The examples of these discussions are righteous, ‘for the sake of heaven,’ rather than for academia and ego and are used to  find ways to include people into the community and to facilitate them in living their daily lives. We are  partners in making holiness here. We continue to read in these mitzvot in this way, open to  understanding and interpretation so as to be in true connection with a merciful and righteous being. 

In mystical terms, all the mitzvot also connect to the 10 Sephirot, aspects of Divinity that descend into our world to make created beings. All this stuff in the universe, matter and energy, contains the sparks of their Origin, to various degrees. We are all said to be in the image and likeness of the Creator; a reflection of Divinity. These mitzvot help us to be and behave in a manner that is also a reflection of the Divine to make holiness here on Earth. 

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© Harrie Cedar, 2022.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Cover Image: “Page of Talmud” by Chajm is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.