ON THE 613 COMMANDMENTS

 

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

It is often mentioned that there are 613 commandments (TARYAG Mitzvot, in Hebrew) in the Hebrew Bible. Where does this idea come from? The number gave rise to a lot of controversy. No ancient text ever provides us with a clear list.

 The Bible does not mention this assumption. It is of rabbinic origin (1), but we really don’t know who initiated it.  Efraim Urbach noted that “In the Tannaitic sources [I and 2^nd cent. CE] this number is unknown” (2). In an early rabbinic text, Simeon ben Azzai (2^nd cent. CE)  is quoted as saying that there are 300 biblical commands (Sifre, Deut. 76).

 The earliest reference to 613 is found in the Talmud, attributed to a certain Rabbi, by the name of Simlai, who lived in the late 3^rd cent. CE. He stated that “there are 613 commandments attributed to Moses  in the Torah, corresponding to the number of days in the solar year of 365 and 248 commandments corresponding to the number of a person’s limbs” (Mak. 23b). Yet, in another Talmudic passage, the number 613 comes from Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in law (Yeb. 47b).  

 Some sages argued that it is difficult to number all the biblical commandments, because some of them are duplicated in other parts of the Pentateuch. If they are repeated, like the commandment to observe the Sabbath (Ex.20 and Deut.5), do they count as one or two? In fact, Ibn Ezra, a Rabbi who lived in the 12^th cent. Spain, maintained that “if we were to count only the root principles of the Torah, the number of commandments do not even reach 613” (Yesod Moreh 2). Furthermore, Rabbi Simlai’s statement reads more like a sermon, and not as a legal dictum (3), indicating that we need to serve God all the time with everything we have.

 During the Medieval times, Moses Maimonides, 12^th cent. Spain, in his monumental book, Sefer Hamizvot (The Book of the Commandments), has identified 248 positive and 365 negative commands.

Many of the commandments listed by Maimonides cannot be kept today, because they apply to the temple rituals, and became irrelevant after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. According to Rabbi Yisrael Meir Ha-Kohen, (d. 1933), popularly known as Hafets Hayyim, only 77 positive and 194 negative commandments can be observed today. 

 For a list of the 613 commandments, see “The 613 Commandments” in www.chabad.org.

 Date: Feb. 2, 2022. Total viewers: 695,576

 1.     Mark Herman, “The Origin and Use of the 613 Mitzvot,” The Torah.com , May 26, 2017.

2.     The Sages; Their Concepts and Beliefs, Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1987.

3.     Israel Drazin, “There are not 613 Biblical Commands”, The Times of Israel- the Blogs; May 31, 2017.