IB World Religions 6.1.2. Torah, Mitzvot and Halakhah Notes

6.1.2. Torah, Mitzvot and Halakhah

Torah as teaching

1. Torah comes from a root meaning to point or to instruct, so the word means teaching rather than law. Translating it as law narrows it, though law fills much of what it holds.
2. In its narrow sense Torah is the five books of Moses. In its wide sense it covers the whole of Jewish teaching, written and oral, ancient and current, which is why a rabbi answering a question today is said to be teaching Torah.
3. Jews hold the Torah to be the terms of the b'rit. What the covenant asks of the people is set out there, which is why obedience and belonging are tied so closely together in Judaism.
4. Torah min haShamayim, Torah from heaven, is the claim that the text is divine in origin. Orthodoxy holds that God gave all of it, written and oral, at Sinai, while Reform, Liberal and most Conservative Jews hold it to be the record of an encounter with God shaped by human hands over time.
5. Studying it is itself an obligation. Talmud Torah is counted among the mitzvot whose reward has no measure, and the rabbis rank study highly on the ground that it leads to practice.
6. The text is therefore never approached bare. Jews read it through commentary and argument, and the question a Jewish reader brings is usually what the verse requires rather than what it asserts.

The 613 mitzvot

1. A mitzvah (plural mitzvot) is a commandment given in the Torah. Jews also use the word in ordinary speech for a good deed, but its primary sense is an obligation laid on a person rather than a kindness offered at will.
2. The rabbis counted 613 of them, known from the Hebrew letters as taryag mitzvot, made up of 248 positive commands and 365 prohibitions. The figure is traditional rather than stated anywhere in the text.
3. Which 613 is itself disputed. Maimonides set out his list with rules for counting in the Sefer HaMitzvot, and Nachmanides disagreed with him on many of the entries.
4. Not all of them can be kept. Those tied to the Temple, the priesthood and sacrifice lapsed with the destruction in 70 CE, and those tied to the land of Israel bind only there, so no single person keeps the whole list.
5. Intention shapes how a mitzvah is done. Kavanah, directed attention, is what separates performing a commandment from going through a motion, though the rabbis debate how far it is needed for the act to count.
6. The tradition does not present obedience as grim. It speaks of simcha shel mitzvah, the joy of the commandment, and of hiddur mitzvah, beautifying it, which is why a family will buy a handsome etrog or a fine kiddush cup.

Mitzvot and their reasons

1. The rabbis sort the mitzvot by whom they concern. Bein adam laMakom covers what is owed to God, and bein adam lachavero what is owed to another person.
2. That division is the ritual and ethical distinction, and it marks the fault line between the movements. Every movement holds the ethical mitzvot binding, while Orthodoxy alone holds every ritual one binding in the same way.
3. A second sorting asks whether a reason is visible. Mishpatim are laws reason could reach unaided, such as the ban on theft, while chukkim are decrees whose reason is not given, such as shatnez, the prohibition on wearing wool and linen together.
4. The red heifer of Numbers 19 is the standard chok, since its ashes purify the impure while making the pure priest impure. The rabbis present it as the decree that resists explanation.
5. Jews differ over whether to hunt for reasons. Maimonides argued in the Guide for the Perplexed that every commandment has a purpose even where it is hidden, while other authorities warned that reasoning about reasons teaches a person to set a law aside once its reason seems not to apply.
6. The disagreement carries practical weight. If a law's reason is its whole basis then changed circumstances can retire it, which is close to the Reform argument, while treating the command as binding in itself is close to the Orthodox one.

From Torah to halakhah

1. Halakhah is Jewish law, and the word comes from a root meaning to walk, so it names the way a Jew is to go. Halakhot in the plural are its individual rulings.
2. It exists because the written text cannot be used on its own. The Torah forbids work on Shabbat without defining work, and commands slaughter in the manner God commanded without recording that manner anywhere.
3. The Oral Torah supplies the missing detail and rabbinic derivation extends it. The 39 melachot, the categories of labour forbidden on Shabbat, are drawn by the rabbis from the crafts used in building the wilderness sanctuary.
4. Halakhah grades its own authority. A rule is d'oraita if it comes from the Torah itself and d'rabbanan if the rabbis enacted it, and that difference decides how a doubtful case is resolved.
5. Rabbinic enactments often work as protection. Pirkei Avot advises making a fence around the Torah, so lighting candles well before sunset rather than at it keeps a person clear of the boundary.
6. The result is a law that reaches everything. It rules on prayer, food, business honesty, medical decisions and mourning alike, so the question a Jew brings to a new situation is what the halakhah requires here.

Halakhah across the movements

1. Orthodox Judaism holds the whole halakhah divinely given and binding, alterable only through its own internal procedures. Haredi communities within it defer to leading rabbis on questions well beyond law, while Modern Orthodoxy combines full observance with secular education and civic life.
2. Conservative Judaism, called Masorti outside North America, holds halakhah binding while insisting that it has always developed in history. Its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issues rulings and may leave more than one answer standing as acceptable.
3. Its 1950 ruling on driving is the usual illustration. The committee permitted driving on Shabbat to attend synagogue and for that alone, reasoning that suburban Jews would otherwise lose the congregation, and critics inside the movement have argued ever since that the concession cost more than it gained.
4. Reform Judaism began by treating ritual law as no longer binding and locating authority in the informed conscience of the individual Jew. Its Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 kept the moral law and set aside ceremonies it judged foreign to modern life.
5. Reform has since moved back towards practice. Its 1999 Statement of Principles commended the study of Hebrew, the observance of Shabbat and the keeping of kashrut as choices, while holding to the individual's right to decide.
6. Liberal Judaism in Britain takes a comparable line. Reconstructionist Judaism reframes the mitzvot as the evolving folkways of a civilisation, binding on the community by its own decision rather than by divine command.

Mitzvot in daily life

1. The mitzvot are built to be met constantly rather than at intervals. Observant Jews say a berachah before eating, on seeing lightning, on hearing bad news and on wearing something new.
2. Objects carry the obligations into ordinary rooms. The mezuzah on the doorpost, the tzitzit on the corners of a garment and the tefillin of weekday prayer keep the commandments in sight.
3. Kashrut turns eating into observance. Separating meat from milk and buying certified food keeps the law present at every meal in an Orthodox home, while Reform and Liberal Jews treat these rules as open to choice.
4. Time is the other medium. Shabbat stops the week's work, the festivals reorganise the year, and the fixed hours of prayer divide each day.
5. Obligation is not distributed identically. Orthodox halakhah exempts women from positive mitzvot tied to a set time, an exemption its authorities explain by household responsibility, while Conservative, Reform and Liberal Judaism hold women equally obligated.
6. The point of the system, as the tradition presents it, is that ordinary life is where holiness is available. Eating, working and dressing are treated as the material of obedience rather than as time off from it.