“Everything depends on mazal, “luck”, even the sefer Torah [taken out of the] ark” (Zohar, Parshat Nasso). A shul can have 20 Torah scrolls but may only use one or two the entire year, with the other 18 taken out once a year on Simchat Torah. One of the “lucky” winners in Judaism is the number 613. Ask almost any Jew, even those who are far from observance and far from Jewishly educated, how many mitzvot there are and chances are that they will tell you 613. Ask them the source of that teaching and you, more likely than not, will get a blank stare.
Our tradition has accepted the view that there are 613 “mitzvot” but such a statement needs much qualification. In reality there are thousands upon thousands of mitzvot, thousands of obligations upon a Jew. There are, for example, 39 biblically forbidden creative activities on Shabbat but there is only one “mitzva” not to violate shabbat.
The number 613 may reflect 613 categories of mitzvot, with each mitzva having many details that are obligatory. The number 613 was chosen as it represents the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. It was at Sinai that the Jewish people accepted upon themselves the obligation to observe the mitzvot. There G-d revealed Himself through the Ten Commandments. Yet as Rashi notes, the experience was so overpowering that the Jewish people told Moshe they could not handle it anymore. Thus G-d directly revealed only the first two commandments and it was Moshe who taught the rest of the Torah. “Torah tziva lanu Moshe, Moshe commanded us [to observe] the Torah (Devarim 33:4). Noting that the numerical value of the word Torah is 611 and adding the two mitzvot commanded by G-d directly, we arrive at 613 mitzvot.
While the notion that there are 613 mitzvot appears at the end of Tractate Makkot our Talmudic rabbis gave it little notice. There was no attempt to list these mitzvot; this teaching was apparently seen by our Sages as a nice idea with little practical application. Rav Simlai, the third century Israeli Amora, who is the author of this teaching, subdivided the 613 mitzvot into 248 positive mitzvot, reflecting the limbs in the body[1], and 365 negative mitzvot reflecting the days of the year. Rav Simlai, and certainly his Talmudic colleagues, cared little as to the actual number of mitzvot. What mattered to them was that every limb in the body should be directed to doing mitzvot each and every day of the year.
It was not until the 9th century some 300 years after the editing of the Talmud that the first list of 613 mitzvot appear. Rabbi Simeon Kayyara, in the introduction to his work The Halachot Gedolot, provides the very first list of the 613 mitzvot. Fascinatingly, his list includes mitzvot such as lighting the Chanukah candles, hearing the Megillah, and other assorted rabbinic mitzvot, broadening the definition of mitzvot well beyond Sinai. As late as the 13th century, no less a scholar than the Ramban (Critique on Maimonides’ Book of the Commandments, Principle 1) questions whether there really are 613 mitzvot. Perhaps Rav Simlai reflects a minority view not only ignored but rejected by our Sages. Yet as the Ramban notes, by his time the notion that there are 613 mitzvot was so widespread that he was going to accept it and join the many who then tried to actually figure out what they were.
The fact that there is no agreement as to the actual list of the 613 – the Rambam and Ramban have 31 differences in their enumeration of mitzvot[2] – is one of the great ironies of Rabbinic history.
Now if we were to ask our “typical Jew” what a mitzva means, more likely than not they will respond that a mitzva means a good deed. We might smile at such an answer and respond that yes mitzvot are good deeds but a mitzva is more than a good deed, it is a Divine commandment.
Yet truth be told many mitzvot are not good deeds and many good deeds are not [technically] mitzvot. And as strange as it may sound it is more important to do good deeds than to do mitzvot. A quick perusal of the 74 mitzvot found, according to the count of the Rambam, in parshat Ki-Teze, the highest count of any of the parshiot of the Torah, will demonstrate such.
The parsha begins with the mitzva of taking a captive woman of war who one found attractive back to one’s home. There is a second mitzva not to sell this woman after you have taken her captive and no longer desire her. The parsha incudes the mitzva of divorce and another mitzva not to remarry your wife if she had married someone else after a divorce. These are four mitzvot that we are not commanded to do and are best avoided.
A mitzva is what we are commanded to do in a given situation. If a couple can no longer stay married, this is how one goes about ending the marriage. But it is often best to avoid such a situation. We have mitzvot related to rape, murder and other horrible acts. Sadly, these things happen and when they do the Torah has a series of mitzvot of how to deal with them.
Even many positive actions are not obligatory. There is no obligation to go bird hunting so that one can send away the mother bird[3]. Nor is there a mitzva to go looking for lost objects so that one can return them. Ki yikareh, if you happen to go bird hunting you must send away the mother bird. Ki yimazeh, if you happen to find a lost object you must make the effort to return the object to the rightful owner.
At the same time many wonderful deeds are not technically included in the list of 613 mitzvot. Visiting the sick, attending a wedding or c”v a funeral, welcoming guests are amongst the most important things a Jew can do. But they are not included in the list of the 613 mitzvot. Similarly, there is no mitzva to “be holy” or to act lifnim meshura hadin, beyond the letter of law, despite these being two of the most important teachings of the Torah.
Perhaps our “typical Jew” non-learned as they may be has it right. We are not always obligated to do mitzvot, in fact some mitzvot are best to avoid altogether. What we are obligated to do are good deeds.
[1] How exactly we count these limbs is not readily apparent. For a discussion of the topic see The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History, & Rabbinic Literature
[2] Perhaps the most famous disagreement is whether there is a mitzva to live in Israel, something the Rambam leaves out of his count of the Mitzvot, with the Ramban strongly disagreeing.
[3] Most likely the Torah would just prefer one not go bird hunting. What the Torah commands is that if one goes bird hunting one is forbidden to take the eggs unless one sends away the mother bird. Why the Torah would offer long life for that is a fascinating question we will have to leave for another time.