Talk:613 Mitzvot

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[edit] Explanations

Please explain the title of the article. What is a mitzvot, and what are the other 612+? -- Zoe

OK, will do, I have just started working on it. In the Judaism section there are descriptions of the mitzvot, see link, hope to name the 613 here...Thanks User:IZAK , P.S. By the way, where do I find the "straight" typed line to insert inbeteween names on "User name"...Thanks.

IZAK, do you mean your name? Just type three tildes (~) in a row, and it will automatically enter your logged-in name. -- Zoe

OK, here goes, I'm about to try it ... IZAK

Woe...thanks Zoe ...! IZAK

Ok, here's another question for you: What is "UTC" time and how do I know what it is in relation to where I am ? This is for the settings on the "Preferences" page. Thanks IZAK

See UTC. --Brion

[edit] Love converts or love strangers?

Maimonides' mitzvah No 14 is listed as: "To love converts". But this translation is not correct. The bible does not command us to love converts, but to love strangers; it says: "Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Dewarim/Deuteronomium 10:19). I do not see how you can translate the Hebrew word 'Geer' by 'convert' in the first part of this sentence and translate exactly the same word as 'stranger' in the second part. Mkatan 23:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are there really 613 commandments?

This idea is "accepted" by all of Judaism? Not at all. It is unfortunate that popular books on this subject (both medieval and modern) are so selective about quoting classical rabbinic literature. The idea that there are really 613 commandments is vociferously disputed by many classical rabbinic sources. This article should describe the full array of traditional Jewish views on this issue, not just one. I will offer some specific quotes (Mishna, Talmud, Midrash, etc.) with sources this weekend; I have my books at home. RK 21:01, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Rescinded comment in light of final paragraph of section 2.


[edit] subset of applicabel mitzwot!?

Hi! is there a list of "140"(?) applicable mitzwot? will you edit them? --217.184.19.141 00:17, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Are there really 613 commandments?

This idea is "accepted" by all of Judaism? Not at all. It is unfortunate that popular books on this subject (both medieval and modern) are so selective about quoting classical rabbinic literature. The idea that there are really 613 commandments is vociferously disputed by many classical rabbinic sources. This article should describe the full array of traditional Jewish views on this issue, not just one. I will offer some specific quotes (Mishna, Talmud, Midrash, etc.) with sources this weekend; I have my books at home. RK 21:01, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Rescinded comment in light of final paragraph of section 2.

[edit] FDuffy's intervention

I'm quite unhappy about FDuffy (talk · contribs)'s work on this page. For one thing, there is no source for the JEDPR attribution given for each mitzvah. Furthermore, using the colour coding creates the impression that this attribution is authoratitive, which in my mind is simply an attempt at POV.

I'm not going to revert the large amount of work FDuffy has put into this, but some explanations are called for. JFW | T@lk 10:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking something like this as well. It does seem rather POV: in an article about the Rabbinic canon of mitzvot, not just about 'Pentateuchal law', surely a source-critical approach is not directly relevant. A response from FDuffy would be good, as I see good reason to not have this included on the page, despite the work he may have put in without consultation. --jnothman talk 12:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't dispute the need to mention the DH attribution, but:

  • There's no source
  • The colouring makes it look authoritative, which it is not. JFW | T@lk 21:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm with jnothman; this kind of information, if properly sourced, would be interesting in an article about the DH, but it doesn't belong in an article about the Rabbinic conception of the 613 mitzvot. Jayjg (talk) 22:05, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

FDuffy has been linking excessively to DH-related Wikisource entries, some of which I removed because they were tangential. Again, the DH is a widely held theory and Wikipedia should not suppress its significance, but the approach taken on this page was inappropriate. JFW | T@lk 02:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The source is Richard E. Friedman:"Who wrote the bible" and more particularly Richard E. Friedman:"The bible, with sources revealed", which is considered the definitive work on the matter in academic circles (at least in the UK). The attribution clearly states at the top that it is "according to the documentary hypothesis". The colouring is just meant to aid those who wish to see where and how each of the documentary hypothesis attributions form chunks, it wasn't intended to be strong colouring, and I have tried extensively to make it fainter, but it has to be "web safe" doesn't it, and these are as light as I could find on the list of web safe colours, without making them look the same? --francis 21:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Why did you reinstate it just the same before concluding the discussion with others here???? That is rude to those of us here trying to discuss the issue. Consider our arguments that it's simply not relevant here, even if it is on good authority. Still you have not cited that authority in the text of the article. The reason why it stands out too much is because you're highlighting the whole row rather than just the final cell, which is what you should be doing if we collectively decide that this stuff should be in the article at all. --jnothman talk 00:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Francis, just get rid of that colour code. It is too much. Please don't expect the reader to agree with the DH. I'm not asking you again. JFW | T@lk 01:16, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

  • One cannot follow "Friedman" rather than Maimonides when discussing Judaism. IZAK 02:35, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This is article about how Judaism views the commandments

It is foolish to use a method that goes AGAINST classical Judaism, i.e the "documentary hypothesis", for an article that aims to convey what Judaism teaches in the first place, and not merely what latter-day controversial critical writers think. According to Judaism the Hebrew Bible and its commandments are of Divine origin, so it's plain stupid to teach that the commandments are written by latter-day authors when it has never been the normative view of the Jewish religion for thousands of years. IZAK 02:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Someone's overplaying his hand. A glance at the history of Ten Commandments will do. JFW | T@lk 12:53, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This is an article called "613 mitzvot"

According to the only rules I can find, articles are only restricted to being about what their title states. This title is not Jewish views of there being 613 commandments.

Clearly all this title specifies is mitzvah and 613. It can therefore be understood as an article concerning the enumeration of the mitzvah, which for various reasons, which need to be expressed in the article, has become fixed as 613.

Including only the enumeration according to Jewish sources violates NPOV policy, particularly considering the relevance of a hypothesis supported by the academic community in a ration of 9:1.

--francis 17:05, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

At the moment, your color coding is intrusive and less NPOV than the previous version. You have also failed to mention your source, so your whole attribution may well be original research as well as being unverifiable. Please do not reinstate your version until you have dealt with this. I will support color coding of only the collumn in which you link the JEDPR attribution, but not the whole line.
I would be in favour of a color coding that clearly shows whether a mitzvah is a positive or negative one; say - green for mitzvoth aseh and red for mitzvoth lo taaseh. JFW | T@lk 22:17, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
What about bold vs. underlined+italic, thats quite distinct. Are there formal academic references for general consensus on which of Maimonides commandments are each.
  • "613 mitzvot" by definition means the Jewish view! No-one else calls it that! Thus it needs to be described and explained that way first and foremost. Then, as a very minor after-thought one may add what Bible critics or other haters of classical Judaism think of it. By the way, you will notice that normally basically none of the articles in Category:Biblical criticism contain refutations from normative Torah, Talmudical and Halakhic POVs because it's futile (perhaps even not logical) to have a Torah "POV" in them (even though they could well be provided -- it would be like having the Jews' "POV" on every article about Hitler and the Nazis -- or vice-versa) and likewise here it's a joke having a "Documentary hypothesis POV" on what is a virtually purely traditional Judaic topic. Francis you are making less sense by the hour! IZAK 05:58, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Ask IZAK points out, this article is about the Jewish concept of the 613 commandments, not about Documentary hypothesis of the origins of various books of the Pentateuch. Jayjg (talk) 08:19, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

In his edit summary (not logged in) Francis maintains that he generated this attribution from numerous sources. In other words, it is original research. Those whole concept is fascinating research but not suitable for Wikipedia. Perhaps Wikisource is the place to be. JFW | T@lk 22:51, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Biblical critics are not haters of classical Judaism. Calling them that is highly biased. Biblical critics are people who, rather than approaching a biblical subject with blind faith, choose to apply academic rigour. That is all. If this happens to throw up some results that classical Judaism finds distasteful, then this simply how searching for truth works, sometimes you just have to accept that what you believe is wrong, at least in some manner. On other occasions, it happens to throw things up that give you support. But one should always be interested in truth, rather than trying to cobble together faltering supports.

You will notice that normally basically none of the articles in Category:Biblical criticism contain refutations from normative Torah, Talmudical and Halakhic POVs not because it is futile, but because most of the subjects of those articles are general discussions of what Biblical Criticism is, discussions of people who are Biblical critics, or on subjects only relevant to the New Testament of Christianity, and consequently not that relevent to Talmudical POVs. This is an unfortunate side effect of the way that category is currently applied to articles, rather than any evidence of futility. If you think Talmudic, or other rabbinical POVs should be represented in the article, then go and add them. Editing Wikipedia is supposed to be about improving article quality, not complaining about futility.

In my edit summary (logged out by Wikipedia half way through an edit for no known reason) Francis, I.e. me, maintains that he, i.e. I, generated, i.e. researched, this attribution from numerous sources. In other words, it is very carefully researched, and multiply attributed. If this constituted original research, then so would any other article that has more than 2 references, and so we should go and delete those articles right away, leaving wikipedia with about 12 moronic articles, about obscure computer games. The whole concept is fascinating research, which is exactly what perfect Wikipedia articles are meant to aim to be.

The attributions, just in case you aren't completely sure about how well respected they are in the academic community, are

as well as the somewhat less recent

--Francis 01:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

It remains "original research" until you actually cite your sources, so we can verify whether these attributions are made by the actual authors, or whether there has still been extrapolation on your behalf. I strongly urge you to stop reverting - consensus here seems to be against you. I know, you've worked hard on it, but there are too many problems with your version. JFW | T@lk 07:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't know why, but you seem to have failed to notice that above, I gave the sources. I will repeat them again:

as well as the somewhat less recent

--User talk:FDuffy 14:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I have explained on your talkpage that you should mention those sources with title of the work, page numbers etc on the article page, not here. A good encyclopedia article lists its sources, just look at that Jewish Encyclopedia!
You have again not addressed my opposition to your use of color coding. The fact that it wasn't meant to be intrusive does not mean it doesn't come accross as such. I'll reiterate: I will support the tabled format if you limit the color code to the collumn that assigns the JEDPR attribution.
I note that the documentary hypothesis nowhere specifically addresses mitzvot given in groups. It only addresses fragments of text. This makes your application of the DH to this list of commandments a piece of original research. I will not press this matter, however. JFW | T@lk 22:28, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
PS The color code is completely unnecessary if you consider that the commandments on this page are not listed according to the order of the verses.
Realistically, the DH is heavily interested in which bits of Mosaic law came from where, as well as which bits of narrative. So it's not so strange to be trying to apply the DH to legalistic portions of the Torah, but to apply it to the Mitzvot as enumerated by Maimonides is a little stranger. jnothman talk 00:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A comment

I changed number 160 from: "not to have sexual relationships with a married woman" to "Not to have sexual relations with someone else's wife", which better fits the original: "And thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour's wife, to defile thyself with her. " andreas_td 03:50, 25 feb 2006 (UTC+2)

Seeing as this listing is according to Maimonides, it is to that source that the article should be faithful. I don't have a copy with me. jnothman talk 11:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move the list

The Maimonides' list is rather long. Perhaps it should be given its own page in order to cut down on the length of this page.

I disagree. The 613 mitzvot is the title and whole point of this page. It seems to me that [613 mitzvot] and [list of all 613 mitzvas] will soon be candidates for merging. Perhaps it could be put at the very end of the article so that people who don't want to read the (613 item long) list. However, if general consensus is for your idea, I don't object. Epl18 17:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this should be on Wikisource, or at least the list of the 613. See Template:Move to Wikisource. -Reuvenk[T][C] 00:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] line

User:Keycard added the line

It is rumoured that if a pomegranite contains exactly 613 seeds, this will indicate that the Messiah is coming.

with the comment (I can't provide a direct source. it's common knowledge amongst Jewish people). I removed because I have never heard of it and it sound line a a jewish Urban legend, however, I would love to see a legitamate source for this. Jon513 17:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

FYI: About 35 years ago I counted them and there were exactly 613 Phil burnstein (talk) 13:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Phil, welcome to the project. I think you might find this informal study about the amount of seeds in pomegranates of different origins interesting. Irregardless of the true amount of pomegranate seeds, the idea that it contains 613 probably originates with the Rosh Hashana custom to eat a pomegranate and ask God to "increase on merits like a pomegranate"; Nevertheless I have not been able to find a source with says this. Jon513 (talk) 17:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prohibition of sex with daughter

The article as it stands now quotes Lev. 18:10 as the source for the prohibition "Not to have sexual relations with your daughter". But there is no specific rule against incest with daughters in Torah that I know of. Lev. 18:10 is about sex with granddaughters only and does not mention daughters. My understanding is that Maimonides derived the prohibition of sex with a daughter from this granddaughter clause. You have to be pretty depraved to interpret the absence of a specific prohibition as a permission for a father to have sex with his daughter, but amazingly this lack of an mention of daughters was quoted as a defense in a recent case of incest in a fundamentalist Christian family in the Netherlands: "if G-d felt sex with a daughter was wrong he would have told us so". The argument is not only perverse but clearly wrong because there is a general prohibition of incest in Torah: the long list of relatives not to be approached in Lev. 18:7-17 is preceded in Lev. 18:6 by a prohibition of having sex with any "close relative", and that of course includes daughters. I therefore feel that the article should quote Lev. 18:6 rather than, or in addition to, Lev. 18:10 when referring to the prohibition of sex with a daughter.

Your thoughts on this are appreciated

Mkatan 12:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The prohibition of sex with ones daughter is, as you said, derived from the granddaughter clause. The general prohibition of incest is not used as it is unclear what incest is until the verses list all of the types of incest. Jon513 16:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] There're 613 dead links

Every and each one of the reference links are dead (actually, you get a 'Invalid source given.' error). This needs fixing. --Wishmechaos 07:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that biblegateway (one which bibleverse relies) removed machon mamre as a source. I contact jnothman who created this template. Jon513 16:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 365 days?

Introduction, second paragraph: "According to tradition, of these 613 commandments, 248 are mitzvot aseh ("positive commandments" commands to perform certain actions) and 365 are mitzvot lo taaseh ("negative commandments" commands to abstain from certain actions). Three-hundred and sixty-five corresponded to the number of days in a year and 248 was believed by ancient Hebrews to be the number of bones and significant organs in the human body."

The Jewish calander is lunar, and therefore, only 354 days a year, with a 7 leap months every 19 years. If no source can be found for this paragraph, it should be removed, since 365 days in the year could not possibly be the reason for 365 "negative commandments" Chaztheweird 17:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The Jewish calendar is "modified solar", which is to say, months are measured by the moon, but years are measured by the sun, resulting in a 13th month 7 times in a 19 year cycle. Judaism recognizes the fact that the orbit of the earth is ~365 days. This passage is indeed correct. -- Y not? 22:16, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

My request for a citation was reverted [1]. If there are indeed "countless" sources for these numbers, then there should be no trouble to cite one. MilesAgain (talk) 19:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I put in two refs. However, within Jewish studies this info is taken for granted and would not be footnoted in a tertiary work at all. Thanks. HG | Talk 19:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. As a member of "the general audience" it seemed more than a little like numerological piffle. MilesAgain (talk) 19:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured list drive?

Hi, I'm one of the members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration. Recently we helped improve an article about Palestinian culture for good article candidacy. It looks like this page isn't far from a featured list candidate - the main list is already complete and well referenced. Some suggestions:

  • Add citations for the introductory paragraphs.
  • Create stub articles for the redlinks in the introduction.
  • Select one or more images to accompany the page. I've found some candidate images here.
  • Copyedit - I can help with that.

If there are no objections lets move forward. Regards, DurovaCharge! 20:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)