Mitzvah

         Each of us knows from painful personal experience that the connections between souls, while marvelous, are inherently unstable.  Human beings are subject to many inner and outer influences that wreak havoc upon even the strongest love.

            To remedy the instability of human love, Judaism teaches a doctrine of responsibility, the Hebrew word for which is mitzvah.  Mitzvah is a discipline, a framework which keeps us constantly attuned to the souls around us, both the human souls and the mysterious Soul of the world.  The mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) are regarded as of two types: mitzvot which are "between one human and another," and mitzvot which are "between human and the Place" (an ancient name for God).

            Many lively, and sometimes heated, Jewish disputes have been waged over the centuries over the relative importance of these two types of mitzvot, the ethical and the ritual.  But the simple truth is that classical Judaism teaches the importance of both and holds us responsible for maintaining both ethical and ritual discipline in our lives.

            The totality of Jewish responsibility is expressed by the phrase taryag mitzvot, meaning "613 Mitzvot."  The number 613 is the sum of 248 positive responsibilities to be fulfilled, and 365 prohibited behaviors.  These two numbers in turn, by a numerical poetry, allude to the 248 parts of the human body (by the counting of the Talmudic sages) and the 365 days of a solar year. 

The human body stands for all the structures of physical space, and the solar year stands for the structures of time.  Taryag mitzvot, accordingly, can be seen as our responsibility, as Jews, to repair and to maintain the spatial and temporal structures of our universe.

            Within these structures, the delicate and unstable connections between souls attain solidity and permanence.