It is said that Judaism is more a religion of actions than intentions. This statement reflects the centrality of the mitzvoth in Jewish life and is summarized in the Torah in one phrase: “Naase venishmah.” Exodus 24:7 relates that the people of Israel, at the foot of Mount Sinai, after Moses read to them the words God had dictated to him, replied: “We will do and we will listen.”

The 613 commandments in the Torah are called “mitzvoth d’oraita” and are the basis of Halacha, the branch of rabbinic literature that defines the rules for conducting oneself both ethically and religiously in Judaism. We can classify them in several ways. For example, we have positive and negative commandments, such as helping the poor or not working on Shabbat, respectively. They can also be grouped into commandments between God and man, such as the commandment to love God, and those between man and his neighbor, such as the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

We have commandments we call mishpatim, which are those we can understand rationally, such as the commandments to not kill or steal, and those called chukim, which have no clear explanation, such as wearing tzitzit. There are also mitzvoth that are time-bound, such as the celebration of Shabbat, and others that are not, such as honoring one’s parents. Furthermore, the rabbis divided the mitzvoth of the oraita into three types: first, those that come from a verse with a direct meaning, such as the prohibition against eating pork; Second, those that come from a verse interpreted by the rabbis, such as the prohibition against cooking a goat in its mother’s milk, from which they derived the rule of separating meat from milk. And the third, which they call «Halacha le Moshe mi Sinai,» the halacha of Moses at Sinai, is a group of mitzvoth that the rabbis maintain originated in the time of the Torah but are not written in it.

Apart from the mitzvoth that originate in the Torah, there are commandments originating in the Talmud and derived from the rabbis’ commentaries. These are called «mitzvoth d’rabanan,» the commandments of the rabbis, and include, for example: washing one’s hands before eating, lighting candles on Shabbat and Hanukkah, reading the Megillah of Esther on Purim, or saying a «bracha» before experiencing a material pleasure, such as eating. And finally, another type of commandment is the «takanot,» rabbinic edicts, such as the prohibition of polygamy, which are still in place today.

George Robinson tells us: «The roots of Halacha are in the Torah, but the branches of this leafy tree extend from the Talmudic period, through the Middle Ages, to the headlines of today’s newspapers.» Still, the question remains: How does «Naaseh» precede «Nishma»? How could Israel accept the Torah without knowing what they were accepting? Perhaps because they knew that movement, doing, had to be demonstrated by walking.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Essential Judaism by George Robinson, article by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, and other sources.