Mitzvah

[1] In its secondary meaning, the word mitzvah refers to a deed performed in order to fulfill such a commandment.

The expression includes a sense of heartfelt sentiment beyond mere legal duty, as "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).

The first use is in Genesis 26:5 where God says that Abraham has "obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments (מִצְוֹתַי mitzvotai), my statutes, and my laws".

[3] In Second Temple period funeral inscriptions the epithet phil-entolos, "lover of the commandments", was sometimes inscribed on Jewish tombs.

The tradition that the number is 613 is first recorded in the 3rd century CE, when Rabbi Simlai claimed it in a sermon, perhaps to make the point that a person should observe the Torah every day with his whole body.

Abraham ibn Ezra observed that there were over a thousand divine commandments in the Bible, but fewer than 300 applied to his time.

According to Maimonides, one who keeps rabbinic mitzvot is in fact following a Biblical commandment to obey the decisions of the Jewish religious authorities (Deut.

Some are sex-dependent: for example, women are exempt from certain time-related commandments (such as shofar, sukkah, lulav, tzitzit and tefillin).

[13] Three types of negative commandments fall under the self-sacrificial principle yehareg ve'al ya'avor, meaning "One should let oneself be killed rather than violate it".

Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, was of the opinion that they were all given on Mount Sinai, repeated in the Tent of Meeting, and declared a third time by Moses before his death.

Examples of such rabbinic views include:[citation needed] There is no accepted authoritative answer within Judaism as to which mitzvot, if any, would be annulled in the Messianic era.