Nadene Goldfoot
Talk about the problems of following the first 10 laws that Moses handed down to his population of the Exodus! The first 10 Jewish laws, known as the Ten Commandments (Aseret HaDibrot) or Ten Statements, are found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. They are foundational to Jewish law, focusing on1) believing in God, 2) no other gods/idols, 3) not using God's name in vain, 4) keeping the Sabbath, 5) honoring parents, 6) not murdering, 7) not committing adultery, 8) not stealing, 9) not bearing false witness, and 10) not coveting.
There were actually 613 of them!! They are the base for Judaism. They are also the base of many a debate ! What does each cover?
The 613 laws (mitzvot) (תרי״ג מצוות)
in Judaism are traditionally believed to have been given by God to Moses (1391-1271 BCE )at Mount Sinai, who handed it down to his charges; 603,550 people they had saved from slavery in Egypt as recorded in the Torah. It took them 40 years to go from the short distance of Egypt to Canaan.
However, the specific enumeration of 613 laws was first mentioned by the 3rd-century CE Talmudic sage Rabbi Simlai. The most famous and widely accepted, though not exclusive, listing was compiled by the medieval philosopher Maimonides (Rambam) (1135-1204 CE) in his Sefer Hamitzvot.
The term, mitzvot, means a good deed. It is a plural term from mitzvah.The more mitzvot you do a day means you did a lot of good deeds. Suchan act of visiting your mother in the hospital is a good deed or mitzvah.
There are (365 negative, 248 positive) laws. I notice that some of them are obvious ones, things we do every day; just didn't know they were such good deeds.
Moses shared these with his 603,550 people about 3,367 years ago. We are stumbling over a few of the first ten listed in Exodus and Deuteronomy. These cover some of the other books. Check out Leviticus.
Love & Brotherhood/Sisterhood
• To love all human beings who are of the covenant (Leviticus 19:18)
• Not to stand by idly when a human life is in danger (Leviticus 19:16)
• Not to wrong anyone in speech (Leviticus 25:17)
• Not to carry tales (Leviticus 19:16)
• Not to cherish hatred in one's heart (Leviticus 19:17)
• Not to take revenge (Leviticus 19:18)
• Not to bear a grudge (Leviticus 19:18)
• Not to put any person to shame (Leviticus 19:17)
• Not to curse any other Israelite (Leviticus 19:14)
• Not to give occasion to the simple-minded to stumble on the road (Leviticus 19:14)
• To rebuke the sinner (Leviticus 19:17)
• To relieve a neighbor of his burden and help to unload his beast (Exodus 23:5)
• To assist in replacing the load upon a neighbor's beast (Deuteronomy 22:4)
• Not to leave a beast, that has fallen down beneath its burden, unaided (Deuteronomy 22:4)
I'm always dieting, watching the Jewish laws of what to eat; a dairy or a meat meal and not to mix them; calories, so this impresses me.
Dietary Laws
• To examine the marks in cattle (so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean) (Leviticus 11:2)
• Not to eat the flesh of unclean beasts (Leviticus 11:4)
• To examine the marks in fishes (so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean) (Leviticus 11:9)
• Not to eat unclean fish (Leviticus 11:11)
• To examine the marks in fowl, so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean (Deuteronomy 14:11)
• Not to eat unclean fowl (Leviticus 11:13)
• To examine the marks in locusts, so as to distinguish the clean from the unclean (Leviticus 11:21)
• Not to eat a worm found in fruit (Leviticus 11:41)
• Not to eat of things that creep upon the earth (Leviticus 11:41-42)
• Not to eat any vermin of the earth (Leviticus 11:44)
• Not to eat things that swarm in the water (Leviticus 11:43 and 46)
• Not to eat of winged insects (Deuteronomy 14:19)
• Not to eat the flesh of a beast that is treifah (literally torn) (Exodus 22:30)
• Not to eat the flesh of a beast that died of itself (Deuteronomy 14:21)
• To slay cattle, deer and fowl according to the laws of shechitah if their flesh is to be eaten (Deuteronomy 12:21)
• Not to eat a limb removed from a living beast (Deuteronomy 12:23)
• Not to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day (Leviticus 22:28)
• Not to take the mother-bird with the young (Deuteronomy 22:6)
• To set the mother-bird free when taking the nest (Deuteronomy 22:6-7)
• Not to eat the flesh of an ox that was condemned to be stoned (Exodus 21:28)
• Not to boil meat with milk (Exodus 23:19)
• Not to eat flesh with milk (Exodus 34:26)
• Not to eat the sinew of the thigh-vein which shrank (Leviticus 32:33)
• Not to eat chelev (tallow-fat) (Leviticus 7:23)
• Not to eat blood (Leviticus 7:26)
• To cover the blood of undomesticated animals (deer, etc.) and of fowl that have been killed (Leviticus 17:13)
• Not to eat or drink like a glutton or a drunkard (not to rebel against father or mother) (Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 21:20)
If people were this aware of others and animals and their surroundings, what in the world happened to them? Yes, we got smarter but in technical ways, not in living ways. We still need these reminders of importance and how children grow up as copy-cats in order to live well on this planet earth. Who knows what our descendants will find themselves in...these rules might come in handy...
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