The Taryag: 613 Commandments
Tradition says the Torah contains 613 commandments. It is not clear when (or how) Judaism first arrived at the number 613, but, at least since the Mishnaic Era, it has been customary to speak of the Torah as containing 613 commandments. The number 613 can be represented in Hebrew letters as תריג (taryag), and therefore Jewish sources speak of the commandments collectively as the Taryag Mitzvot (i.e., the 613 commandments).
Taryag
Tav (ת) = 400; Resh (ר) = 200; Yod (י) = 10; Gimel (ג) = 3 for a total of 613
The number seems arbitrary. A plain reading of the text makes it obvious that the Torah contains significantly more than 613 commandments. If we took every imperative at face value as a mitzvah, we would count thousands of commandments in the Torah.
The notion that the Torah contains 613 commandments reaches back at least as early as the Mishnaic Age (e.g., Mechiltaon Exodus 20:2; b.Shabbat 87a; Sifrei on Deuteronomy 76). Several hundred years later, the Talmudic sage Rabbi Simlai divided the commandments into 248 positive (imperative) commandments and 365 negative (prohibitive) commandments:
Rabbi Simlai discoursed and said, "Six hundred and thirteen commandments were spoken to Moses. Three hundred and sixty-five negative precepts, corresponding to the number of days in a solar year, and two hundred and forty-eight positive precepts, corresponding to the number of the organs and parts in a human body." (b.Makkot 23b)
In the Middle Ages, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (also called Maimonides Or Rambam) enumerated the 613 commandments in his monumental work Sefer HaMitzvot (The Book of Commandments, 1170 CB).
Rambam was not the first to classify the commandments into 248 positive imperatives and 365 negative prohibitions, but he employed a more systematic approach to the task than most other codifiers did.
Maimonides Criteria
In Sefer HaMitzvot, he applied a rigid set of criteria to determine whether a commandment could qualify for one of the 613 commandments or if it belonged to a subset of a larger, broader commandment. To guide him in the process, he created fourteen principles to use as criteria for his selection:
The 613 must not include commandments based only on rabbinic authority.
The 613 must not include laws derived through Rabbi Ishmael's thirteen principals of exegesis or by the method of basing a conclusion on an extra word or letter in Scripture.
The 613 must not include laws that were meant only as temporary laws.
The 613 must not include broad admonitions to keep the whole of the commandments.
The explanation of a commandment is not to be counted as a separate commandment.
If a commandment contains both a positive and negative form, both forms are to be counted.
The 613 must not include the details of a particular commandment as additional commands.
The 613 must not include a negative commandment that is merely offered to create an exception to a rule.
The 613 must not include repetitions of the same commandment or be based upon the number of times a commandment is repeated.
The 613 must not include acts that are described as preliminary to the performance of a commandment as if they were separate
commandments.The 613 must not include the different elements that combine to form one commandment as if they were each separate
commandments.The 613 must not include the successive stages in the performance of a commandment.
When a certain commandment must be repeated on more than one specific occasion, it is to be counted once for each occasion.
The modes of punishment are to be counted as positive commandments.
In some ways, Rambam's list falls short even of his own guidelines. Rabbinic exegesis can derive only a few of the commandments in the list, while, on other occasions, explicit commandments of the Torah slip by without inclusion. Some commandments rest only on the authority of rabbinic interpretation that has been widely accepted by traditional Judaism.
As he codified the commandments, Rambam faced the obvious difficulty of picking and choosing which commands to include and which to generalize. His efforts were further hampered by his desire to remain consistent with ancient authorities. Therefore, whenever he knew of a passage in the Talmud, Mechilta, Sifrei, or other ancient commentaries that explicitly stated a certain commandment as one of the 613 commandments, whether in positive or negative form, Maimonides felt obliged to include that particular commandment in the list.
Positive and Negative Commandments
His enumeration of the positive (P) commandments ranks them as follows:
Duties toward God (PI-P19)
Sanctuary (P20-P95)
Ritual purity (P96-PI3)
Tithes, gifts, offerings, and portions (PII4-PI52)
Festivals and holy days (PI53-PI71)
Matters of state (PI72-P193)
Duty to fellow man (PI94-P209)
Family life (P210-P223)
Criminal law (P224-P231)
Property (P232-P248)
His enumeration of the negative (N) commandments ranks them as follows:
Idolatry (NI-N59)
Duties to God and Sanctuary (N60-N88)
Sanctuary and priesthood (N89-NI71)
Dietary laws (NI72-N209)
Agriculture and land use (N2IO-N228)
Duty to fellow man (N229-N270)
Justice system (N27I-N319)
Festivals and holy days (N320-N329)
Family life (N330-N361)
King and government (N362-N365)
After Maimonides had completed his list, he received criticism for some of his decisions. Other scholars, such as Ramban, composed competing versions of the list.
Nevertheless, Maimonides' list offers the most comprehensive and widely accepted codification of the 613 commandments to date, and the Jewish world today accepts his version as the standard.
The Mitzvah List
Mitzvah is the Hebrew word for "commandment." Out of the 613 total commandments in the Torah, 248 of them are referred to as "positive" commandments. They are the "thou shalts" as opposed to the "thou shalt nots."
The "negative" commandments number 365. Negative commandments prohibit certain actions and circumstances. They are the "thou shalt nots" as opposed to the "thou shalts."
Applying the Commandments
Not all commandments apply equally across the board. The Mitzvah List makes distinctions in application explicit. For example, consider the commandments regarding the sacrifices or commandments regarding capital punishment. If the Torah is still in effect, why don't Messianic Jews offer sacrifices? If the Torah is still in effect, why don't we put Sabbath-breakers to death? Neither of those commandments can be applied in today's world.
The Jewish people cannot offer sacrifices today because we do not have a functional Temple and Aaronic priesthood in Jerusalem. Likewise, the commandments regarding capital punishment require the existence of a Sanhedrin with civil jurisdiction over a Torah-based government and economy. The Mitzvah List helps to clarify some of these broad questions about the application of Torah.
Additionally, some commandments apply only to men, others only to women, others only to Levites or priests; some apply to both Jewish and Gentile believers; others apply only to Jewish people. The Mitzvah List makes distinctions of gender, marital, social, priestly, and Jewish status for the purpose of showing exactly who is obligated to fulfill certain commandments and who is not.
The idea of observing 613 commandments may seem overwhelming. However, if we look closely at the specific application of those commandments, we see that in order for a single individual to keep all 613, that person would have to be an impossible combination of foreign-born and native-born, male and female, adult and minor, married, single, and widowed, a priest, a Levite, a high priest, a Nazirite, a leper, and a king, all at once.
In reality, only a small portion of the commandments apply to any given person in their specific situation. "His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3), but are "in our mouths and in our hearts, that we may do them" (Deuteronomy 30:14).
References
This section is from teachings from FFOZ Depths of the Torah, Book One.