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The Jew and his Judaism: The Commandments, the Commander, and the Commanded
The fundamental concept that captures the whole essence of Judaism – the idea of God, the obligations of man to Him, the interdependence of human beings – in one word, is that of mitzvah, commandment. The noun, in its different forms, appears about 180 times in Scripture; in its various verbal forms, perhaps twice that number. This is, of course, only a minor indication of the vast significance of what is apparently so simple an idea. The term mitzvah implies the existence of a Metzaveh, One who commands. The divine Metzaveh must obviously be theistic – a personal God, not an impersonal deistic or pantheistic deity – only a personal God is sufficiently concerned with men to command them. Mitzvah additionally implies that man lives under obligation to the Metzaveh, and that his life must be regulated in accordance with His express will. Furthermore, the very existence of mitzvah tells us that the will of Metzaveh, formulated in the mitzvah, was made known to man – hence, some form of revelation had to take place. The derivation of mitzvah from Metzaveh rules out the identification of mitzvah with generalized virtue, which may be self-motivated, a utilitarian ethic, or merely a reflection of contemporary mores. Similarly, it is a distortion of the concept of mitzvah to define it as religious folkways or customs. Folkways may be charming, even very valuable, but they do not presuppose an origin external and transcendental to man – on the contrary, their source is the folk, not God. The Jewish tradition cherishes customs and folkways – at least it values most of them – but takes pains to distinguish between mitzvah and minhag, custom. Despite the prominence given to the latter, it does not supersede the former – at most, it helps guide us to a proper interpretation of the mitzvah. Mitzvah as response – positively speaking, mitzvah may be understood under two aspects: response and summons. As response to God, the performance of mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) in their tota…
