Today we conclude our study of Tractate Makkot, bringing to a close our study of some of the most significant punishments available under Jewish law, including inflicting on conspiring witnesses the same penalty that would have been carried out against the wrongly accused, exiling accidental killers to cities of refuge and administering lashes to those who knowingly violate Torah law. This tour through punishments reminds us of how very many mitzvot there are to uphold in Jewish law — 613 to be exact.
Although this count of mitzvot is known from antiquity and mentioned elsewhere, its longest treatment in the Talmud began in the last lines of yesterday’s daf:
Rabbi Simlai taught: There were 613 mitzvot stated to Moses in the Torah, consisting of 365 prohibitions corresponding to the number of days in the solar year and 248 positive mitzvot corresponding to the number of a person’s organs.
Rav Hamnuna said: What is the verse that alludes to this? It is written: “Moses commanded us the Torah …” (Deuteronomy 33:4) The word Torah, in terms of its numerical value, is 611. In addition, there are two mitzvot: “I am the Lord your God,” and, “You shall have no other gods,” (Exodus 20:2, 3) that we heard from the mouth of the Almighty.
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According to the reckoning of Rabbi Simlai, the number of mitzvot has resonant symbolic significance, corresponding to every day of the year and every part of the human body, suggesting that all of our beings should be engaged in mitzvot on all of our days. If that’s not adequately compelling, Rabbi Hamnuna finds a cryptic allusion to the number in Deuteronomy 33:4, where Moses commands “Torah” (whose gematria value is 611). This is supplemented by two additional commandments that come straight from the mouth of God, for a total of 613. An alternative rabbinic derivation found outside the Talmud, and also based in gematria, notes that the word for ritual fringes, tzitzit, has the value of 600. Combine this with the eight threads and five sets of knots, we arrive again at the number 613.
The commandments in the Torah aren’t conveniently numbered, so where can we find a list of all 613 mitzvot? The Talmud, devoted as it is to advanced legal discussions and problems, never enumerates them. Turns out, it’s no simple task to count them up: Consider that even the first words of the Ten Commandments quoted above — “I am the Lord, you shall have no other gods before me” — don’t obviously constitute two commandments or even two separate statements, yet they are interpreted as such by Rav Hamnuna. Many post-talmudic Jewish scholars, from Nahmanides to the Vilna Gaon, question Rabbi Simlai’s math, mostly asserting that 613 is an undercount. As Ibn Ezra poetically puts it: “I have seen wise scribes count up the 613 commandments in many ways … in truth, there is no end to the number of commandments, as the psalmist (119:96) said: I have seen that all things have their limit, but Your commandment is broad beyond measure.”
The task of listing all 613 commandments was taken up by later interpreters starting with Moses Maimonides, who prefaced the Mishneh Torah with an enumeration. Several other medieval books by esteemed Jewish scholars subsequently did this as well. But the Talmud on today’s daf goes in a different direction: Rather than try to list all the commandments, it distills their essence. Let’s hear more from Rabbi Simlai:
King David came and established the 613 mitzvot upon 11 mitzvot, as it is written: “A Psalm of David. Lord, who shall sojourn in Your Tabernacle? Who shall dwell upon Your sacred mountain? He who walks wholeheartedly, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. Who has no slander upon his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up reproach against his relative. In whose eyes a vile person is despised, and he honors those who fear the Lord; he takes an oath to his own detriment, and changes not. He neither gives his money with interest, nor takes a bribe against the innocent. He who performs these shall never be moved.” (Psalm 15)
This, says Rabbi Simlai, is an encapsulation of all of God’s mitzvot: to act in accordance with the eleven righteous behaviors of Psalm 15, including speaking truth, honoring the righteous, keeping one’s word and eschewing bribes.
But the commandments can be further distilled, argue Rabbi Simlai’s colleagues. If you wish to find the true basis of the mitzvot, look no further than the prophets:
Micah came and established the 613 mitzvot upon three, as it is written: “It has been told to you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord does require of you; only to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)
This is a formulation that can be easily memorized, but the Gemara continues, citing the prophet Isaiah’s phrase — “observe justice and perform righteousness” (56:1) — as a candidate for the two primary mitzvot from which all others derive. And in the interests of even further distillation, the discussion concludes with two candidates for the single mitzvah that is the basis of all others:
Amos came and established the 613 mitzvot upon one, as it is stated: “So says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek Me and live.” (Amos 5:4)
Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak objects to this: Amos is saying: Seek Me throughout the entire Torah. Rather, say: Habakkuk came and established the 613 mitzvot upon one, as it is stated: “But the righteous person shall live by his faith.” (2:4)
It is fitting that this particular sugya ends with a disagreement about the single commandment that underpins all the rest. Is it, as Amos says, to seek God? Or is it found in the words of Habakkuk, who adjures us to live by faith? Either way, the intellectual progression is clear: The many, many concrete (and abstract) commandments of the Torah are, at base, a set of moral instructions about living a good life — which is accomplished through and because of God. That is perhaps one of the pithiest expressions of what Judaism is all about. The rest, as Hillel famously said, is commentary.
Read all of Makkot 24 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on May 2, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
