| { | |
| "title": "Sefer HaMitzvot HaKatzar", | |
| "language": "en", | |
| "versionTitle": "merged", | |
| "versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org/Sefer_HaMitzvot_HaKatzar", | |
| "text": { | |
| "Introduction": [ | |
| "Maimonides wrote the end of the laws of Meilah (Chapter 8, Halacha 8): \"It is proper for a person, according to his ability, to think about the laws of the Holy Torah, to understand the ideas behind them. And if there is a law for which you cannot find a rational basis or virtue, nevertheless do not view it as being unimportant. Don't second guess God's instructions, or else He might punish you. Don't treat this subject of Jewish Law as if it were any other trivial subject. After all, look how stringent the Torah was regarding the laws of meilah! Even when a person makes a verbal declaration to consecrate sticks and stones with God's name, they are now holy, and if a person misappropriates them, he has committed the crime of meilah! And even if it was done by accident, the sinner would need an atonement. How much more so, then, the laws which God commanded us, a person shouldn't just flippant are called If for merely And his thought in him shall not be as his thought in the rest of the sand. Come and see, how much Torah has aggravated embezzlement! And what if trees and stones and dirt and ashes, since the Lord of the world was called by them only in things were sanctified, and all who practiced them practiced sand above them, and even had an inadvertent need atonement, light and substance for the commandment engraved for us by the Holy One, He will uncover things that are not so blessed by the name, and his thought will not be considered in the words of the sand:", | |
| "After all, it is said in the Torah (Leviticus 19:17): \"And you kept all my statutes and all my judgments and did them,\" and our sages said their remembrance of the blessing (Torah of the priests there): To give observance and doing to the laws as judgments. And the doing is known - that the laws will be done; And guarding - to beware of them, and not to seem to be inferior to the sentences, and the sentences - are the commandments whose taste is visible and the good of doing them in this world is known, such as robbery and bloodshed and honor of father and mother. And the laws - are commandments whose taste is not known. And our sages said their remembrance of the blessing (Shochar Tov Psalms IX): I have made laws for you and you have no permission to meditate on them, and the creation of man has been violated in them, and the nations of the world understand them, such as the prohibition of pork and meat in milk and decapitated cart", | |
| "And how much was King David peace be upon him, sorry from the heretics and from the Acre who would reply to the laws. And as long as they persecuted him in the false answers they made according to the shortness of man, he would add adherence to the Torah, which is said (Psalms Kit, set): With all my heart I will keep your precepts \", and it is said there (name Kit, Pooh):\" All your commandments I believe a false persecutor lie \":", | |
| "And all the sacrifices are all from all the laws are. Sages said, that for the work of sacrifice the world stands; That in the making of laws and judgments the righteous gain the life of the next world. And the Torah preceded a commandment on the laws, which is said (Leviticus 18: 5): \"And ye have kept my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them\":", | |
| "At the end of Halachot Tmura (Chapter 4, Halacha 13) Maimonides wrote: \"Most of the laws of the Torah are nothing but remote advice, from the greatest of advice, to correct opinions and straighten all deeds, and he also says (Proverbs 22:20):\" I did not write to you Thirds in councils and opinion, to inform you adorned with truths to return sayings to your senders. \"Thus far the language of Maimonides his memory for blessing:", | |
| "And here is a scripture in the reading (Psalms Kib, a): \"Blessed is the man who fears the Lord with his commandments, and Pashtia recites - D. Fear the Lord\" Kai on the Levin in our holy Torah, very \"and\" in his commandments he wished very much \" And his intention, that man should keep himself from transgressing the unfulfilled, and establish the commandments made:", | |
| "And we commanded in Chazal (Avodah Zara 19a), who were precise in the box \"in his commandments\" and interpreted \"not in the reward of his commandments.\" And here is a seeming miracle - the unknown that the reward of mitzvos is that he will enjoy the ziv of the Divine in heaven, which is great in pleasure in its value, which we can not surpass in the mind. And when the sages wanted to reveal to us the greatness of this pleasure, they did not find him a fixed footage, only included him in one great rule, and said (Avot PD Miz): \"Beautiful one hour of contentment in the next world from all the life of this world\":", | |
| "And simply, the motto of \"all the life of this world\" also includes the lives of kings and ministers with all their pleasures and greatness and a majority of ten; And every kind of pleasure life that can only be obtained by the human mind, is nothing compared to the pleasure of \"enjoying the ziv of the Divine,\" and \"beautiful one hour of contentment in the next world from all the life of this world\":", | |
| "And according to this it will be marvelous - who will not long for and long for the reward of mitzvos, which is a very great reward beyond measure? And let us take an example: for we see with our own eyes that he who is chosen by the people - out of a few tens of thousands of men - will always be the face of the king, and no more, but he will be at the head of the ministers; And whoever he wants to give him who knows how much - will in no way want to exchange the large sum of money they will give him, for the right he has to see the king always and stand at the head of the ministers and if so, all the more so, easy and material son of easy and material, to enjoy the Divine Which is a greater real pleasure than we can imagine, surely not all the treasures of kings and their treasures will be compared in his eyes for a moment of contentment in the next world, and if so, how can one decide to say that no man desires a reward of mitzvah? And this is a great miracle:", | |
| "And I said to the well, a known thing is in every place that is said \"very,\" a teacher of infinity and purpose, unceasing; And this is the meaning of the words \"in his commandments he desires very much and not in the reward of his commandments\":", | |
| "Duff though Barno is valuable in the reward of a mitzvah that is upstairs, and the magnitude of a person's desire to achieve this pleasure, yet \"in his mitzvos he very much desires\" we were endlessly passionate and longing, after looking at the size of the mitzvah itself as far as it goes, and even rewarding nothing. And zero is considered compared to the greatness of doing the mitzvah itself, and there is no end to the person's desire to keep the mitzvah:", | |
| "Here, after we have explained all of the above, surely every man of Israel will desire to keep all the commandments that he is allowed to keep. But if a person takes before his eyes all the two hundred and forty-eight commandments made in the Holy Torah, he will find many commandments made that he cannot keep. Because there are many mitzvos that are practiced in Eretz Yisrael and not abroad, and there are mitzvot that are practiced only while the Temple existed, and there are affiliations to holiness and purity, and there are practices in nearby courts and we do not have nearby courts; And if he has to find out for himself the mitzvos that he was allowed to perform, it will be difficult for him:", | |
| "Therefore we have gathered here with the help of Hashem Yitbarach, in a special pamphlet, all the mitzvot he did that allowed us at this time to perform and all the levin that man will prevent them from doing at this time, as Maimonides and many of the first mentioned in their remembrance of the blessing:", | |
| "And so that it will not be difficult for a person to learn all the mitzvos he did at once, I advised to study half of them on Monday of the week and half of them on Thursday of the week, and he will do every week and week, And then he will do the same in the Levin, learning half of them on Monday of the week and half of them on the Thursday of the week, until later on all the Levin will have to live in his mouth who should be wary of them. And whenever you come across one of these commandments he will remember Cayman, and as the sages said about the verse (in the wilderness of Tu, Let): \"And you saw him and remembered all the commandments of God and did" | |
| ], | |
| "Positive Commandment": [ | |
| "1. It is a positive commandment to believe that there is a God who exists. As it says (Exodus 20:2), \"I am the Lord your God...\" He - may He blessed and elevated - caused to exist everything that exists and all the worlds, from His power and His desire, may He be blessed, and he oversees everything. This is the foundation of the religion. One who does not believe that is a denier of that which is fundamental, and he has no portion or merit in Israel. We are obligated to stake our lives and our possessions on this belief. It is fundamental for a person to establish in his mind that this is the truth, and no alternative is possible. This [commandment] applies in all times and all places, to males and females.", | |
| "2. It is a positive commandment to believe in God's oneness, believing with complete faith that He is One, without contemporary. As it is said (Deuteronomy 6:4): \"Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God - the Lord is one!\" This is the fundament of the faith. After the initial knowledge that there is one God who exists, one needs to belief with complete faith that He is one - in simple and ultimate unity, that He has no body, that the concepts which apply to a physical body do not apply to Him, that things which happen to a body cannot happen to Him, that he has no second, and that there is no power beside Him. This belief is obligatory upon us in all times and all places, to males and females.", | |
| "It is a positive commandment to love God, may He be blessed, with all one's heart, and all one's soul, and all one's might. As it is said (Deuteronomy 6:5): \"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.\" The way to love Him is to meditate on His acts until one contemplates them to the degree to which he is able - when the heart is aflame with the love of Him. This is the love which is incumbent upon us. One should direct all of his thoughts toward the love of God, may He be blessed. A person can only love the Holy One, blessed be He from the knowledge with which he knows Him, so in proportion to that knowledge will be the love: if [the knowledge is] small, [the love will be] small; if great, great. Therefore, a person needs to focus himself on understanding and comprehending, through wisdom and known philosophies, the honor of his Master, in proportion to the ability which he has to understand and attain. This is one of the commandments which a person is obligated in at all times, at every moment. Included in this commandment is [the requirement] to bring people close to His service, may He be blessed, and to love Him for what he has created, as our forefather Avraham, peace be upon him, did, as it is said (Genesis 12:5): \"And the souls which he created in Haran.\" Because of this, the Holy One, blessed be He, called Avraham His beloved, as it is said (Isaiah 41:8): \"Avraham my beloved.\"" | |
| ], | |
| "Negative Commandments": [] | |
| }, | |
| "versions": [ | |
| [ | |
| "Sefaria Community Translation", | |
| "https://www.sefaria.org" | |
| ] | |
| ], | |
| "heTitle": "ספר המצות הקצר", | |
| "categories": [ | |
| "Halakhah", | |
| "Sifrei Mitzvot" | |
| ], | |
| "schema": { | |
| "heTitle": "ספר המצות הקצר", | |
| "enTitle": "Sefer HaMitzvot HaKatzar", | |
| "key": "Sefer HaMitzvot HaKatzar", | |
| "nodes": [ | |
| { | |
| "heTitle": "הקדמה", | |
| "enTitle": "Introduction" | |
| }, | |
| { | |
| "heTitle": "מצות עשה", | |
| "enTitle": "Positive Commandment" | |
| }, | |
| { | |
| "heTitle": "מצות לא תעשה", | |
| "enTitle": "Negative Commandments" | |
| } | |
| ] | |
| } | |
| } |