Question #1: Most Important
What is the most important mitzvah of the Torah?
Question #2: Once, Twice, or Thrice?
The prohibition against mixing milk and meat is mentioned three times in the Torah. How many times is it counted in the 613 mitzvos?
Question #3: Counter Encounter
What are some practical halachic implications of different countings of the Taryag mitzvos?
Foreword:
Since this week includes the first mitzvos that Kelal Yisrael is commanded, we have an opportunity to return to a topic we have studied in the past – the counting of the Taryag Mitzvos.
Today, the most commonly used count of the 613 is that of the Rambam and the Sefer Hachinuch. However, there are numerous other counters of the Taryag Mitzvos — beginning from the era of the geonim, through the rishonim and until the current day who count the Taryag Mitzvos. At the time of the Rambam, most followed the approach of the Baal Halachos Gedolos (usually abbreviated as Behag) in counting the Taryag mitzvos. The Rambam, who strongly disputed this approach, provided a system with rules to determine what qualifies as one of the 613 mitzvos.
Subsequent to the Rambam writing his Sefer Hamitzvos, his major work on this topic, most other authorities followed the Rambam’s general approach to counting the mitzvos, although the major writers on the topic, such as the Ra’avad, the Semag, the Ramban, the Tashbeitz, the Sefer Hachinuch, the Semaq and the Maharam Shick, all disagree occasionally with the Rambam on the details. Some, like the Sefer Hachinuch accepted almost all the Rambam’s count (he disagrees with only one mitzvah), whereas others, such as the Ramban, disagreed with many dozens of mitzvos, in which the Rambam counted something as a mitzvah and the Ramban disagreed, and vice versa. For example, whereas the Rambam does not count settling and living in Eretz Yisrael as one of the 613 mitzvos, the Ramban does.
Introduction:
This article will not focus on the Rambam’s counting of the mitzvos, but on an earlier counting of the mitzvos done by Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon. Whereas the Rambam wrote an entire sefer explaining the rules for counting the 613 mitzvos and then enumerated them, Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon left us with a couple of poems, written at different times of his life, in which he enumerates the mitzvos in a brief, poetic style. To the best of my knowledge, Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon’s approach to the enumeration of the 613 mitzvos was left without serious study until Rav Yehudah Yeruchem Fishel Perla, one of the greatest gedolim of early 20th century Poland, made studying and explaining Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon’s work his life’s ambition. Rav Perla, who was born in Warsaw in 1846, devoted forty years to this study and writing up his conclusions, at times going for years without even leaving his home so that he could proceed undisturbed. During those years he relied on an opening between his home and a nearby shul through which he fulfilled the mitzvos of hearing kerias hatorah and shofar.
Many of the details of Rav Perla’s life are shrouded in secrecy, and the brief biographies I have seen about his life, including those in recognized encyclopedia, notoriously contain many obvious factual errors. For example, in some of these biographies it is claimed that Rav Perla was a disciple of Rav Chayim Soloveichek at the time that Rav Chayim was the rav of Brisk. This is obviously impossible for several reasons:
1. Rav Chayim was seven years younger than Rav Perla.
2. Rav Chayim did not move to Brisk until 1892. Until that time, he had been a rosh yeshiva in Volozhin and he moved to Brisk (where his father, the Beis Halevi, was rav) when the Volozhin yeshiva was closed. In 1892, Rav Perla was already 46 years old, and had returned to Warsaw, his birthplace, more than twenty years before. He was married and had a family.
It is reported, probably reliably, that Rav Perla studied under Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin when the latter was the rav of Lomza. (This is before Rav Diskin assumed the positions as rav in Mezeritch, Kovno, Shklov, and Brisk, and eventually moved to Eretz Yisrael in 1877. It was then that the Beis Halevi, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveichek, was asked to assume the rabbonus of Brisk in Rav Diskin’s stead, a position that the Beis Halevi held for the last fourteen years of his life. When he passed on, he was succeeded by his son, Rav Chayim, who became known to history as Rav Chayim Brisker.)
Rav Perla, whose family name was also sometimes spelled “Perlow” or “Perlman,” was offered to be the rav of the best paying and most prestigious rabbinic positions in Poland of his era, but he refused them all to be completely devoted to learning and writing his seforim. His financial support was from the rental income of real estate that he had received from his father, a very righteous and wealthy Polish businessman. (It appears that Rav Perla’s rebbitzen managed his real estate investments and collected the rents.)
Rav Perla specialized in early authors whose works had never had thorough commentaries written on them. He wrote very extensive works on the Ra’avan and the Kaftor Vaferech, but his magnum opus is his work on the counting of the mitzvos done by Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon.
Rav Perla’s insights are brilliant and often very original. For example, in one place he resolves a dispute between the Ramban and the Rambam concerning an opinion of the Behag by demonstrating that they had in front of them two different and conflicting versions of what that gaon had written. In another instance, he unravels a baffling comment of the Ketzos Hachoshen by correcting the text printed in our editions.
Rav Perla’s work eludicidating the count of the mitzvos according to Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon and explaining in great depth the differences between the approaches of all the early counters of the Taryag Mitzvos was published in three volumes between the years 1913 and 1917. When we realize that the last volumes were published in the middle of what was then called “The Great War,” when many of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, and particularly those ruled by the Czar’s Empire, were destroyed, we can only begin to appreciate the monumental undertaking to which Rav Perla devoted himself. His commentary on Rav Sa’adiyah’s enumeration of the commandments totals 1600 pages. Rav Yeruchem Perla examines thoroughly Rav Sa’adiyah’s choice of words and deduces from this Rav Sa’adiyah’s understanding of each mitzvah and the halachic consequences that result. Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, with whom Rav Perla had begun a correspondence before the war, is reputed to have said: “Without the hasmadah of forty years of devotion to Torah study, no human being would have been able to author such a work.”
Rav Perla owned a massive library and added thousands of comments to his personal copies of these seforim. Quite clearly, Rav Perla intended for the glosses in the seforim in his personal library to be printed at some future time to benefit Klal Yisrael. Many of these comments were eventually published in the annual Noam and numerous other rabbinic journals. Periodically, one of the auction houses specializing in Judaica sells a sefer that Rav Perla once owned. The seforim are rarely in top condition. They show wear from frequent and constant use; yet his copies still fetch high prices at auction. To quote one such auction announcement: “Dozens of important marginalia [some long], in the fine tiny handwriting of the renowned Torah scholar Rabbi Yerucham Fishel Perla. Signatures and various stamps: ‘Yerucham Fishel Perla,’ ‘Yerucham Fishel Perlman,’ and: ‘Juda Perla – Warschau.’” I have no idea why Rav Perla used different stamps, with different spellings of his name, or why he stamped his seforim multiple times.
In the 1920’s Rav Perla was widowed, and his children lived far from Warsaw. As an eighty-year-old veteran gadol, he moved to Eretz Yisrael, where he continued his studying and writing. At this point in his life, the rebbitzen of Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank brought meals to Rav Perla daily, while the octogenarian scholar continued his work, particularly an extensive commentary on the Kaftor Vaferech, a three-volume work on the mitzvos of Eretz Yisrael written by one of the rishonim. Rav Perla also contributed numerous profound essays to various rabbinic journals.
Having completed our lengthy introduction, I will now share several places where Rav Perla explains the brief poetic words of Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon to demonstrate that he disagreed with other mitzvah counters.
Most important
Let me begin by addressing our opening question: “What is the most important mitzvah of the Torah?”
While no one will say that the Torah has a specific mitzvah that is more important than any other, according to the Rambam, one of the most important of the 613 mitzvos is vehalachta bidrachav, to walk in the ways of Hashem. At great length and in several places, the Rambam explains that this involves evaluating one’s personality and adjusting it and behaving so that it develops in the direction that the Torah wants. This mitzvah forms the foundation of the Rambam’s work Shemoneh Perakim, a lengthy essay that is part of his commentary to the Mishnah as an introduction to Mesechta Avos. It also forms the basis of Hilchos Dei’os, which is the second section of the Rambam’s magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah.
Notwithstanding that many halachic authorities consider vehalachta bidrachav to be perhaps the most important of the 613 mitzvos, Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon does not even count this as one of the 613 mitzvos! This unusual fact is not ignored by Rav Perla, who has a lengthy essay explaining Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon’s opinion. Rav Perla demonstrates that Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon did not count this as one of the 613 mitzvos because, in his opinion, there is no specific commandment in the Torah to evaluate and adjust one’s personality. The sources that the Rambam cites as basis for this mitzvah were viewed by Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon to be asmachtos, meaning, in this context, concepts of which a person should always be conscious, but not part of the Torah’s structure of commandments. As far as the words vehalachta bidrachav, Rav Perla presumes that Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon understood this as a general commandment to follow Hashem’s instructions on how to live one’s life that is not counted as one of the 613 mitzvos. We can compare this to the road sign that instructs us to “Keep Right,” a message with both safety and ethical value, but should not be counted as one of the 613 mitzvos.
Thus, whereas many authorities contend that the most important mitzvah of the Torah may be developing one’s character, according to Rav Sa’adiyah, this is not even one of the Torah’s 613 mitzvos.
Basar bechalav
Here is another instance in which Rav Perla analyzes the words of Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon and the other mitzvah counters and reaches a fascinating conclusion. The Torah mentions the prohibition against mixing milk and meat in three different places, each time with the exact same five words, lo sevasheil gedi bachaleiv imo, “Do not cook a kid in the milk of its mother.” Chazal explain that the Torah repeats this mitzvah three times to teach that there are three prohibitions min haTorah:
(1) To cook meat and milk together.
(2) To eat the mixture of meat and milk cooked together.
(3) To benefit from such a mixture.
Rav Yeruchem Perla notes that there is a three-way machlokes among the rishonim whether this counts in the listing of Taryag Mitzvos as one mitzvah (Behag; Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon), two mitzvos (Rambam; Sefer Hachinuch) or three (Zohar Harakia of the Tashbeitz). Although most of the laws of basar bechalav will not be affected by this dispute, there are several ramifications that do result, particularly regarding the validity as a witness of someone who violates some of these laws intentionally, but observes the others. An example of this would be someone who benefits from a cooked mixture comprising meat and milk, such as by selling such a product as a salesman, but who does not eat or cook it. According to all opinions, he is violating a Torah prohibition. However, for reasons beyond the scope of this article, being invalidated as a witness is dependent on how many mitzvos are counted here.
Another counter encounter
Here is another example of a practical halachic dispute that results from two opinions whether a mitzvah is counted in the 613. The Gemara states that someone who frees a Canaanite slave violates a lo sa’aseh of the Torah, referred to as le’olam bahem ta’avodu. Among the rishonim, there is discussion about this law, since the Gemara notes instances when great Torah scholars did emancipate their Canaanite slaves. Rav Perla demonstrates that Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon never counts le’olam bahem ta’avodu as one of the Torah’s 613 prohibitions, and reasons that the gaon considered this to be a rabbinic prohibition. In a mammoth essay on the topic, he demonstrates numerous halachic ramifications that result from this dispute.
Mitzvas peru urvu
Rav Yeruchem Perla notes that there is a three-way dispute between Rav Sa’adiyah, the Rambam and the Rosh (Kesubos 1:12) whether kiddushin, getting married, and having children are one mitzvah (Rav Sa’adiyah), two separate mitzvos (Rambam) or whether the mitzvah is having children (Rosh). There are several very fundamental results of this dispute, but explaining them takes us very far afield from our topic.
Lo sikom
Here is an example of Rav Perla’s analyses that is not about whether a mitzvah is in the count of 613 but about the nature of a mitzvah. In parshas Kedoshim, the Torah teaches that we are not to take revenge nor are we to bear a grudge against a fellow Jew. To clarify the difference between the two prohibitions, Chazal explain that someone violates lo sikom, “Do not take revenge” when they ask a neighbor to borrow a tool and are turned down, and then subsequently refuse to lend their neighbor an item because they are angry and want to “get back” at him. (Should you have a valid reason not to lend him the item, such as, you think he will not take good care of it or he may not return it, you are not required to lend it.) The second prohibition, mentioned in the same pasuk, is lo sitor, “Do not bear a grudge!” Chazal explain that one violates this prohibition when, instead of refusing to lend the item to your neighbor, you lend it to him, but tell him, “See — I am not like you. I am lending you an item, even though you refused to lend me your item previously.”
With his skillful analysis, Rav Yeruchem Perla demonstrates that the rishonim dispute whether the prohibition is the action, or whether it is the emotion, and harboring a vengeful feeling or a grudge against someone violates the Torah’s prohibition. According to Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon and most rishonim, the violation is the action — refusing to lend him an item or reminding him that previously he did not lend you. However, Rav Perla proves that the Rambam and others contend that the violation is for the emotion, the mindset, not the action (Rav Perla’s commentary to the Sefer Hamitzvos of Rav Sa’adiyah Gaon, Aseih 19). In the Rambam’s opinion, if you are angry at the person who did not lend you to the extent that you are not prepared to lend him something, you have violated lo sikom. Alternatively, if you are prepared to lend it to him together with a piece of your mind about how nasty and selfish he is, you have already violated the prohibition of lo sitor.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have seen that much halachic literature is devoted to counting and understanding the various counts of the 613 mitzvos. Some people have the practice of reviewing the mitzvos that are included in the week’s Torah reading at the Shabbos table, a praiseworthy minhag.
