DAILY MITZVAH (Maimonides): Shabbat, March 5, 2011


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Today's Mitzvah
Adar I 29, 5771 · March 5, 2011
A daily digest of Maimonides' classic work "Sefer Hamitzvot"

Positive Commandment 226
Execution by Beheading

"[The sin] shall surely be avenged"-Exodus 21:20.

Transgressors of certain sins are to be executed via decapitation.

Full text of this Mitzvah »



Positive Commandment 227
Execution by Strangulation

"He shall be put to death"-Exodus 21:16.

Transgressors of certain sins are to be executed via strangulation.

Full text of this Mitzvah »



Positive Commandment 230
Hanging

"And you shall hang him on a wood[en pole]"-Deuteronomy 21:22.

We are commanded to hang the corpses of certain criminals executed by the courts. (See Negative Commandment 66.)

Full text of this Mitzvah »



Positive Commandment 231
Burying the Dead

"You shall surely bury him on the same day"-Deuteronomy 21:23.

We are commanded to bury those executed by the courts on the same day of their execution.

The same applies to all dead-every Jewish deceased must be buried on the day of the passing. (This is why a person who died with no one to care for his interment is called a "met mitzvah" (a "mitzvah corpse"), because it is a mitzvah on everyone to ensure that he is buried.)

Full text of this Mitzvah »



Negative Commandment 66
Leaving a Corpse Hanging Overnight

"His body shall not remain all night upon the tree"-Deuteronomy 21:23.

It is forbidden to leave a corpse that was hung by the courts hanging overnight.

This because only two offenses are punishable by hanging [post execution]: idolatry and blaspheme. As such, someone seeing the hanging corpse might contemplate the reason why the individual was hanged, and will come to blaspheme G-d in his thoughts.

[This prohibition also includes leaving any Jewish corpse unburied overnight, unless the delay in the internment is in honor of the deceased; e.g., to allow time for relatives to arrive for the funeral.]

Full text of this Mitzvah »



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Want even more? These mitzvot are discussed at length in today's three-chapter Maimonides study regimen.

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