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Maimonides The Commandments
Author: Translated by Charles B. Chavel Publisher: Soncino Press
Volume One: Positive Commandments
Volume Two: Negative Commandments
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Product Description
Sefer Ha-Mitzvoth, The Book of Commandments is one of the major works of Moses Maimonides, the famous Jewish scholar, philosopher and writer of the 12th century.
The main object of the work is to bring together the various Commandments recorded in the Pentateuch. As ancient tradition established the number of these commandments as 613 known as Taryag Mitzvoth, a word made from the Hebrew letters totaling 613. They are divided into 248 Positive and 365 Negative commandments.
In an extensive forward, Maimonides explains the basic principles upon which he determines those biblical precepts to be included in the 613 and those to be excluded. He then proceeds to list each of the Commandments, commencing with the Positive group, adding Commentaries wherever it was considered necessary throughout the work.
It will be readily seen therefore that Sefer Ha-Mitzvoth is a work of the utmost importance for the study of the very fabric of Judaism. In 1940 Soncino published the first part, the Positive Commandments an edition almost entirely destroyed by enemy action. In 1958 Mosad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem, published a new Hebrew edition of the Sefer Ha-mitzvoth by Rabbi Joseph Kapach translated from Maimonides' original work in Arabic.
These two volumes, now being published, provide the first English translation of the Sefer Ha-Mitzvoth based upon Rabbi Kapach's work. The late Rabbi Dr. Charles B. Chavel, the translator, was a member of the American Rabbinate and a profound scholar who had written many works in Hebrew and English.
His special field of study, however, was the period of Maimonides and that immediately following the generation of Nachmanides and his disciples.
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