Analytic of the Commandments

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides an analytic of the Jewish commandments by examining their normative fine structure. It considers the types of reasons the commandments aim to provide to agents, the reasons that could support the authority that issued them, and the constraints on their content. It clarifies how this differs from the traditional project of the reasons for the commandments (ta‘amei ha-mitzvot). It then develops a two-track analytic of the commandments as obligations deriving from God’s relational authority or as norms deriving from an instrumental authority. Lastly, it describes the mediated relation between the justification and jurisprudence (pesak halakhah) of the commandments and models it using the examples of the Noahide prohibition of eating a limb from a living animal and the Israelite prescription of circumcision.