Halakha

哈拉卡

Halakha is the collective corpus of religious law in Judaism. Jewish law comes from the Torah, the Talmud, and established rabbinic decisions, as well as Jewish customs and traditions. Each halakhic commandment is termed a mitzvah (plural mitzvot). According to the Talmud and rabbinic tradition, there are 613 mitzvot given in the Torah, and there are also a number of rabbinically mandated mitzvot. The 613 mitzvot - known collectively as the Law of Moses - are comprised of six different law codes set forth in the Torah, including the Ten Commandments. Many mitzvot only apply under certain criteria, such as if one is a priest, a woman, or if one is in the Holy Land. During the Diaspora, many Jewish communities enforced halakha as their civil law. Once Jews were granted greater freedom to take part in the societies in which they lived in the 19th century, following halakha became voluntary as new Jewish denominations adopted differing views on Jewish law.