Mitzvah Mitzvah In its primary meaning, the Hebrew word (; meaning "commandment", , , Biblical: '; plural ' , Biblical: '; from ' "command") refers to precepts and commandments commanded by God, with the additional connotation of one's religious duty. It is used in rabbinical Judaism to refer to the 613 commandments given in the Torah at biblical Mount Sinai and the seven rabbinic commandments instituted later for a total of 620. The 613 commandments are divided into two categories: 365 negative commandments and 248 positive commandments. According to the Talmud, all moral laws are, or are derived from, divine commandments.
Bar and Bat Mitzvah siddur. In some Modern Orthodox circles, bat mitzvah girls will read from the Torah and lead prayer services in a women's tefillah. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, a prominent Orthodox "posek," has ruled that bat mitzvah celebrations are permissible, but should not be held in a synagogue, because then they would be construed as imitating Reform and Conservative customs; in any case, they do not have the status of seudat mitzvah. Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef holds that it is a seudat mitzvah. There were occasional attempts to recognize a girl's coming of age in eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, the