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Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 1 (Positive) -- Command: 4 -- Text
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The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 1 - The 248 Positive Commandments of the Tora

4 - FEAR OF GOD


Deuteronomy 6:13 --You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name.”
Deuteronomy 10:20 --You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.”
Leviticus 24:16 -- “And whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.”

The doctrine of Reward and Punishment is an integral part of the faith of Israel. Maimonides included it among the Thirteen Basic Principles of Faith.

“What is the way of acquiring the Love and Fear (of the Lord)? If one considers His infinite Powers and the entire range of created Beings that are both wondrous and great – perceiving through them how that His wisdom has neither measure nor end – he cannot but love, praise, and glorify Him, becoming possessed of a great longing to know the Great Name, as David says, (My soul thirsts for God, for the living God) (Psalms 42: 2). Meditating upon these things thus, he will immediately be taken aback, being overcome by fear and dread, and realizing that he is a minute creature, utterly humble, and immersed in darkness, conscious of the feebleness of his own mind in the presence of Him who is possessed of perfect knowledge, as David says: (When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him?) (Psalms 8: 3- 4). Accordingly I shall explain some of the profound phenomena in the world that the Lord of the Universe has created, to the end that they may serve to induct those of understanding into the Love of God, even as the Sages have declared in connection with the Love of God that through this you come to discern Him who has called the universe into existence.”*

* Mishneh Torah, Mada, Hilchoth Yesode Ha- Torah, II, 2.

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