Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time for teshuvah—returning to the divinely commanded path, the Torah, that was revealed at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20), from which we have each invariably strayed over the course of the year. According to Jewish traditions, the Torah includes 613 commandments.
Why aren’t Jews overwhelmed by the sheer number of commandments? Why don’t Jews feel condemned by the need to observe of the commandments, as Paul assumed to be the case in his Epistles?
The approach of Hasidic teachers to this question may be helpful to all people who seek to commune with the divine presence. They observe that the biblical verse, Cursed be the one who does not observe and do the terms of the Torah (Deuteronomy 27: 26) makes no sense, because nobody is able to observe all 613 commandments.
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