 halakha (;"halacha". random house webster's unabridged dictionary. ,  ; also transliterated as halacha or halachah) or halocho ( ) is the collective body of jewish religious laws derived from the written and oral torah. it includes the 613 mitzvot ("commandments"), subsequent talmudic and rabbinic law and the customs and traditions compiled in the shulchan aruch (literally "set table", but more commonly known as the "code of jewish law"). judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and non-religious life; jewish religious tradition does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.hershel edelheit, abraham j. edelheit, history of zionism: a handbook and dictionary, p.3, citing solomon zeitlin, the jews. race, nation, or religion? ( philadelphia: dropsie college press, 1936). halakha guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but numerous aspects of day-to-day life. halakha is often translated as "jewish law", although a more literal translation might be "the path" or "the way of walking". the word derives from the root that means to go or to walk. historically, in the diaspora, halakha served many jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of civil and religious law. since the age of enlightenment, emancipation, and haskalah in the modern era, jewish citizens are bound to halakha only by their voluntary consent. under contemporary israeli law, however, certain areas of israeli family and personal status law are under the authority of the rabbinic courts and are therefore treated according to halakha. some differences in halakha itself are found among ashkenazi, mizrahi, sephardi, and yemenite jews, which are reflective of the historic and geographic diversity of various jewish communities within the diaspora. == etymology and terminology == the name "halakha" is derived from the hebrew halakh (×Ö¸×Ö·×Ö°) meaning "to walk" or "to go". taken literally, therefore, "halakha" translates as "the way to go" rather than "law". "halakha" is used to refer to a single law, the corpus of rabbinic legal texts, or to the overall syst
Hebrew_words_and_phrases Jewish_law_and_rituals Legal_codes Orthodox_Judaism