[Avodah] what mitzvos did Avos follow?

[Mandel, Seth via Avodah]

From: Sholom Simon <sholom at aishdas.org>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2017 5:17 PM
> The following are universally accepted
> 1] AAvinu [howsoever we explain his Jewish status] followed all Halacha
> and even Minhag

> Is this the case?
...
> So... what about later in time (late Rishonim and onwards)? Did everyone
> accept Rashi's view, or did some old by Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, et al?

As in many things, the Rambam seems not to have been noticed. This is
distressing, because the Rambam tries to present things according to
halokho, not according to medrash. As he says in his introduction to
the Tenth Pereq of Sanhedrin in Perush haMishnayot, medrash is almost
never to be taken literally, but rather comes to teach us things (but
says that most Jews don't understand that).

For halakhic purposes, the Rambam explains in Hil. M'lakhim 9:1, that
Adam haRishon observed 6 things that he was commanded. One was added
after the Mabbul, so yielding 7 mitzvos that Noah and his descendents
were commanded to observe. Avraham Avinu was also commanded concerning
Milah, and he took upon himself the obligation to daven Shacharit.
Yitzchak added another two, and Ya'aqov another two.

When rabbis say that Avraham observed all 613 Mitvot, it is obviously
not meant literally: many, many of the 613 only came into force after
King Shlomo built the BhM. Before that, there were a whole set of other
mitzvot (such as that the Kohanim and only the Kohanim wereto take apart
and assemble the Mishkan, and that the L'viyim and only the L'viyim
were to carry the parts of the Mishkan). These were commandments from
HQBH, but not part of the set of 613. When the BhM was built, those
mitzvot disappeared and new mitzvot, which are part of the 613 count,
came into effect. So before that no one "observed" the 613. And some
of the 613 are only applicable to Kohanim, and some only to L'viyim,
and some only to Yisra'elim, so there was no person ever who observed
or could observe all 613 mitzvot.

So when we say nowadays that Jews are commanded to observe 613 mitzvot
it does not mean that any person is commanded to observe all 613; it
means that there exist 613 mitzvot.

Every Jew is commanded to learn all 613, however. So it is possible
that the Avot learned all 613. But most of them were not technically
mitzvot then, because they were given to Moshe Rabbeinu on Har Sinai,
and before that no one was commanded to do them.

So what does the Torah mean when it says that Avraham observed "mishmarti,
mitzvotai,chuqqotai v'torotai" (sic, not "toratei) in Chapter 26? The same
thing that it means in 18:19 "for I know him, that he will command his
children and his house after him to obeserve the way of the Lord." There
is no question that Avraham Avinu was ALSO commanded to observe what
Chazal include in the term "Derekh Eretz" and the Rambam explicates in
Hil. De'ot Pereq 6, which included such basic things as proper behavior
and middot (and one of the main goals of the Aishdas organization, and
nowadays is called "mussar"). Chazal say that all of those things have
to come before Torah, i.e. before learning rest of the Torah. And, as
Micha the founder of Aishdas can tell you better than anyone, there are
so many, many things that one has to learn and focus on to observe these
most basic of the commandments. So Avraham would have had his hands full
teaching people those. Did he also learn all the mitzvot that would be
given later? He was a novi, and so perhaps could, but one cannot say that
he "observed" them in the literal sense, because how could one "observe"
a law that had not yet been instituted and was not even applicable?

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel